If light touch-ups to photos are more your thing, then Aviary is all you need

Both Pixlr Editor and Aviary are simple, but useful photo editing tools for Google Drive that work right in your browser.

If you’re looking for a photo editing app similar in function to Photoshop, Pixlr Editor feature set makes it a pretty good choice. Pixlr Editor doesn’t have the abundance of tools as Photoshop, but as a free cloud photo editing tool it works great.

Upload your photos into your Google Drive and you can make simple edits like color balance, and blemish correction right inside Drive.

Get Details About Your Google Docs Usage with Spanning Stats

Ever wondered what you actually spend your time doing in Google Docs? Spanning Stats is an app that breaks it down for you in a graph. For most people this means you’ll see a breakdown of what’s taking up space in your Drive. Advanced users will benefit from graphs that show you the volume of documents created by week, month breakdowns, and more. You also get a nice visualization of the times you typically create new documents.

If outdoorsy dating you’re a fan of the idea of the quantified self, then Spanning Stats is a nice app to keep around in your Google Drive. With Spanning Stats you can see how you’re using Drive and hopefully use that information to use your time better.

Google+’s Handy Hidden Features

Google+ hasn’t taken off as a social network, but as an open platform for social-type things it works really well.

Use Local to Find and Share Your Favorite Places

Google+’s local tab doesn’t really seem that interesting from the description alone: type in an address and Google+ shows you restaurants with a Zagat score. More interesting is the fact your Google+ peers can also write reviews and they’ll show as recommendations. Done right, you can get restaurant recommendations from people you know every time you search for restaurants.

Even without the social features, Google Local is handy for finding a good place to eat quickly. Sure, millions of different restaurant recommendation services exist, but Google Local is integrated into where you probably already start most restaurant searches: Google Search.

Organize Your Parties with Events for Open Access and Invitations

Facebook has an Events system, but the problem with it is that you need a Facebook account to use it. Google’s brand new Events is a lot easier to use. Create an event, share it with your Google+ friends, or anyone in your email list, and you’re done. They don’t have to sign up for Google+ just to see the invite.

After the event is going, people can share photos live as they happen directly on the event page by enabling Party Mode in the Google+ app, take a look at photos afterwards, and download all the pictures with one click. As a way to invite and document an event, Google Events is pretty strong.

Store Your Photos in the Google+ Cloud Automatically

Even if you’re not using Google+ for much of anything, it’s a good place to store photos. Again, you already have the account, so you might as well make use of the space it offers. You can enable the Automatic Upload feature on your iPhone or Android and every picture you take will automatically be stored in the cloud. As a free, easy-to-use backup service, it’s not a bad option.

As far as sharing is concerned, you can set up photos so they’re visible by certain people in your Google+ circles, or make them private and share them directly through email. The recipient doesn’t even need a Google+ account to look at the gallery. If you prefer a desktop client, all the Google+ photo settings integrate seamlessly with Google’s free photo management tool, Picasa.