This is, according to our calculations, Picnik’s BILLIONTH edited photo:

It comes from Gísli Hjálmar, an Icelandic law student working as a technician and one of Flickr’s more prolific Picnikers. To celebrate, and to show him off a bit, we asked him a little bit about himself.

He became interested in photography when he was around 19, but then didn’t take pictures for nearly 20 years before starting up again three years ago.

Two years ago he discovered Picnik, and now does most of his photo editing with us (even though he has Photoshop on his computer). His favorite part of Picnik? The Seasonal Effects! How does he feel about his photo being Picnik’s billionth edited photo? He’s “very happy” and for good reason: Gísli now has a lifetime subscription to Picnik Premium!

Of all the thousands of photos being edited Wednesday morning, we’re so happy that the person with the billionth photo is such an interesting guy, an enthusiastic photographer and a good Picniker! It makes us think about all the millions of interesting people out there with their squillions of interesting pictures using Picnik all the time, and we can’t wait to see what the next billion brings. Thank you all and happy Picniking!

Brenda, our Community Liaison in Charge of Flickr Operations, has started a contest in our Flickr Picnikers group for everyone to look back through their Picniked photos from 2009 and submit the one they think is their best. And instead of the usual contest, three entries will be picked at random for a free month of Picnik Premium!

Have a look at the entries, and to enter your own best of 2009 Picniked photo, set up a Flickr account and join the Flickr Picnikers group!

All across the Northern hemisphere people are celebrating the return of summer and here at Picnik we’re digging out the wicker basket and unrolling the checkered blanket by putting forth a challenge for Picnikers to show us how they’re kicking off the season by posting their best summer pictures with their favorite Picnik effects to Twitter, with a prize to the winners! Check out all 200+ images by clicking here or searching for the contest hashtag #SummerPicnik.

A big congratulations to our three winners @smith521, @wildcat24, and @bellavaz. All three winners received a one year subscription for Picnik Premium!

We also had two more favorites: @welstechtrainer received three months of Premium for posting an amazing collage that won her the award for the most amazing time capsule image, and @sandra6dee won three months of Picnik Premium for the most joyful jumping picture.

Want to share you favorite pictures on Twitter? We’ve made it really easy! When you get to the Save & Share tab select Twitter and connect to your account. Congrats to all the winners and have a great summer to all!

Next week Team Picnik is giving away a couple one-year Picnik Premium Memberships in a new Twitter contest: Use Picnik to Tweet your favorite summer photograph, using the hashtag #SummerPicnik so we can see you, and Team Picnik members will choose the best ones, with winners announced on Friday, June 19!

Directions: Make a Twitter account, if you don’t have one! Announce yourself by following @picnik on Twitter! Take your picture, then upload it and edit it! Then find the Twitter page under the Save & Share tab to Tweet your summery masterpiece!

The contest runs from Monday at 12.01 am through Thursday at 2 pm PDT. So why are we telling you this early? Because it’s a beautiful weekend in June! So get outside and get those photos!

Note to our Southern Hemisphere Picnikers: You are entirely welcome to include your photos of the grumpy weather you’re having right now.

Update: The contest is now open! Feel free to start Tweeting your submissions!

Update #2: The contest is now closed! Thank you to everyone who participated! We will announce the winners tomorrow, June 19 at 2pm PDT. In the meantime, check out the submissions on Twitter by searching for “#SummerPicnik”.

Saturday, May 2, is National Scrapbooking Day. For you expressive souls who need more than what a drafting table, cutting board, soldering iron, 14 pair of specialty scissors, a compartmented box full of die-cut letters, flowers, leaves, hearts, teddy bears and kittens, glue and buttons can offer, allow us to offer a way to augment your craft: Picnik!

Just about everything on Picnik can be used towards digital scrapbooking greatness. The internet is full of handy free patterns and textures to use as new papers to layer with, and why limit yourself to your box full of die-cut shapes when there’s our huge collection of Stickers? We’ve got tons of fonts to put your memories into words, and for an extra head start there are all our collections of Fancy Collages, organized by theme. There are oodles of things on Picnik that even we haven’t tried yet, and National Scrapbooking Day is a great time for trying something new! And with our easy integrations on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and all sorts of other photo sharing and social networking sites, it can be like attending a scrapbooking party on National Scrapbooking Day, as well!

For inspiration, our own Brenda Anderson, Community Liaison in Charge of Flickr Operations, in had a Scrapbooking contest on the Flickr Picnikers group for the month of March, and to help celebrate all the possibilities of this craftiest of holidays, our friends at Blisstree are having a National Scrapbooking Day Giveaway: two free year-long Picnik Premium subscriptions, just for suggesting to her (and us) some clever feature ideas.

The March contest theme has been announced by Brenda, our Community Liaison in Charge of Flickr Operations and Antipodean Branch Office Manager, and this month it’s: Scrapbook!

Using any of Picnik’s tools and features, perhaps starting with collage and then adding stickers and text, or starting with a photo, adding a frame, and layering on top of it, and then adding stickers and text, you can enter up to 3 scrapbooked creations, and the winner wins a full year of Picnik Premium!

Also, congratulations to last month’s winners of the theme “Be Mine <3"! And a special congratulations to Wendy * Darling for tying herself for first place! She therefore wins not one but two years of Picnik Premium! I’m sure she’s very popular this week…

Runners-up [[TiGER.} and brownie.bacon both win free 3-month subscriptions for their submissions as well! A slideshow of all last month’s entries can be seen here.

Rápidamente se llena nuestro mapa del mundo con inscripciones para el concurso del diciembre para los picnikeros. Puedes ganar un año gratis o tres meses gratis por quedar en primero lugar o segundo lugar respectivamente. La fecha límite es el 5 de enero y se nos está acercando rápidamente. ¡Todavía no hay ni una inscripción del mundo hispanohablante! Las tenemos de Norteamérica, de Europa, de Asia y hasta de las Antípodas. ¡Apúranse la península ibérica y el resto de las Américas! Queremos ver dónde celebran las fiestas en este año. El tema es “Las fiestas alrededor del mundo” y queremos ver los monumentos famosos locales con unas decoraciones de las fiestas.

View Larger Map

Animamos a los usuarios a hacer este concurso para saber dónde están todos los usuarios. Crea una cuenta de Flickr, te une al grupo de Picnikeros de Flickr y toma parte en el concurso. ¡Disfruta!

Brenda, our Community Liaison in Charge of Flickr Operations and Antipodean Branch Office Manager, has announced the December Flickr Picnikers Contest topic: Holidays Around the World! This month is special because, as she says, the photos need to be of “recognizable or unique landmarks in your part of the world,” but with a Christmas twist! We want to see where you’ll be celebrating the holidays this year, either in reality or in spirit.

Plus, follow the instructions, and your photo will be featured on the map Brenda put together, and on the one below! As always, the winner will receive a whole free year Picnik Premium, and the two runners up free 3-month subscriptions of Picnik Premium.

View Larger Map

We want to encourage all our users to take part in this contest to really get a sense of where everyone is. So we’d like to encourage all our users who haven’t yet to create a Flickr account, join the Flickr Picnikers group, and take part in the contest!

Also, we’d like to congratulate the winners of last month’s contest, “Picnik Yourself”, with a two way tie for first place:

Goldscale’s “i live for that look”	konabluee’s “Watch the World Go By”

And in 2nd and 3rd place:

nahomie123’s “Day 23″	jennwyers’ “DSC05397″

The month of October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Breast Cancer Awareness has been the theme of this month’s Flickr Picnikers Contest! And the winner of the prestigious and coveted 1-year Picnik Premium subscription has been:

jennad4586

The two runners up, and winners of 3-month Picnik Premium subscriptions: kibishipug and C V.D P.

Help raise awareness during Breast Cancer Awareness Month with Picnik’s Go Pink! and Frame it Pink! All of October is dedicated to increasing awareness and public discourse about issues surrounding Breast Cancer, which is why we’ve added the new Effects and an expanded section of Pink Shapes.

Looking for a good place to start? Our friends at Flickr have announced a new group to raise money for Breast Cancer awareness and research. For every pink pic added to the group, their parent company Yahoo! will donate one Euro to Breast Cancer charities across Europe! So send your pink pic to Pink 2008!

And this month’s Flickr Picniker Award Theme is Go Pink, so don’t forget to enter your Pink productions to win a whole year of Picnik Premium (now with added Pinkness)!