Easy Online Photo Editing

An easy service for you to edit your photos online can be found at PXN8 (Pixenate).

Basic instructions:

1. Click on the "Choose Your Image to Edit". Navigate to the file you want on your computer and double click or press "Open" to upload.

2. The service will say "Uploading image, please wait", then it will open the editing tool. Resize, crop, enhance as you wish. I love the "fun effects" option. Note that there are UNDO and REDO buttons if you try something out and you don't like the result.

3. Click on "Save" when you're happy with your picture. This will open a download window (it automatically formats your pic as JPG) so you can save it to your PC.

A simpler service is also available at Snipshot.com.
Other similar services offering different capabilities are Cellsea, Online Image Editor and Fotocrib.

Blogger 101: Banner Photo

As I mentioned on the Cafe Mom Discussion board, I learned today that blogger now has an auto-insert picture function for the header background (e.g. the tulips above). In case you didn't pick up on the hints elsewhere, here are the directions...

You get to it by clicking on the "edit" button for the page header bar under "page elements" (which is under "template").

Add your photo and *presto*!

A couple of important tips:

You'll need to size your photo "just so" to fit with your template. Nothing like trial and error.

I would suggest keeping the photo size reasonably small - perhaps under 100 kb for the sake of those with slower-loading computers. (the tulip one is about 70 kb).

Try to get a picture with room for your title and description AND/OR adjust your blog title color so it's readable with the picture. I "photo-shopped" out two tulips to make this one fit better.

Warning: At the moment, adding the photo to the banner seems to gum up the preview mode in the "fonts and colors" window. Not critical, but annoying.

Finding Copyright Free Photos for your Blog

Be sure to give proper credit and check out the details on each photo just to be sure...

Flickr - you can do an "advanced search" here for photos under "Creative Commons License". If you find something you like, you can use it for a background or header on your blog, provided you give credit where credit is due. (read the details of the license for the particular photo, as some don't want any modifications made).

http://www.sxc.hu/ Stock exchange has lots of cool photos waiting to be used (as well as some that you have to pay for).

A couple of samples (I'll share blogger coding for backgrounds in a later post):

Here's an example of a portion of a photo used as a background. Appropriate place to give attribution would be in the sidebar - generally at the bottom (as shown in the example).

For this blog, I decided I wanted a Roman motif repeated in the background. I followed the flickr instructions above searching for things like "Roman", "Roman wall", etc. before finding something that I liked. (I think the end product might not be authentically Roman, but it works anyway). I did have to get special permission to modify the photo (I was using only a small portion of the photo). The photographer was actually quite pleased to give permission - it was a quick e-mail answered the same day.

Please share any of your favorite copyright free photo or clip-art sites.