blogging tips

Photo Editing, Flannel PJ’s & a Cold

February 1, 2012 at 10:44 am by Claudia

:: That darn husband of mine has passed his cold on to me – for the second time in six months. I could feel it coming on last night. Most years, I don’t get a cold – this year? Two.

:: Other than that, the hanging lamp has been tweaked and I love it. I have to hang it today or tomorrow and promise to show you photos as soon as I can. Thank you for all your support – isn’t it wonderful having a lot of friends all over the world to share projects with? Kindred spirits are treasures, indeed. By the way, when I showed the lampshade to Don, this was the conversation:

Me: Do you like it?
Silence.
Me: Do you hate it?
Don: I don’t hate it.
Me: Well, what do you feel?
Don: I’m…neutral.
Me: I’ll take neutral.

:: Before I forget, please drop by and visit my friend Regula. She read the post about flannel pajamas, which are apparently hard to find in Switzerland. So she made some! I think that makes her an honored member of the Flannel Pajamas Club, don’t you? They’re really cute and she looks adorable in them.

:: I promised to update you as I found more photo editing software online. Today, I played with Pixlr and Pixlr Express. Pixlr reminds me of Photoshop Elements and works much the same way. To tell the truth, it was a tad confusing (to me) and has a bit of a learning curve. But it’s free.

Howeve, Pixlr Express was fast, fun and easy. I’ve been trying to take good photos for Etsy. (I’ll share that story with you another time.) So I had this photo on hand and thought it would be fun to play with.

This is a little toothpick holder I plan to sell.

Here’s what I came up with. I resized the photo. (Always remember to resize your photos so that they don’t take up too much storage space!) I used an effect called Hagrid to get this vintagy kind of look. Then I added a border design called Wispy. And a watermark. Not necessarily what I would do normally, but I like to play on these new-to-me sites.

Pixlr Express has the basic necessities: color, contrast, crop, resize, touch-up, auto-fix. It also has lots of fun effects and borders. It’s extremely user-friendly.

I did all this in about 3 minutes, because that’s all the exploration time I have today. I think you might like this site. At the very least, it’s another possibility for our online photo editing needs.

I’m off to blow my nose. The nose that will turn red shortly. It always does.

January 22, 2012 at 9:00 am by Claudia

Hello, everyone. Just wanted to share a couple of tips with you today.

Tip Number 1:

I was shocked on Friday evening when I went to edit some photos in Picnik (which I use daily) and a message on the home page informed me that Picnik would be no more as of April 2012.

What??? My head started spinning.

Google bought Picnik a while back and they’re getting rid of it. The message from Picnik is rather vague, but it looks as if Google+ will have some of Picnik’s features available. Of course, in my obsessive way I searched all over the web for alternatives. I messed around with Google+ and edited a photo but, for the life of me, didn’t know how to get the edited photo back on my desktop. And I don’t especially want to get too involved with Google+. Facebook is quite enough, thank you.

Then I downloaded a free 30 day trial of Photoshop Elements. After about an hour I was ready to slit my wrists. I’d love to figure it out and haven’t given up hope, but the learning curve is rather steep.

But here’s the thing: Picnik was easy, fast, accessible and great for those of us who aren’t quite ready to handle the Photoshop learning curve. And it had the collage feature, which is how I made my banner and my sister’s banner.

Why does Google have to mess with something that has so many fans? There are already petitions on the web asking Google to keep Picnik going. I somehow doubt Google is going to pay much attention to them.

Today I found a site called BeFunky, via a list on Diane’s blog, that works in much the same way as Picnik. And like Picnik, it’s free. You can pay a bit of money for the premium package and get more features – also like Picnik. The one thing I didn’t see there was the Collage feature. Here’s the photo I used to test the site:

A barely okay photo – there’s a lot of light and shadow and some light orbs, as well. Here’s the edited version:

I resized it, did a bit with color saturation and contrast, used the drop shadow frame, watermarked it with the name of the blog and used my favorite feature on this site, Vintage Colors. Pretty cool, wouldn’t you say?

I usually don’t use effects on my photos. I edit and sharpen and clarify. But I do like this little feature – it made an okay photo rather artsy and cool. Still have the problem with the orbs but somehow it works this way.

I’ll keep trying other sites and will let you know what I find. But for now, you might consider using BeFunky when Picnik ends its run in April.

Tip Number 2:

I know many people have been having problems leaving comments, viewing blogs, and having blogs disappear in the middle of a visit. Every time I research one of these problems, I find that many of the people having the problem use Internet Explorer. Remember when I was going to start using Threaded Commenting earlier in the week? I ended up reverting back to the Pop-up Box because I read that those readers who used Internet Explorer couldn’t leave comments when a blogger had implemented Threaded Comments.

Internet Explorer seems to have a lot of problems. I personally don’t use it and haven’t used it in many years. My suggestion is this: If you use Internet Explorer, consider downloading another browser. It’s pretty easy to do and takes very little time. If you’re nervous about downloading, have someone more computer-savvy do it for you. At the very least, it will give you more options for viewing blogs. You won’t run into these problems nearly as much and you’ll have the option of having another browser to try if one acts up. And they do. I have 3 different browsers on my computer for that very reason.

Every browser can have its little quirks, but I’ve found that Chrome and Firefox work very well for me.

Google Chrome – the browser that Blogger favors because it’s Google, of course. There are versions for Macs and Windows/PC.

Firefox – this link may show Firefox for Mac, as I have a Mac and that’s what keeps coming up when I search, but you can easily change that to Windows/PC.

If you have a Mac, you already have Safari, which is Apple’s browser.

There may be more out there, but these are the browsers I know and feel comfortable recommending.

Any questions? Feel free to email me.

On the Road and a Blogging Tip

January 5, 2012 at 11:56 am by Claudia

Two posts today, this one and a book review. Just scroll down for the review – a terrific book, Our Man in the Dark.

I didn’t post yesterday because I was working in New Haven, CT for the day. I’m ‘consulting’ on a production of Macbeth that has been adapted to take place in 1969 at the end of the war in Vietnam. Consulting is always a bit problematic because I am invariably called in after the play is well into rehearsal – it’s always a struggle to change things at that point. Nevertheless, I do my best. I’ll be working there for the next two Wednesdays.

The bad: I had to rent a car (we only have one car at the moment) and it ended up being more expensive than we thought it would be. Since I have to pay for everything first (I’ll get reimbursed later) I wasn’t too happy about it. Two hours there and back, plus 6 hours of rehearsal = a long day.

(no pretty pictures today!)

And I spilled coffee all over my books. It’s my own fault. I was trying to carry everything with me as I made my way to the car rental counter. Instead of dumping the coffee immediately, I carried it with me while looking for a trash can. I was so tired that I had no idea it was sloshing over everything. Not happy.

The good: the cast is very nice (including an actress I’ve worked with before) and the theater is right next to an Ikea.

After not visiting an Ikea in over a year, I’ve been there twice lately. I actually ate dinner there last night before hitting the road for the trip home. I bought a new Ektorp slipcover for my blogging chair. The white slipcovers are only $29, so when the current slipcover becomes too stained and washing it no longer does the trick, I buy a new one. It doesn’t fit the chair exactly, but it works.

And I bought hangers to use in my ongoing purge and clean-up of the house.

I’ve also been creating a new website for my coaching business. A simple, and most importantly, free site.

On another note, I’m glad I decided to bite the bullet and redesign my blog a few months back. If you remember, I discovered my designer was no longer in business and feared that I might wake up one day to discover her Photobucket account was gone, along with my designs. By the way, she never bothered to tell any of us that she was out of the business and stopped all communication with her previous clients.

Several bloggers woke up yesterday to discover elements of their blog designs were missing, replaced by the dreaded “Bandwidth Exceeded, Upgrade to Photobucket Pro today” message. I hope the problem is easily remedied, but I fear it might not be.

My advice? Take control of your blog. It’s made an enormous difference to me. I am no longer dependent on another’s work. It’s so easy now to make your own header and background. I found that googling a question like, “how to make your own blog background” or “how to design your own header” brought forth a wealth of information. It involves playing with your html code a bit, but there are tutorials everywhere. The great thing about Blogger is that you can go in and play with your code, hit preview to see what the changes look like and if you don’t like them, nothing is permanent and you can revert back to the original code.

And thank you, thank you for all the tips about the old desk. I sure got some great ideas from everyone! I’ll keep you posted.

Photo Editing, Flannel PJ’s & a Cold

Blogging Tips

On the Road and a Blogging Tip

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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