Many of you may have noticed your Facebook friends posting unique, filtered images with an Instagram tag below them. Instagram is one of the hot new apps that allows you to modify digital pictures on your Android or iPhone and share them through social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and the like.Although mobile communications may be second nature for some, many still prefer to use their PCs when editing and sharing photos and, for those folks, I have located some great online tools that will help you create unique images, with minimal effort.There are some great alternatives to Instagram that are able to communicate with your preferred social networking sites, many of them are free and don’t even need to be downloaded to your system as they are browser based.It’s important to understand the functionality of each site before you begin to use them to avoid disappointment.Many of the sites are similar in nature as they offer various filters, textures and frames that can be applied to your photos and most do not facilitate cropping or rotation of images.It appears that Phixr (www.phixr.com) provides a comprehensive solution that includes image cropping, rotation, resizing and also allows you to produce collages and also offers the standard filters offered by other solutions.Phixr was without a doubt one of the most user-friendly sites I have had the pleasure of testing in quite some time. You are not required to set up an account but are required to agree to their terms and conditions prior to use and away you go.Select one of your photos by using the browser section on the Phixr page, then select the upload option and the picture is then ready to edit. The functionality of the site was impressive and you were able to perform almost all tasks available in programs like Adobe Photoshop but much easier to navigate.It even had unique features such as selective black and white that allows you to convert a colour image into a black and white with a hint of colour in one area. The other feature that impressed me was the range of options available after you have completed editing; you can save to your hard drive, e-mail to a friend or upload to over 11 social networking sites in your preferred file format.I encourage you all to try it at least once and guarantee you the experience will be a positive one. For those that would like to explore some of the other options, here are some suggestions:www.lunapic.com, www.fotoflexer.com, www.pixlr.com and www.advanced.aviary.com.