Introduction
Article Sections
I have the opportunity to share with you something new that was presented to me. I wrote about PhotoPea on how great of an alternative to Photoshop it is. Photopea is free and has enough features for most people. Also, it runs in the browser without any need to install any programs or software. There is another program that I have looked at and will present my opinions and thoughts about it. Before I dive into this article, I would like to be clear and upfront that this is a sponsored post on my blog.
Sponsored Post
This article that I will write is a sponsored post from Colorcinch. They provide a simple and basic photo editing program that has some similar features to PhotoPea. Colorcinch has given me an account that grants me access to their paid features. This allows me to discuss additional offerings not present in the free version. I want to be upfront about this so that you are aware of this.
What is Colorcinch?
Colorcinch is a photo editor that runs in your browser, which makes it very lightweight. Also, there is a free version that you can use without needing to sign up for an account.
If you are curious and interested in trying out the free version of Colorcinch, please try it out here:
The Standard Photo Editor and Avatar Maker
There are two modes currently available in both the free and paid versions. You have a standard photo editor and the avatar maker. I will talk about both and how they can be used to generate great looking images for not only your website, but also for your social media posts or newsletter emails. If you have used some other similar photo editor programs like Photopea or Photoshop, you notice a lot of similarities between them and Colorcinch.
Standard Photo Editor: Creating Professional Photos for Social Media and Email Newsletters
Colorcinch offers a photo editor that is a lot more fleshed out than what you use on your phone. Your phone only has the most basic of filters and you have to use either your hand or a stylus pen to edit the photos. These devices used for human input are very inaccurate compared to a mouse. Your hand and stylus both do not have the precision of a mouse. So this is why we still need to use a standard desktop or laptop computer to perform any meaningful and professional photo editing.
This is why Colorcinch and similar photo editing programs are great because you can have great photos that you can share online that give your business or brand that polished look that will impress people. Photos that you edit using your phone are just for personal use but they are not sufficient and good enough in a professional setting.
Avatar Maker: Create a Your Own Character for Your Website
I tried out the avatar maker and noticed how it works like creating Mii on the Nintendo Wii. You can modify the physical characteristics to make your avatar look as close to you as possible. The details with customizing your face are just as intricate as a Mii. You have full control over your facial features, which I really like.
How Fun It Was Creating Nintendo Miis
I remember when the Wii came out and how fun everyone had creating their own characters. We were so used to using a default list of characters in every game that we played. Sure we had our favorite characters but Miis were different. They were visual representations of yourself. So you felt like you were actually in the game yourself.
How Do I Use Colorcinch?
Just take a photo and upload it to Colorcinch and then start editing. There is a lot of Colorcinch documentation available on the details of how the photo editor works. You should take a look at the documentation after you try out the basics to see if there are features that you are either looking for, or interested in knowing the details for. There is a lot of material being offered for Colorcinch so it is best to go straight to the source and learn more about it on your own.
Something that I have always advocated for was using anything that has great, not just good support. Again, this is why I always support WordPress and why it is so popular. The WordPress documentation alone is very thorough and detailed. So when I find great documentation, I always feel the need to highlight it because a lot of people seem to think that what they create is self-explanatory.
Here is the problem with that line of thinking. The product is self-explanatory for the creator. Not everyone has the same background as you do. Also, consider that in order for your product to have a wide and vast reach over the populace, you need to make sure that most people can use your product. Everyone has varying levels of experience. So having documentation and guides to assist people along the way is a great way to let people know that you want them to use your product.
Free Versus Paid Accounts
I would now like to discuss the differences between the free and paid versions of Colorcinch. As mentioned before, the free version is great to try things out and see what you can and cannot do in the free version. If you really like Colorcinch and use it a lot in your projects, then upgrading to a paid version might be right for you.
If you click around the interface on the left side, you will notice that many of the effects, filters, overlays, masks, and graphics are locked behind a paid account. For each of these features, you might be able to use a few options at the top. As you scroll through you will notice that you will need a paid account to gain access to more.
Depending on your individual needs and what you are exactly going to use your photos for, the free version might be sufficient for you. You can still use a lot of features in the free version and if you are not a graphic designer like I am, I just want something that looks nice. I am a web developer myself so I trend more on the technical side with programming. If the photo looks good enough to place online, then I will go with it. I do not want to spend too much time “perfecting” an image when I just want it to look good, deliver the message that it needs to, and generate the impact on my audience that I expect.
So these simple requirements for those of us who are not graphic designers are good enough to make us happy. This leads to my next section where I talk about the different types of users who Colorcinch would be a great audience for. Depending on who you are and your level of graphic design experience, Colorcinch might be a good match for you.
Great for Those Who Not Graphic Designers
Since I am a web developer, Colorcinch would be great for people like me. I build websites and I just need graphics that I can just put up there and call it a day. So simple photo editing is great because I just want something that just works without having to tweak so many little detailed values.
Simple Easy Photo Editor for Anyone
I really like how you can just click on an effect or filter and it applies default settings that make your photos instantly look good. If you want to modify the settings, there are values that you can change. What I like about Colorcinch is how they simplified all of the little minute values that go into calculating the effects or filters. Why is this so important? Let me talk about this in the next section
For Quick Easy Graphics for Your Website
Since many people are not graphic designers, they do not know all the little values that you see in PhotoPea or Photoshop when applying filters. People who need graphics quickly tend to focus more on the end-results and not so much the process that it takes to get there. All of those technical details used to calculate an effect are usually not important to those who are no graphic designers.
The reason why is because it is usually too much detail for people who just want a good looking image. People are not concerned about the names of the filters or all the little parts that are composed of. Colorcinch removes all of the little tiny details and combines them together. This is why you see a setting called “Details” because that presents a combination of all of the details. So when you modify this setting, then it is like tweaking all of the little settings inside the other programs.
Not as Complicated or Intricate as Photoshop
Combining all of the little settings together into one makes it easier for people to use. This is why the process of photo editing in Colorcinch makes it easier and faster than something that is a full-blown editor like PhotoShop. This is why when I compared PhotoPea and Photoshop, I mentioned that PhotoShop is very overwhelming for those who are not graphic designers and that PhotoPea is good enough for most people.
Photoshop Is More For Graphic Designers Who Want Full Control Over the Details
This is great as we now have options since before, Photoshop was and probably still is the industry standard that most people had to learn and use, regardless of your background and experience. Photoshop is still the place to go if you have hours to spend on photo editing because you need that “picture perfect” photo. If you have that much time to edit a photo, then stick with Photoshop.
There is so much that goes into building and managing a website. There is the content, designs, images, traffic, and people. Considering that there are so many pieces to keeping a website together, there is a lot to do and only so little time. Compound this with the fact that some websites only have a single person or a few people running the show and you really do not have time to devote to just graphics only.
The amount of work and lack of time to dedicate to a single aspect of running a website is why we need to quickly get graphics up when we need them. This is where Colorcinch shines and is very useful when we need to get a move on and go on to the next section.
Better Suited for Desktop Than Mobile
I tried to use the photo editor in mobile and it looks like due to spacing issues, you cannot use it properly because of it. You really need a larger screen with a mouse to properly use this. This is expected and is why I mentioned that you need a proper device to take full advantage of this kind of program.
Earlier, I stated that your phone can only perform the most basic photo operations. If you need to do something more, then you need an actual device that is meant for heavy duty lifting. Most of us usually have a laptop or desktop anyway so this should not be too much of an issue.
I thought I would just bring it up as part of reviewing and analyzing Colorcinch.
How Colorcinch Works Well With Photopea
From what I have seen with Colorcinch, I think that it plays a specific role of just being a pure photo editor that focuses on just editing one image at a time. You can add more images on top of each other but from what I can see, layer management seems pretty basic. Later on, I will discuss some features that I would like to see in Colorcinch to make it more like PhotoPea.
Back to what I was saying, you can use Colorcinch to make your photos look nice and then import them into PhotoPea. PhotoPea is more suited as a generic photo editor that is more like a hub where you can take your finished photos and combine them together. The reason why is because PhotoPea has other features that are not exclusively reserved for photo editing.
The best example that I can think of is screenshot annotations. If you take a screenshot with your computer and want to annotate it with text and highlighting, PhotoPea is still the way to go. So what we have to consider here is not that programs actually replace each other, but rather supplement and complement. If you learn how to use both Colorcinch and PhotoPea together, then you know when to use one or the other.
Suggested Features: How Can Colorcinch Be Improved?
There are some features that I would like to see in the photo editor for Colorcinch in the future. These are very basic features that are already present in PhotoPea. Since some people who will encounter Colorcinch for the first time, might have a Photoshop background like myself, they might expect to see some similar functionality.
Layers Need Improvement
I mentioned this one already but I want to delve into it a little bit more. Layers are crucial for photo editing because they allow you separate each part of your project into individual sections. These layers can be organized into folders, which help you identify grouped sections and keep things in line. We also need the ability to toggle the visibility of folders, which is important for doing web page layouts that implement hover or mouseover effects. I already mentioned annotation screenshots but for web page layouts, I think that PhotoPea is better suited for that.
Layer management just seems very basic from what I can tell. I tried to select multiple layers at once to align them together and I think that I cannot do that. I believe that I am only able to select one layer at a time.
You can add images to your project but only apply filters and effects to the main images, which does not have its own layer. So this shows that you should focus on just individual images on Colorcinch and then import them all into Photopea for finalizing.
Needs History
Colorcinch has a basic under and redo so that you can revert any change that you do not like. However, you cannot see all of the actions that you have performed in history like you can with PhotoPea. Having a history section allows you to go back several steps and you can see each and every action so that you know exactly what you did to reach your current state.
Add Marquee/Selection Tools
I am used to having selection tools so that you can modify only certain sections of a photo. This would be nice because this would allow you to apply effects to only certain parts of your photo. Of course, there is a workaround for this. You could crop a certain part of your photo and apply different effects to each part. However, this is very clunky and does not provide you the exact amount of procession that you need. It is easier to just select a section of a photo, apply the effect and move onto another section of the photo.
Summary
I again want to thank Colorcinch for providing me an account to try out their photo editor. This is a sponsored because of this and I shared with you my thoughts and opinions about it based on my experience with PhotoPea and Photoshop.
I just want to recap some of the things that I like about Colorcinch and how they might be a good choice for you. If you need to create a character for your website logo or anything else, their avatar maker is really good. I created an avatar and I like how it came out. It works just like creating Nintendo Miis.
The photo editor with Colorcinch can be used for free without the need to sign up for an account. You have some basic features enabled for free and it is a good starting point to see what they offer. If you find yourself liking what they have, then consider upgrading to a paid account.
Take a look at the provided documentation because there is just so much there that it is better if you learn the details over there.
The photo editor really simplifies all of the filters and effects that you find in PhotoPea and Photoshop and condenses the settings. For those of us who are not graphic designers, we appreciate this because we are not overly concerned about the little details used to calculate the effects applied to a photo. These very intricate details are more for graphic designers who want full control over each individual setting.
Just as a side note, I recommend using Colorcinch on a desktop or laptop where you have a larger screen than on a phone. You also need the precision of a mouse cursor for better accuracy when interacting with the interface.
Colorcinch has its role as a pure photo editor. When coupled with Photopea, which can still be used as a generic image editor. Notice that I used “photo” for Colorcinch and “image” for Photopea. Photos are specifically referring to photographs that you take with a camera. An image can be anything, like a screenshot for example. So Colorcinch is a photo specialist and PhotoPea is an image generalist.
The key point that I made is knowing what each one does and how they can be used together. Basically, you can photo edit each photo with Colorcinch and then import them into Photopea. The reason why you still need to use PhotoPea is because there are some features that Colorcinch would benefit from.
Some suggestions that I recommend for Colorcinch is to improve the layers and make them work more like Photopea. Also a couple more are adding a history and selection tools to improve usability.
Overall, Colorcinch is a great tool that gives your filters and effects that are easier to use than in PhotoPea. I consider Colorcinch to be a more “one-click” application. This means that you can just click on a filter or effect and Colorcinch will make it look good without you having to fine tune individual settings found in other photo editing programs.