Pros and Cons
- An all-in-one creative platform offering tools for photo and video editing for various creative projects
- Offers a user-friendly interface that’s easy to navigate with a clear layout
- Get access to an extensive library of free images, templates, stickers, and fonts
- Advanced AI tools include background removal, image generation, and AI avatars to streamline complex editing tasks
- Picsart fosters a community where you can share your work, gain inspiration, and participate in contests
- Picsart can be used on mobile and desktop for flexibility
- The free version has ads and limited access to certain features
- The app can be slow or require an Internet connection for certain features
- While the basic tools are user-friendly, mastering advanced features may take time
- Reliance on templates could stifle originality
What is Picsart?
Picsart is a creative platform for editing photos, videos, and creating other assets. It was founded in November 2011 by Armenian entrepreneur Hovhannes Avoyan and programmers Artavazd Mehrabyan and Mikayel Vardanyan. It initially launched as a stand-alone photo editing tool for Android devices and later expanded to iOS (in January 2013), Windows Phone (in late 2013), and Windows 8 (in January 2014).
Picsart Desktop vs. Mobile App
There are two ways you can use Picsart: on a computer or through their mobile app.
The Picsart mobile app keeps things pretty straightforward with a bottom navigation bar: you’ve got your dashboard, spaces, create page, backup drive, and profile page. The desktop version spreads things out more with a cleaner workspace and sidebar navigation. I’ll show you how to use it to edit creative assets later on.
Basic vs. Advanced Editing Features
To give you a sense of what Picsart is capable of, let me break down some of its editing features.
At its core, you’ve got your basic editing tools:
- Crop, rotate, and resize
- Brightness, contrast, and color adjustments
- Hundreds of filters and effects
- Text editing tools
- Graphic elements
But where Picsart really shines is in its advanced features (AI tools).
I’m a big fan of their background removal tool. It’s saved me hours of tedious manual work I’m all too familiar with in Photoshop!
Some of their other AI tools can generate images, remove objects, or even change someone’s expression. Pretty mind-blowing stuff!
Quick Start Guide for New Users
For anyone just getting started, here’s how you can start learning how to use Picsart:
- First, just open up a photo and play around with the basic adjustments by uploading it to the platform. Don’t worry about messing anything up. You can always hit undo or start over!
- Try adjusting the brightness and contrast, maybe throw on a filter. Get comfortable with these basics before diving into the fancy stuff like the AI tools.
- Next, experiment with the overlay tools. Picsart’s got this huge library of stickers, backgrounds, and effects you can layer onto your images.
- Move on to experimenting with the AI tools for more advanced ways to edit your creative assets.
Who is Picsart Best For?
Picsart is an excellent tool for creative editing, designing unique content, and professionally enhancing photos and videos. However, there are certain types of people Picsart is best suited for:
- First-Time Photo Editors: Picsart is user-friendly, making it an excellent choice for beginners who want to experiment with photo editing without a steep learning curve.
- Moderately Skilled Photo Editors: Those with some experience in photo editing can take advantage of the more advanced features for more creativity and customization.
- Professional Artists & Photographers: More advanced creatives can use Picsart’s more sophisticated editing capabilities like the AI tools and library of effects and filters.
- Social Media Influencers: Picsart is perfect for younger tech-savvy individuals who enjoy sharing their creative work on social media.
- Casual Creators & Hobbyists: Many people download Picsart to improve their everyday photos or be creative without needing professional software.
- Business Owners: Picsart provides tools for creating professional logos, marketing materials, and social media content. This makes Picsart ideal for small businesses and entrepreneurs looking to enhance their branding.
- Community-Oriented Users: Picsart fosters a collaborative environment where people can share their creations, get inspiration from others, and engage with each other. This attracts people looking to connect with like-minded individuals.
Overall, Picsart caters to a wide audience, from casual users with its user-friendly interface to professionals with its advanced AI tools.
Picsart Key Features
After editing and experimenting with the platform, here’s everything I’ve discovered about Picsart’s features.
Photo Editing Capabilities (Filters, Effects, Touch-Up Tools)
Picsart’s filter collection is seriously impressive. We’re talking hundreds of options that go way beyond those basic Instagram-style filters.
What I really appreciate is how you can adjust the intensity of each filter. Nobody wants those over-filtered photos from 2012 anymore!
The touch-up tools have saved some of my most important photos. For example, there’s a spot-removal tool that works like magic! The skin smoothing and blemish removal features are pretty sophisticated too, but watch that you don’t go too heavy with these and make people look like plastic dolls.
Video Editing & Animation Tools
Here are the video and animation tools that come with Picsart:
- Trimming Clips: Easily trim the duration of video clips to focus on the most important parts of your footage.
- Adding Transitions: Add transitions between clips to enhance the flow and professionalism of the video.
- Layering Music: Layer music tracks over videos or create AI-generated music that matches specific moods or activities.
- Stop-Motion Animations: Create stop-motion animations for a unique way to bring their videos to life through frame-by-frame editing.
AI Features
And let’s not forget about the AI features! Here’s a list of most of the AI tools found in Picsart:
- AI Background Removal: Instantly removes backgrounds from images with a single click, although it may struggle with complex hair patterns or transparent objects.
- AI Enhance: Sharpens images, reduces noise, and can upscale images by up to two times their original size, improving overall photo quality.
- AI Replace: Select parts of an image and replace them with new content based on text prompts.
- AI Background Generator: Generates unique backgrounds from text prompts which are useful for creating custom backdrops.
- AI Style Transfer: Applies the artistic style of one image to another for batch editing with a consistent visual theme.
- AI Avatar Generator: Creates personalized avatars by uploading multiple images and selecting styles.
- AI Image Generator: Generates images from text prompts.
- AI Writing Assistant: Helps create captions social media posts and other text content by generating ideas based on brief descriptions.
- AI GIF Generator: Create animated GIFs based on text prompts, making it easy to generate memes and other animated visuals.
- Sketch AI: Sketch ideas and turn them into digital art.
- AI Video Generator: Create quick videos for social media.
- AI Face Generator: Generates realistic faces or avatars based on text prompts.
- AI Filters & Effects: Includes smart filters that adapt to the content of images for better editing.
- AI Logo Generator: Designs professional logos from text prompts, ideal for businesses or personal branding.
Template Library & Pre-Made Design Elements
One thing that’s been a total game-changer is their template library. They’ve got thousands of pre-made designs for everything from Instagram stories to business cards.
You can even save your favorite templates and organize them into collections. This makes it so much faster when you’re trying to maintain a consistent style across your content.
Collaboration & Sharing
Picsart’s collaboration tools are useful for small teams or casual projects. You can share your work for group editing, invite friends to join directly, and even assign roles to keep things organized. The chat feature lets collaborators share ideas and files while working, which is great for teamwork.
Once your project is complete, you can post it to gather feedback or explore the “Spaces” feature to connect with creative communities. It’s simple and fun, though not as advanced as dedicated team platforms.
How to Use Picsart
Here’s how I used the Picsart desktop version to edit creative assets:
- Create an Account
- Choose a Picsart Plan
- Create a New Project
- Explore the Navigation Bar
- Choose a Template
- Apply Effects & Filters
- Remove the Background
- Add & Edit Text
- Export Your Project
If you’re using a phone, you can download Picsart from your device’s app store, whether on an iOS or Android.
Before diving in, I wanted to point out some of the key differences between the Picsart desktop and mobile apps so you know which device you want to use:
Mobile App Features
- More drawing options compared to the desktop version
- Includes additional tools like:
- Smudge tool
- More brush options
- AI Replace feature
- More flexibility for editing on-the-go
Desktop App Features
- Larger workspace for editing
- More comfortable editing experience due to a larger screen
- A wider range of filter options
Shared Characteristics
- Both versions offer:
- Photo and video editing capabilities
- AI-powered tools
- Collage maker
- Extensive editing features
- Access to templates and effects
- Ability to sign up and create an account
The key distinction is that the mobile app provides more spontaneous, portable editing with some unique tools. Meanwhile, the desktop version offers a more comprehensive, comfortable editing experience.
Step 1: Create an Account
I started by going to picsart.com and selecting “Get Started for Free.”
Step 2: Choose a Picsart Plan
After creating an account, Picsart asked me whether I wanted to start my 7-day free trial on the Plus or Pro plan. You won’t be charged until the trial ends and you can cancel anytime!
I selected the “Pro” plan to really see what Picsart would be capable of and hit “Next.”
Step 3: Create a New Project
From there, I was taken to my Picsart dashboard!
At the top, I was asked what I wanted to design. Scrolling further down were some AI tools and templates.
I started a new project by selecting the “New Project” button on the top right and choosing my project dimensions. Feel free to hit the “Upload” button next to it to choose a photo from your gallery rather than starting with a blank canvas.
If you’re planning to share your creation on social media, you might want to select one of their pre-sized templates. It saves you from having to crop things later!
Step 4: Explore the Navigation Bar
Once my project was created, I was given a blank canvas in my chosen dimensions.
On the left in the navigation bar were some options:
- Choose a new canvas size
- Upload images, videos, or fonts
- Create a collage by choosing a grid
- Choose a photo from the library or upload one from your device
- Choose a stock video or upload one from your device
- Add different styles of text
- Add premade stickers or generate stickers with AI to be added to your project
- Add graphic elements to your project
- Draw on the canvas in different drawing styles
- Add different textured or colored backgrounds or choose one from the library or from your device
- Access and use different AI tools to edit and stylize your project
- Upscale, resize, crop, remove backgrounds, and add watermarks on up to 50 images simultaneously with the Batch Editor
- Create a Brand Kit which will automatically apply brand your brand’s colors to your project
- Organize your files into folders
Step 5: Choose a Template
Since I didn’t have any assets to work with, I selected one of the templates. There was a wide range of templates to choose from and they all looked clean and professional!
I selected one of the “Electronics” templates. I immediately noticed a “layers” panel appear on the right which reminded me a lot of Photoshop.
If you’re not familiar with layers, think of it like putting transparent sheets on top of each other. Each sticker, text, or effect you add becomes its own layer. You can move these around independently on the canvas, which is great for creating complex designs!
Step 6: Apply Effects & Filters
You might be wondering how to apply effects and filters to your photos.
On the desktop version of Picsart, all you have to do is double-click on your photo within the canvas. Doing this reveals the photo editing tools at the top!
Here are some of the basic photo editing tools that come with Picsart. I always start with these before getting fancy:
- Adjust brightness and contrast first by selecting “Adjust”
- Play with the saturation and temperature to get the colors just right
- Use the crop tool to frame your image perfectly
Feel free to apply some effects, add overlays, remove blemishes, and use AI to remove the background, enhance the image, expand the image, or apply animations.
But don’t go overboard with the effects! It’s tempting to apply every cool effect you see, but usually, less is more. I try to stick to one or two effects that enhance my image rather than completely transform it.
Step 7: Remove the Background
Speaking of AI tools, you can access these by selecting “More Tools” on the left! These editing tools are for more advanced editing, but they’re also incredible time-savers.
The background remover is probably my most-used feature. The easiest way to remove the background of a photo on the desktop version of Picsart is by double-clicking on the photo within the canvas and hitting “Remove BG” at the top.
Within seconds, the background was automatically removed! However, sometimes it needs a bit of manual tweaking around the edges, especially with hair or transparent objects.
Step 8: Add & Edit Text
When editing the text, I discovered you can do some pretty cool things like curve text or add shadows!
Just select the text you want to edit on the canvas and hit the “Bend” icon at the top. To add shadows, select “Edit” at the top and some options for applying and editing your text shadow will appear on the left!
If you hit the “Text” option on the left, you’ll get more text options you can add to your project. Add text from the different categories or libraries, or you can even get AI to help you generate copy for marketing, product descriptions, advertisements, and more!
Just remember to pick fonts that are readable. It’s easy to select a fancy font that looks great but nobody can actually read it!
Step 9: Export Your Project
Once you’re happy with everything, you can export your work by hitting the “Export” button on the top right.
A bonus tip: if you’re working on something complex, create duplicate versions.
If I make any major change to a project, I like to hit the “Duplicate” button on the canvas to create a new page. There’s nothing worse than realizing you preferred how something looked three edits ago!
The best way to get comfortable with Picsart is to experiment. Start with a photo you don’t mind messing up or just play around with different tools and templates.
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