Creative Kit photo editor works in Google+, if not in Picasa

This Quick-Tip is about using the Creative Kit, which has been giving me grief recently when I tried to use it from Picasa-web-albums.

Sept 2013 update: Creative Kit has now been totally discontinued. Use either Picasa-web-albums or the Google+ photo editor instead.

For ages, I've occasionally used the photo-editor in Picasa-web-albums (the online version of Picasa) to edit photos that I've already uploaded, and want to change without changing the URL. This editor was originally Picnik - until Google sold that product and replaced it with Creative Kit a while ago.

This has sometimes been slow, which was annoying, but I put up with it because it was just so useful.

But recently it stopped working totally: it would load, the progress-bar would get about half-way along the screen, and then hang, with a message:

We noticed Picnik is loading slowly. It’s possible waiting
may solve this issue. If you’re still having trouble:
[t1] Click for Assistance»

Waiting never solved the problem for me (trust me, I tried), so eventually I tried the help-link, which went to this Picnik help page.

After following lots of the instructions, I finally found this helpful line in the Adope Flash Player re-installation instructions:

If you are using the Google Chrome browser, Adobe® Flash® Player is built-in but has been disabled. To enable Flash Player, follow the steps in this TechNote

Which sounded hopeful - it's only recently that I've switched to use Chrome all the time, so maybe this was the problem. But it didn't help - despite what they said, Flash was enabled in my setup.

Eventually, it occurred to me that since I have a Google Plus profile, my albums are now accessible via the Plus interface too. So I went there, chose Photos, found the album, opened a photo, chose creative kit ... held my breath for a few seconds ... and the editor opened up and worked nicely.

I'd still like to get this working from Picasa, because it just looks so much nicer from the small screen that I use a lot of the time. Suggestions are very welcome!

PS Thanks to Hardeep of Widget Craft who used the picture that I'd made as the thumbnail picture for How to Edit Your Blogger Template in one of his articles, and thus inspired me to start putting my own name onto the image files I make.

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