A couple of months ago, Flickr announced that it would be integrating Picnik’s online photo-editing tools into the site, and now it has happened — and I have to say it is pretty cool. I’m not a professional photographer by any means, and not even semi-pro, but I do like to take pictures and I like to edit them to try and make them look as good as possible. And I’m a big user of Flickr (my photostream is here).

I’ve used Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, and I’ve used The Gimp on Linux and a bunch of other programs, and for big changes they are still the best. If all you want to do is crop and lighten and sharpen, however — which for the vast majority of photos is all I really want — then an online tool like Picnik works just fine.

So far I’ve tried it out on a few pictures and it worked great, although saving the photo after I was done took awhile (as MG Siegler also notes at ParisLemon). Still, a nice addition to Flickr’s tools. Update: Someone from Box.net emailed me to let me know that Picnik is also integrated with their online storage solution, so you can edit any photos that are stored on Box as well.

Another great idea from Flickr, which just recently announced that it would be adding geotagging and other features: the integration of photo-editing tools, in this case from Web-based editing service Picnik. Mike Arrington says he prefers Fotoflexer, which I’ve never tried, but regardless I think Picnik is a great addition.

I’ve often wanted to trim or crop or otherwise modify a photo of mine while I’m browsing them, but can’t be bothered to download it and then open it with Photoshop, etc. I’ve tried some online tools that allow you to import photos from Flickr into their service — which they can do once you grant them access to your account — but it’s still not as intuitive as using those tools right on the site.

I wonder how the Flickr announcement will affect some of those other services such as Flauntr.com and Preloadr.com.