What is Creative-Kit, and how to use it

This article describes Creative Kit, which is a photo-editing tool for enhancing pictures in your Picasa-web and Google+ albums.

A little history: Picasa, Picnik and Creative Kit

In 2002, a company called Lifescape created a program called Picasa, which people could use to manage photos on their PC.

Google purchased this in 2004 and then integrated it with web-storage, linked to a person's Google account, to make Picasa-web-albums: see Understanding Picasa and Picasa-web-albums for more information about how they work together with Blogger.

Picasa has some photo-editing functions (cropping, red-eye removal, sharpening, lightening, making collages, etc).  Useful, far easier to use than Photoshop - but without features that some people wanted. So in 2010, Google integrated a photo-editing tool from Picnik, a small company that was offering a subscription-based photo hosting and editing service.

Picnik's editor did some cooler things than Picasa, (applying visual effects, watermarks, etc).   The tool  had some serious fans, and a quirky culture which saw them show messages like "packing the lunch" "watching the flowers", "chasing butterflys" while Picnik was loading.  The type of messages that are funny the first few times, but quickly get tedious. And people using Picnik via Piscasa-web-albums often found that it was very slow.

In 2012:

• Picnik announced that they were closing down their separate photo hosting service, and moving the product to Google+.

• Google's announced that they were were closing Picnik, and using Picnik's engineers to “continue creating photo-editing magic across Google products."   (ref:  closure announcement).

Today, the original Picnik photo-hosting-and-editing service is most definitely closed.

The Picnik photo editor has been either replaced with or re-badged as "Creative Kit", and is available through Google+.  They may have intended to make it available through Picasa-web-albums too - but as I noted in previously, this feature isn't working. Possibly this is about selling additional storage space:   Picasa-web-albums are available to any Google account, while Google+ Photos is only available to named individuals.   So each person can have lots of Google / Picasa accounts (with free storage on each one), but only one account Google+ account.

How to access Creative Kit today

To start creative Kit, so you can edit a photo with it:

• Go to Google+, and log in to your Google account that has Google-Plus enabled.
• Go to your Photos page (which may be on the left-sidebar, or under the More tab on the left sidebar if your screen is small)
  

• Go into an album, and open the photo you want to edit.
• On the menu at the top of the screen, click the Edit button.

This opens the photo inside a window with photo-editing tools. The screen just looks like another set of options within Google-Plus, but actually you are now inside Creative Kit, and you can use it to edit your photo.

When you are finished editing, choose the Save button from the top-left hand side. This give you an option to apply your changes to the current file, or to save a new copy of the file.

• If you choose Replace then any places (eg blog-posts) that link to the existing photo will now link to the edited photo.

• If you choose Save a new copy then your existing file is not changed and a new copy of the file will be made in the same folder as the existing one but with a slightly different name.

If you upload pictures into your blog-posts inside Blogger, then the picture files are stored in Picasa-web-albums LINK. If you have Google+ enabled for your account, then you can access these photos directly through either Picasa-web-albums or through Google+, even if you have not linked your blog and your Google+ profile. So you can use the Creative-kit method of editing these pictures, even if you didn't load them via Google+.

What features are available in Creative Kit

At one point Picnik used a "fremium" approach: Basic features were free for everyone to use for free, while people needed to sign up and pay a subscription to use the Premium ones. This has changed, though,and now features are are all free.

At the time of writing, the features include:

Basics

• Black and White
• Bocal B&W
• Boost
• Soften

Camera

• Lomo-ish
• Holga-ish
• HRD-ish
• CinemaScope
• Orton-ish
• 1960s

Colours:

• Tint
• Vibrance
• Duo-Tone
• Heat Map 2.0
• Cross-Process

Touchup

• Blemish Fix
• Shine-be-Gone
• Airbrush
• Sunless Tan

Google Plus Exclusives

• Daguerreotype
• Reala 400
• Green Fade
• Magenta Fade
• Polaroid* Plus
• Sun Aged

Troubleshooting / Where to get help

Creative Kit uses Adobe Flash Player. If Creative Kit doesn't work inside Google+, try installing a newer version of Flash Player.

If that doesn't help, try:

• Clearing your cache

• Clearing Flash shared objects
  These are data files are created by the Creative Kit on your computer, like cookies.  To clear them, go to Abobe's Flash Player help web site.
  The Settings Manager that you see is not just an image; it's the actual Flash Player Settings Manager. Scroll through the list of sites and select www.picnik.com and www.gstatic.com.
  
  Click the Delete Website button for each, and confirm the deletion.
  
  Open the Global Storage Settings Panel. Check both of the following boxes:
  - Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer.
  - Store common Flash components to reduce download times.
  
  Once you've cleared your local shared objects, clear your browser cache again.
  

• Using a different browser, eg Chrome or Firefox.

• Disabling ad-blocker or flash-blocking extensions

For more assistance, there is a Creative Kit help-centre in Google:
https://plus.google.com/100432630524345907101#100432630524345907101/posts

Is Creative Kit just Picnik with a new name?

Most probably: the controls and features are very similar, and the press-releases seem to tie up. There is one screen that names both while the photo-editor is loading in Google+>Pictures.

But on the other hand there's no official confirmation either, and there are some product differences. It's possible that Google's engineers were simply inspired by the former Picnik colleagues to create similar controls, and that the underlying photo-editing tool is different. Who knows.

What we do know is that many of the much-loved Picnik features are available in Creative-Kit, provided you're willing to load your photos to a Google+ account.

TL;DR

You can edit a photo in Creative Kit by uploading it to your Google+ account, then choosing the Edit button when you are viewing it.

This may be the same Picnik photo editor that was available in Picasa-web-albums until 2012. Or it may not. Either way it lets you crop, re-colour, apply lots of filters etc for free.

Don't want to put your photos into Google+? Bad luck, there's no other way to use Creative Kit / Picnik on them at the moment. Find another on-line editor instead.

---

Related Articles:

Creative-kit works with pictures accessed through Google+, but not Picasa-web-albums

Adding a picture to a blog post

Introducing Picasa vs Picasa-web-albums

Read more > What is Creative-Kit, and how to use it

Toyota Tundra 2014

Once again the North-Americans prove their love for pick-up trucks. The last months saw almost all of the best-selling competitors receiving important updates, either total or partial, with the other ones announcing theirs for soon. So after seeing Chevrolet, Ford, GMC and RAM’s updates and before Nissan’s, now it’s Toyota’s time to reveal its refreshed vehicle. Between all the carried-over items and the also many changes, the automaker has reinforced Tundra to keep defending its sales from this very ferocious market.

After arriving around the 1980s, the Japanese automakers took some time to adapt themselves to the North American preferences when it comes to cars. Those excessively neutral cars never achieved the biggest sales, but between this or taking their domestic cars, they made the best decision for that initial moment. Therefore, the following decade had Mitsubishi, Honda, Nissan and Toyota releasing successive attempts of “fitting in”, some of them becoming successful and others not. It was, actually, a matter of discovering that success would come with projecting with specific focus on that market and later applying the Eastern idiosyncrasies, rather than the other way around. This is exactly what made Tundra’s predecessor fail, in fact: T100 was intended to be a s-size truck, but didn’t have the same level of size and powertrain of its competitors. But, once again, all this learning helped the automaker to create a much better product to succeed it. Tundra still was smaller than its competitors, but became well-accepted by many other aspects, such as the V8 engines. It was only the second generation that received the so awaited bigger size, along with better engines and a series of details that finally managed to stabilish this car’s dedication to work, like having handles and internal controls big enough to be operated with gloved hands. The current restyling only preserved this potential, and dedicated itself to only adapt Tundra to the big trucks’ latest trends.

In other words, like Silverado, Toyota’s pickup had design enhancements to became “urban-elegant”, with square lines to bring an imponent impression, along with big wheels and not so many chrome details to make it classier. The two first trims will be SR and SR5, but even focusing at work, they feature an entirely redesigned cabin, with more attractive design and a great equipment package: between standard and optional items, this car can bring ABS, Bluetooth, reverse-gear camera, stability control, 18” wheels and blind-spot monitoring, start/stop and rear cross-traffic systems. Limited adds leather coating and Platinum finishes with higher-quality leather, 20” wheels, JBL sound system with twelve speakers, GPS navigator and Entune, Toyota’s infotainment system. There’s also the 1794 Edition, which is basically a Western-themed Platinum: brown leather, faux suede detailing and the exclusive wheels and external brown painting – besides, each trim now brings an exclusive front grille design. It’s the same piece, but receiving different paintings and designs turned out a very good way to make them take the attentions separately. There will be three cab styles, all with rear or four-wheel drive. The powertrain starts with the V6 4.0L with 270 hp and 278 lb-ft and five-speed automatic gearbox, while the intermediate versions bring a V8 4.6L with 310 hp and 327 lb-ft and the upmarket trims raise power and torque to 381 hp and 401 lb-ft with a V8 5.7L, the last ones with an automatic six-speed transmission.

Read more > Toyota Tundra 2014

RAM ProMaster

Fiat Group’s latest releases could be seen as a nice class of how to practice badge engineering avoiding its tricks. Like most of the decisions regarding new cars’ releases, there are so many definitions to set that the number of possibilities borders being endless… but to achieve a high-potential vehicle really requires dealing with those. So after creating Fiat Freemont as Dodge Journey’s twin in a way that brought great sales for both, now it’s time to follow the reverse path and adding this whole commercial line to RAM’s showroom.

Long story short, yes, this is a rebadged third-generation Fiat Ducato, which has been succcesssy sold in Europe for about seven years also as the French brother Peugeot Boxer. Since commercial vehicles have very different concerns, such as maximizing the payload and reducing the costs, it’s easy to understand the larger lifecycles these cars usually have. In other words, these customers see aging projects as reliable ones, rather than preferring stylish and always up-to-date designs. Ducato has sold millions worldwide due to its renowned efficiency and resistance, which couldn’t be better showed than with how easy is to see its versions at the European streets; this is an interesting sales argument for this category, rather than having the very latest technologies. This and the fact that it would be pointless to invest in structural changes to an already well-accepted project is what resulted on ProMaster arriving at the US changing only all the badges and the front bumper, to follow RAM’s corporate design. Some Dodge fans might still dislike separating the pick-up truck into a particular brand, but now it’s possible to see the Group’s point: having an exclusive brand gives the opportunity to get dedicated to the commercial vehicles without affecting Dodge’s sporty image.

In fact, this dedication is so big that ProMaster already comes in Ducato’s entire list of options, which denotes RAM’s intention of having an important share of this category’s sales. In other words, the new van comes in two roof heights (90 and 101 inches), three wheelbase lenghts (118, 136 and 159 inches) and four cargo floor lenghts (105, 123, 146 and 160 inches), not to mention the chassis cabs. This car’s structure was projected to be efficient, and this is seen in items such as rear clamshell doors with 260° opening, s-size sliding side doors, not-too-high ride height to facilitate access and all the vehicle systems located in the front, making the rear end very easy to modify. The biggest changes came to the powertrain, in order to adapt the line to Chrysler Pentastar V6 3.6L and its 280-hp power and 258 lb-ft torque; the diesel option is brought by Fiat, though: a four-cylinder EcoDiesel turbocharged 3.0L with 174 hp and 295 lb-ft. The first engine always comes with automatic six-speed transmission, while the second always uses a six-speed automated manual gearbox, but the traction system is always front-wheel-drive. This car will hit the streets in the next summer, highlighting numbers as a payload capacity of 5,145 pounds and, according to RAM, the status of being the best in class for cargo capacity, ceiling height, fuel economy, low load floor and step-in height.

Read more > RAM ProMaster