Online photo editors keep getting better and better. For hardcore image manipulation, desktop software like Photoshop or Gimp will always have its place, but online editors are free, easy to use and a lot of fun. We covered most of the online editors back in February (Fauxto, Picnik, Picture2Life, Preloadr, PXN8 and Snipshot). But a relative newcomer on the scene, Berkeley-based FotoFlexer, is worth a look.

The site first launched in July with basic functionality and integration with Facebook. This last week they relaunched a new site with more tools, direct access to your desktop/laptop webcam, and they also now integrate with Flickr, Picasa and MySpace.

Upload a photo, or grab one from a supported service, and edit it by changing colors, adding effects, bulging or pinching areas (to make body parts look larger or smaller), etc. You can also turn any image into a sketch or cartoon. I spent about 10 minutes creating the different versions of the picture to the right (original is top left). The most fun is changing hair color, although the image third down on the left is my personal favorite.

Fotoflexer says they incorporate their own artificial intelligence algorithm to figure out the right way to alter images. And whatever it is they’re doing, it works. You simply point out a few areas of the site you want to remove or alter and it figures out the rest of the pixels pretty quickly. You can do all of this in Photoshop, but it takes a lot longer. And unlike most (but not all) of the online photo editing tools we’ve previously covered, FotoFlexer also supports layering for more complicated image editing.

FotoFlexer also now integrates directly to your webcam and to take a quick snapshot and edit it. Many of the effects are similar to the Photo Booth application that comes installed on all Macs.

The integration with third party services is a great feature as well. Pull down photos from Facebook or another service, alter them and re-upload in a few minutes.

The service runs in Flash and was built on the Flex platform with mostly custom tools. The company has not raised any capital and has 15 employees, all in the Silicon Valley/Bay area. About 50,000 people use their Facebook application and/or the website directly. I expect that number to grow as social networkers discover the joy of turning their pictures into cartoons, or turning their hair color to Fuchsia.

The launch of Picnik a couple of days ago brought us yet another online photo editing tool. Like Fauxto, Picnik uses Flash, whereas most of the earlier editing tools all use Ajax for in-browser editing.

Since all computers come with basic software that rotates, resizes and crops photos, there needs to be a compelling reason to use an online service. Uploading a photo to such a service, editing it and then downloading it back to your hard drive too high of a cost. To compensate for this, most services allow you to transfer the edited photos directly to Flickr, Webshots or other online photo services, saving users the trouble of making round trips uploading and downloading.

Most of these online services also offer editing tools that go beyond simple rotation, resizing and cropping and start to creep into Photoshop territory. Here’s a few of the better ones, along with our most recent testing notes:

Fauxto

Fauxto is a Flash-based Photoshop look-alike. It is the only layer-based online tool that we know of, and is by far the best of the bunch. But if all you are looking for is photo editing, and you aren’t familiar with Photoshop, Fauxto will frustrate you with its complexity. And if you are already familiar with Photoshop, chances are you have a copy already. Fauxto is lovely to look at and it is a really nice example of Flash in action, but I’m not sure who their target market is.

Picnik

Picnik is the new kid on the block, and they’re the best so far. It is also Flash based, it is the fastest of the bunch and the user interface is the most intuitive. Once you are done editing, you can transfer your photos directly to Flickr. Picnik has replaced Ajax-based PXN8 as our favorite online photo editing tool.

Picture2Life

Picture2life is an Ajax based photo editor. It’s focused on grabbing and editing images that are already online. The tool selection is average, and the user interface is poor. There are some bugs on the site. Photos can be transferred to Flickr, 23 and Imageshack after editing.

Preloadr

Preloadr is a Flickr-specific tool that uses the Flickr API, even for account sign-in. The service includes basic cropping, sharpening, color correction and other tools to enhance images. The fact that Preloadr is designed specifically to work with Flickr may not be an advantage – some of the other services are just as good or better and also offer Flickr integration.

PXN8

PXN8 is the best of the Ajax based editors (and the best overall until Picnik launched) and has a great user interface with the main features highlighted on large icons. The basic “enhance” feature does a very good job of fixing the obvious problems with pictures. Edited photos can be transferred to Flickr or Webshots’ AllYouCanUpload service.

Snipshot

Snipshot, previously called Pixoh, is another very-good Ajax-based editing tool that stands out because of its above average design and the fact that they have an API into their service. We prefer the features and UI of PXN8, but just barely.

Read FranticIndustries for their take as well.

Two companies launched last week that will try to build a business catering solely to Flickr customers – FlickrInspector and Preloadr. Coincidentally, both companies are located in Europe.

Flickr, by the way, definitely punches above its weight in the photo category when it comes to attention v. relative size. It’s a distant 6th compared to other sites with about 6 million U.S. visitors each month and 80 million or so page views. Compare that to Photobucket’s 13.8 million monthly U.S. visitors and Yahoo Photo’s 11.2 million (no. 1 and no. 2, respectively, in the photo category). CNET’s Webshots is also slightly larger than Flickr, with 7.6 million U.S. monthly visitors. (source: Comscore, June 2006)

FlickrInspector

FlickrInspector is a simple tool that uses the Flickr API to provide information about a particular flickr user. Photos, tags, contacts’ photos, sets (albums) etc. can all be viewed on the site, for any Flickr user.

Preloadr

Preloadr is a very useful flickr-based photo editing tool. They’ve integrated the Flickr API with nexImage photo editing software and presented it as a new, free online service. No registration is required (or even possible) – you simply log on to your flickr account through the Preloadr site.

Pictures can be uploaded, edited and transferred to Flickr, or pictures can be pulled from Flickr, edited on Preloadr and moved back over to Flickr. There are several editing tools like cropping, sharpening, color correction and more. The only thing it doesn’t have, unless I’m missing it, is a cure-all “enhance” button that seems to work so often in iPhoto. A red-eye remover would also be appreciated, as mentioned in this blog.

Preloadr is not the only, or even the best, online photo editing service. My favorite is PXN8, which also offers Flickr integration. Others include Creating Online, Snipshot and Picture2Life.