I feel like I should dressed in prison garb, singing “Working on the Chain Gang.” I’ve been picking up hundreds of rocks…and there are thousands more out there. It’s repetitive, endless and my back is screaming. The dogs are even bored by the whole thing. But I’m recycling them. Some are forming a dry creek bed at the back of the house. The big ones are edging my gardens.
Today I’m going to talk about PicMonkey, another photo editing site that I’ve just recently discovered. This is a really neat site – very user-friendly, very much like Picnik, and they are soon adding a collage feature! Let me show you some of their tools and the way the site looks.
This is the home page. Do you see that message on the right? “Collage and more coming soon.” Good news!
Later on, I’ll show you what I did with that photo. Here you see the usual Basic Edits: Crop, Rotate (with “Straighten” which is not found on every photo editing site) Exposure, Colors, Sharpen and Resize. The Sharpen tool is much like Picnik’s in quality. My one beef with iPiccy is that their Sharpen tool is too grainy.
Here you see Effects. There are lots more of them as you scroll down the page.
Oooh! Touch up. Wrinkle removal, anyone?
Text/fonts. They are a bit limited but I’m sure they’ll have even more as time goes on. My favorite font is still over at iPiccy. After I work on a photo, I just upload it to iPiccy for my watermark.
These are Overlays. They’re really neat – they’re found on lots of photo editing sites, but I think PicMonkey’s are much more user friendly. I’ll show you what I did with this at the end of the post.
And finally, borders/frames. Again, a little limited, but I really don’t use these except for the occasional drop shadow.
Now for the photo. I resized, worked with exposure and color and then I played around a little. I added a little ‘Yester-color” and “Soften” and came up with this:
I didn’t round those corners, but there they are – maybe it’s part of Yester-color. Probably should have cropped around that, but hey, I’m just playing. That’s a PicMonkey font. Isn’t this pretty? Dreamy. And it makes the den look a lot better than it actually looks. I can’t see any dog hair on the chair. And it’s there. Believe me.
I then discovered Overlays and played around with the same photo.
I used the rectangle shape, made it opaque and then added text. Lots of bloggers are doing this sort of thing now and I rather like it. You could use it for a tutorial or to label a specific photo or to make it more Pinterest-worthy. More on Pinterest later this week, by the way. If anything, I’m even more troubled about that site.
I really, really like PicMonkey. It’s my new overall favorite. Ladies and gents – there is indeed life after Picnik. Give it a try!
That is great to know! I love having these options for photographs and would love to have pics that don’t show my dog hair!~Hugs, Patti
Wow Claudia this is wonderful! I had never heard of this site before but I will head over there in a bit and check it out. Don’t you just love rocks…they can be used for SO many things around the yard. We have packed HUGE rocks around for 3 moves and then we were able to dig up all the old foundation stones from under the barn after it burned down. Problem is…they’re VERY heavy to move around and hubby and I are getting old! Oh well…where there’s a will…there’s a way ;) Have a great day.
Maura :)
Thank you so much for the link Claudia. I like Picasa a lot but have been putting together a post with the same pic played with on different sites as a kind of review, so having another to try is brilliant :D
I will take a look at it. I usually edit in Lightroom but sometimes would just like to play around with some text features.
Wow…COOL!!! Thank you Claudia!
Just think of the great exercise you are getting! Plus you’ll have a nice rock edging and dry stream bed. Still, I’m glad it’s you and not me!
I HAVE to learn how to use one of these photo editing programs!!! Thanks for the info….now get back out there and get busy. You KNOW those rocks are waiting for you! xo Diana
I have just stuck with Photobucket. In fact I rarely ever even edit my photos and I know you can tell that but I just don’t have the time. I need the photo editor that does it all for me while I am doing something else. (Ha-Ha). I wish. I love the layered look. I need to learn how to do that.
Very clear tutorial. I am going to reference to your post so that it can be shared further.
Joy
I’m always up for something new!
Love the overlay also.
Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams
I’ve been using PicMonkey for about a week now and I agree that it’s the best I’ve found to replace Picnik! Love how easy it is! hugs, Linda
I found this a few days ago, but haven’t taken time to work with it. Looks a lot like Picnik.
I use Picasa for most of my editing. I can do it off line, too. But, it doesn’t have the touch up features, or some of the special effects. I like those for some of our ‘fool the eye’ family photos…airbrush, thinner, wrinkle remover, etc. :)
Thanks for the tutorial.
Thanks for sharing this fantastic resource, Claudia! I can’t wait to try it! Last night I finally created the banner I wanted for my blog (using Picnik), after playing around with borders, colors and fonts A LOT yesterday! Woohoo! It expresses what my blog is all about, both in words and in style–I just love it! Mostly thanks to your fantastic Picnik tutorial! :-) Jennifer
I like that it has overlays and collage. The effect you used does give your room a pretty glow. I am at day five without internet and basically getting antsy with Verizon.
Way cool Claudia! I loved seeing what this monkey can do! I have never used anything except photoshop, but I think this program looks fun!
As for all the rocks…well, you are a true dedicated recycler! I hope your back feels better soon.
Hugs,
Terri
found your post via Twitter. and glad I did. what a great site. going to check it out now. thank you!
Claudia,
Thanks for the info. I’ll check it out! I’m going to miss picnik.
Have a great evening :)
xxx Liz
Thanks for the headsup on this Claudia. I haven’t tried it yet myself but my daughter-in-law has and she says it’s great, she’s an accomplished Photoshop user but says this is much much easier. Now we can all pack up our Picniks and head off over to play with the monkey :) xx
Came to you from MERE knits blog. I Love your tips. will try the monkey site
I tried picmonkey the other day, too and really liked it. If I have to lose my Picnik, I guess it is my first choice for now.
Laura
Pic Monkey looks interesting. I’ll have to go check it out. I’ve also looked at Be Funky. I’m looking for a photo site with lots of frames and font options. I can already do the editing part (cropping, resizing, color boosting, adding sepia, etc..) in i-photos.