This thing involves editing some of your uploaded photos using the free online tools at picnik.

Visit the picnik site and click on the "Get started now!" button. Once the main picnik page loads, look for the text "Open your photos from wherever they are" and click on the pink and blue dot flickr icon just below it.

On the next page, click the Connect button, which will let picnik to access your flickr photos once you enter your flickr/Yahoo credentials. After you've made the connection, you'll see your flickr photostream appear. Click on a photo to select it (it will then be highlighted) and click on the little gear that has appeared at the bottom of its frame. From the menu that appears, select edit.

Now you will have some editing tools in a bar across the top of the page. Try some of them out, and when you've finished, click on the Save & Share tab for various options including saving the edited version of your photo back to flickr.

Be sure to write a blog entry about how you got on with picnik, including the tags "Week 4" and "Thing 8". Do include some images to show off your editing skills if you can!

Create a flickr account (if you already have one, skip to the next paragraph). Browse to www.flickr.com and click on the "Create Your Account" button. If you already have a Yahoo! ID, you can use this to sign in on the right side of the page that appears. If not, you will need to create a Yahoo! ID first, in the section below that where it says "Don't have a Yahoo! ID - Sign Up".

UPDATE FOR 2011: You may have heard rumours about Yahoo shutting down or selling off some of its most popular websites. It would be especially worthwhile making sure you back up anything you upload to Flickr just in case.  There are some alternative sites listed at the bottom of this post.

Once you've completed the flickr signup process and are logged in to your account, upload some of your own photos. Start by clicking on the "Upload Photos and Videos" link on the main page. Be sure to tag each photo with some descriptive tags. Next, visit the page for the Oxford 23 Things group on Flickr, and ask to join it by clicking on the Join? link (see image below)



Once your membership has been approved, you can revisit the group page and click on the Add something? link to add some of the photos from your photostream to the Group Pool. (It may take a little time for me to get the email from flickr and approve your membership, but I'm trying to check it regularly.)

If you don't have any pictures to upload and would like some sample ones to work with, just drop me an email and I can send you a few to use. Also do get in touch if you have encounter any problems or have questions.

Finally, don't forget to write a blog post about your experiences with flickr, including the tags "Thing 7" and "Week 4".

1. Put some of your flickr photos into a set - look under the Organize & Create menu at the top of your flickr home page.

2. Change the rights settings for one of your photos by going to its page (click on the photo in your Photostream to go there) and clicking on (edit) next to its current rights settings (these are shown under Additional Information on the right side of the page). On the page where you edit the rights settings, you will also have the option to change the default rights settings for all your photos, maybe you want to share them all under a Creative Commons licence? For instance, if you choose Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons, then only non-commercial entities can use your image, they must give you credit for it, and whatever they create from it must be shared in the same way.

3. "Geotag" some of your pictures to indicatewhere they were taken. To do this, go to the individual photo's page, then click on "Add to your map" under Additional Information on the right side of the page. To look at photos from various locations around the world, choose "Places" from the Explore menu at the top of your flickr home page.

Take a look at some other photo sharing sites: