Before I started blogging, I thought long and hard about if I really wanted to do it or not.
I did zero research into HOW to do it. So, I have a few questions for you fellow bloggers today. Please school me!
1- If you're a Picnik user, I'm sure you know by now that they have announced they are closing in April. Picnik is all I use for photo editing. Now what do I do? I don't own Photoshop and frankly don't want to purchase or learn it right now. Picasa? Something else? A Macbook purchase may be in our future, so that may affect my photo editing options, also.
2- Photo Storage: Until now, I have just saved all of my edited photos for the blog in a file on my desktop. I can tell that as I continue blogging that file will get much too large. How do you store your digital images? Do you use an online site?
3- Because a post without pictures is no fun, look what arrived in the mail yesterday:
Santa chose not to bring these to me this year, so I bought them for myself.
I'm doing that a lot lately. Bad girl.
I'd seen a few bloggers mention the Botannicals book and bought it intending to cut pages out to frame. The book is so beautiful, though, I'm not sure if I can do it!
Yes I can...I have big plans for those pictures.
OK, give me the skinny on the photos!!!
We are two peas in a pod - love the botanicals! No help with anything else, sorry!
ReplyDeleteJennifer, I don't know what to do about the photo storage either. I use Picasa and I know that is changing as well. Crisis!
ReplyDeleteAbout the botanicals, I would recommend checking out the clearance section of bookstores like Barnes & Noble, either online or in person. You won't believe the beautiful books you can find on the cheap. I often see botanicals and other "coffee table" books that are just begging to have the pictures cut out and framed (that way you don't have to cut up your beautiful Domino!)
I've started using Picasa but don't really understand it's full capacity yet, I'm slow with technology LOL!
ReplyDeleteBut I"m going to come back and check out your comments you get and hopefully get some tips too :)
xo
Okay. Here are my two cents.
ReplyDeleteBeing a photog, I use two versions of Photoshop and Lightroom. Photoshop is worth the money IF you use it. My mom got version 9 LAST Christmas (version 10 is out now) and has yet to use that puppy. Code: waste of money. There is a bit of a learning curve, but there are so many tute's on it. It has great features if you decide yo want to try it. Adobe let's you download the FULL version for 30 days absolutely free. No strings attached.
Moving on to easy and free all the time: fotoflexer.com is your new best friend. ;) Easy-peasy. (But I'm still partial to Photoshop...but don't mind me. Haha!) Picasso is also free and pretty good. I like to use it to make collages, but I don't use it for editing at all. Not sure that you can compress file size on it.
As for storage...again, as a photographer, I have two sources for file storage. My local C: drive on my laptop or or my new "Super Computer" as the kids call it. (It's giant...great for photo editing.) And...I use an external hard drive. You can buy them for around $100??? My hub knows better on that one. (He's a computer guy.) The awesome part is you can wirelessly send your files to that external drive from any computer in the house. Then, for example, if I'm editing a pic on my giant computer, but then need to access it from my laptop, I can...because it just grabs it wirelessly though the external drive. Does that make sense? It's got a huge storage capacity...like Terabytes, not just GB. Personally, I don't recommend an online source to store your files. That's just me. My hub works in network security and the thought of my stuff being out there "in storage" makes me question the level of security of my work.
One thing though, the reason you MAY be running out of storage space is because your file sizes are very large. I shoot pics in what's called RAW format (again, b/c of what I do). The files are humongous (but it makes for better images). Even with standard .jpg images, the settings you have on your camera will make a big difference. If you have your settings at "FINE", your file size will be much bigger. Check your settings. If you don't absolutely have to have it on that, you can lower it. I suggest though, keeping it on Fine, (b/c you never know when you're going to get a fantastic shot of the kids that you might want to frame, and you'll wish you had taken a higher resolution pic). So instead....you simply need to reduce the file size. This can be done in Photoshop very easily (promise I don't work for Photoshop! Ha!)...but there a also free downloadable programs that compress your pics. For example, of you have a 2MB picture, it will make it say 400K. The best thing to do is resize it by pixels which will automatically reduce the file size. So if you have a huge picture of 4000 pixels x 2000 pixels, reduce the size to something more easily viewable on the blog like 800x600. (It will depend on the dimensions you gave set up on your blog. I can help you with that.) Reducing pixels makes it faster to load, too.
Oh, back to storage...you could always use a thumb drive...the little storage sticks you insert to the side of the PC. They don't store a massive amount of data, but you could use one just for blog pics. They're inexpensive.
Okay. I think that's it. Lol.I hope I didnt confuse you! Let me know if I can be of any other help. :)
Off to Joann's. Need fabric! ;)
BTW...you don't have a blog button? Awww....Wanted to add you! :(
ReplyDeleteI have a tutorial on that if you ever want to make one! ;)
I believe Gail answered all of your questions very thoroughly! What a great friend!
ReplyDeleteLove that book! Just sent it to my sis for her birthday!
I don't know why I came back and checked this...but I'm laughing at myself now...or spellcheck. Apparently my iPad thought Picasa should be Picasso? Or I'm really more of an artsy brain than I thought? I dont know. Hahaha.
ReplyDeleteAren't you glad I'm here to fill up all your comment space. Promise I'm not trying to be a comment hog. Lol. ;)
I do not understand Picasa but I love the ease of kodakgallery. All 8 years of my kids lives are on there!
ReplyDeleteI use Picasa, and I like it. I don't do EVERYTHING that's available, but I use several of the aps to make my photos better. I upload the edited ones to an online web album that interfaces beautifully with blogger. If you want to try it, and have questions, just email me.
ReplyDelete-Revi
I use GIMP (free to download) for photo editing and PhotoBucket and ImageShack for online storage. These are both very user friendly when it comes to blog use.
ReplyDeleteI'm visiting from Simple Details as I always see you commenting as well so thought I'd stop by and say hello. We have a Macbook and I absolutely love it. That's where I do all of my blogging, etc. It's great for photos and editing, but I've also been using Picnik as well so will be sad when they close it down. I haven't decided what I'll use yet. And I have the Domino book and love it - have you gotten to look at it much yet? My hubby also just got me the Southern Living Style book and I've really been enjoying that as well.
ReplyDelete