As a graphic designer, I’m often working in one of the Adobe Creative Suite design applications like Photoshop, InDesign or Illustrator. They’re powerful tools that are essential to a graphic designer’s trade.

But the average small business owner is probably not going to have the time to get over the learning curve or have the budget to pay for a set of professional grade tools that will hardly be used. So, after a small business colleague asked me to look at her Facebook business page and I saw that she had no colorful banner or welcome statement to let visitors know what her page is all about, I thought I’d take a look at this online photo editing tool called PicMonkey that I learned about in a webinar yesterday and take it for a quick spin to see if it was something I could recommend to my friend so she could do a little DIY. The answer is yes!

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised to see how much functionality and control this online photo editing application allows its users. In 30 minutes time I was able to quickly apply a variety of fun effects, text and frames. And it was all quite intuitive and user-friendly. This photo of Dommie shown with space galaxy texture demonstrates just one of over a dozen different textures that can be applied to images.

Okay, so while the photo retouching tools don’t really make sense on my kitty, I’m guessing you may have photos of some humans that could use a little extra love in the touch up department. As you can see, while Dommie already has naturally beautiful outlined eyes, I think the touch of blush, eye shadow and lip color make a huge difference. Now go wash your face, kitty.

This focal zoom effect would work nicely on an action photo to add a little movement. I like the way it focuses in on Dommie’s left eye and really draws my attention to that one focal point.

And a handful of fun framing options including this one of a Polaroid, plus some fun overlay effects and a little text to finish it off.

I could definitely spend a lot more time playing on PicMonkey because it’s easy to use and there are so many tools and effects to try. I’m guessing, though, for you small business DIYers out there, that the only tools you might need to create professional looking banners for your Facebook and other social media accounts are the basic photo editing tools (crop, focus, exposure, etc.) and maybe adding some text. You can do a lot with PicMonkey. But remember, less is often better when it comes to design.

Happy photo editing!

Mary Maru