New features: Image editor and thumbnail cropping

Two new member features are now available - the super-fantastic, uber-slick Blipfoto image editor, and a tool which lets you define your own thumbnail.

If you're a member, you'll see a new option when you add a new journal entry called 'Edit and upload'. Click on the 'browse' button next to this, choose a JPEG file (as you normally would) and you'll be taken straight to the editing tool where you can crop, straighten, and adjust the brightness, contrast and colour balance.

It's rather fantastic, if we do say ourselves.

Once you've finished your masterpiece, just click on 'Upload image' to continue.

Whether you've edited your image or not, when you get to step 3 of the 'new entry' process, you'll see a little check box below the preview image which says 'Let me choose the crop for thumbnails'. Check the box and a cropping tool will appear over the image, allowing you to adjust the thumbnail area before publishing your entry.

A couple of things to keep in mind...

~ Both the editing tool and thumbnail cropper need Adobe Flash Player 10 to work. If you don't have it installed, we'll tell you and provide a link to download. If you decide not to install it, you can carry on using the old method, but these tools won't be available.

~ You don't need to scale your images down before editing - the editor can handle full-res JPEGs, and the full-size edited original will be stored (the unedited one won't).

That's it! Take it for a spin and let us know what you think. If you hit a problem, leave a comment below.