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Flickr is the most successful picture website with social networking aspects built right into their business model. Since some of my visitors keep asking about my Flickr Stream and my lack of presence on Flickr I decided to create my own user account and try it out.

Flickr is a fantastic repository of great photography and knowledge and I always wanted to participate in this giant community to explore new aspects of social networking. When the publishers of PicMarkr asked me to review their software I jumped on the chance to try out their software which functions as a Flickr Interface.

What it does

PicMarkr Pro targets Flickr users with their software. Integrating with Flickr, it lets users manipulate their photos locally on their computers or remotely on their Flickr accounts. The editing functions are limited to resizing, rotating and adding watermarks. The main selling argument for the software is thus its seamless integration with Flickr.

What I did like

Easy interface: The interface takes no time at all to understand. The software is easy to use. I did not bother to read a manual.

Large images: I was able to process my 222 Megapixel Machu Picchu Image and save it to my computer.

No installer: The program runs directly from the executable file you download. It does not clutter the registry.

Batch Processing: Batch resizing does not get much simpler than with PicMarkr.

Flickr Import: The tool can import pictures directly from Flickr, process them and re-upload them to Flickr. It makes adding watermarks to images already in your Flickr account a breeze.

Beginner Friendly: Even computer beginners will be able to operate PicMarkr.

Tiling: Adding multiple watermark tiles is easy.

What I did not like

Limited options: The ease of use comes at a price of reduced functionality. I cannot set compression ratios or sharpen images after resizing them. That is a necessity by my standards and a complication for others. Having a separate interface for advanced mode would solve this quite nicely.

Photoshop: If you have Photoshop, you do not need PicMarkr. I have already set up a watermarking action in Photoshop.

Style: The watermark styles are somewhat limited, although sufficient.

No save: I am missing a save preferences function. After adjusting a watermark to my liking, I wish to reuse it in the future with a single click. To keep with the simplicity, the program could default to the last setting.

Only Flickr: It would be nice to get support for other sites like SmugMug where I have a pro account.

Conclusion

Infrequent Flickr users and Flickr hobbyists will find it hard to justify spending $21.99 on a software that does little else than providing an easy way of watermarking pictures via a luxurious interface to Flickr. Flickr power users who spend $24.95 / yr on their pro accounts should consider the software as a comfortably interface.

If you already have a Flickr account with a large number of photographs that you wish to watermark, the software really plays out its strength. You can import all your Flickr photographs at once, apply a watermark to all of them and upload all photographs at once.

This gives me an interesting application idea. Flickr users could use the software to change their watermarks every week to display certain messages to your audience. You would need a local copy of un-watermarked files (just download all with the software and save them locally).

I will be using PicMarkr because it saves me time. Since you can try before you buy, download PicMarkr and form your own opinion:

PicMarkr Website

Here are some example images:

Andre’s Flickr Account