Does anyone use Pixlr?

[gwtwred]

This May, I will be teaching a week long digital scrapbooking class to a small group of middle and high school students. As part of the process of planning for this class, I've been scoping out the software options available in our school computer lab. It turns out that they still only have PSE 2 (the one from 12 years ago)!

I really want to have access to a more recent and sophisticated version of the program, so today I went to talk to our school's IT coordinator about either ordering Photoshop or installing Gimp on the computers. Instead, he suggested that we simply use Pixlr Editor, which I guess is cloud-based and doesn't need to be installed.

I had never heard of this program before, but I started exploring it a little bit today, and it looks like it can do a lot of stuff. Possibly not as much as I want it to be able to do, though. I have been trying to find a comprehensive list of the differences between Photoshop and Pixlr, and so far I haven't had much luck.

Do any of the rest of the you use Pixlr to scrapbook? If so, can you fill me in on how well it works? Specifically, I am wondering if Pixlr can do:

1. blending modes
2. clipping masks
3. animation
4. cutouts
5. recoloring
6. loading multiple files at once
7. anything that's really important for digital scrapbooking that I can't think of right now

Any specific information that you can provide me would be much appreciated! Honestly, I'm kind of looking for arguments I can make to prove to my IT guy that we need Photoshop. : So feel free to fill me in on Pixlr's shortcomings!

 

[bestcee]

Oh my gosh! I swear I just read an article comparing this? But I can't find it. Grrr. It compared Pixlr to MS Paint more not photoshop.

 

[lorryfach]

I don't use it but I'll play and find out.

1. blending modes yes - not as many as PS but more than most people actually use
2. clipping masks no but it does have layer masks
3. animation yes, if you mean you can make an animated GIF?
4. cutouts yes, it has inner shadows, layer masks, and an eraser, any of which can be used to make cutouts
5. recoloring yes, there are HSL sliders, levels, curves, etc. BUT it is all destructive editing
6. loading multiple files at once yes, you can open a file as a layer or open a file separately
7. anything that's really important for digital scrapbooking that I can't think of right now

Generally it seems pretty powerful for being free and I didn't even have to sign up to play with it. I found a lot of keyboard shortcuts are the same as Photoshop. e.g. Holding shift retains aspect ratio when resizing, holding alt retains the center point when resizing, ctrl D to deselect, etc.

Shortcomings:
It doesn't 'remember' settings, so for example, every time I add a drop shadow, I have to adjust it because it is just a hard black shadow with no blur by default. I think that would get old pretty fast.
As a fan of non-destructive editing, I don't like that all adjustments and stuff are permanent.
Obviously you lose the ability to drag and drop your papers and ellies on your canvas.
Filenames are lost which makes crediting harder (I don't know if you'd be teaching crediting, but hey)