Editing Photos Using a Web-Based Application

The photos on the right are a before (left) and after (right) of a photo I took while at the Guggenheim in NYC earlier this year and after I edited it using Picutre2Life. Picture2Life is a free, web-based photo-editing tool that provides editing, collaging and automation (Slide Show) features to account and non-account users. The following adjustments were made to the picture on the left to result in the image on the right:

1. Crop
2. Paint Effect
3. Sharpen Effect
4. Saturation Effect
5. Save to Desktop

Below is an evalutation of Picture2Life that I completed using guiding questions provided by Dr. Robin:

1. What is the name and web address of the program you are evaluating?
• Picture2Life
• http://www.picture2life.com/

2. Which editing features did you use?
• Quick Fixes
- Shadow
- Sketch
- Oil Paint
- Kuwahara
- Edge (SharkTooth)
- Edge (Rugged)
• One Clicks
- Water
- Swirl
- Color
- Texture
• All
- Border
- Brightness
- Crop
- Hue
- Save
• Collage
- Picture Pile
- Grids
• Animation
- Customize

3. Did the program perform as expected?

The program actually exceeded my expectations.

Overall Picture2Life is very simple and intuitive to use. I was able to easily navigate through the various effects and liked the fact that you could apply and then remove the effects simply by clicking the back button or remove.

Another great aspect of the program is that you are able to see the individual effect before choosing it for your photo. Each effect is previewed in the effect menu. So I didn’t have to guess what the effect would look like.The program allows you to select and save favorite effects, customize effects (by layering them) and save them for your next editing project. This functionality requires a user account.

The Collage feature was very nice. It has 27 different variations users can apply to a grouping of photos that they select out of their uploaded gallery.

The Automation tool (or as Slide Show in most programs) is simple but useful. Users can decide how many times and the size of photos as they loop.

4. Was the program easy to use?

Very easy.

Obviously the robustness of a program like Photoshop is not present but everything a person would need for regular photo editing is made available. A couple of things that were missing were Autofix and Red Eye reduction.

5. Did you experience any problems using the program?

When looking for the Autofix I found Sharpen and used this feature. Then backed the change out. When I tried to use it again over another layer, it wouldn’t work. I wasn't able to recreate the problem.

6. Would you use this program again and/or would you recommend this pr program to others?

Definitely. Free, easy to use, with a lot of editing features as well as the ability to collage and animate – why not?

7. Do you have any other comments you think would be helpful?

The program doesn’t require an account – but it is useful if you are going to want to set up favorites or customized effects.

The site allows you to save your edited photo to its server or to sites such as flickr, Facebook or 23. As well you can download the edited photo.

Picture2Life allows users to customize colors and textures as well as add text to photos.

Week 2 - Lighting, depth and fill

Here are six more photos out of the 164 I took.

The top left Starbucks photo was taken in the morning, while the next photo was taken inside with a flash. The Starbucks cup was shot with a flash and shows more of the shadowing I spoke of in my previous blog.

The bottom two photos of the fabric weight I liked because they showed different angles of the same subjet, while the studio sign I like just for effect.

To Flash or Not to Flash

"To Flash or Not to Flash - My Journey with Assignment 2" - or at least that's what I'd like to have called this entry.

This past week has been a rough week - computer problems that I thought would never end. It all started with loading Picasa. See I have a Mac - well I use a Mac as my primary computer. So I got the brilliant idea to partition the Mac so I could use Windows Vista and ultimately Picasa. That's when my problems started. But I digress... I'm now blogging this entry on a handy Windows XP machine, that allowed me to install Picasa with no problem, build my collage of photos taken from my little digital camera that could and save it all to my reliable thumbdrive. Ahhhh the hills and valleys of technology....

To the left, you see some of the photos I took. These 1o are out of 164 photos in all I believe.

STARBUCKS
I started out with a popular culture theme of Starbucks . My thinking was that these photos could be used in a story about the class-definition of made-to-order coffee in the United States in the 1990s and 00's - or something like that. I actually took these after playing around outside of a Starbucks in the morning light and then in my office building using various angles and light sources (flash vs. no flash). I may post those a little later.

The first row of 4 and the second row of three (coffee cups) were taken on my desk at work, using a book to steady my camera. I actually had to buy the coffee cups, but used the various sizes and colors for effect. I then played with them in various formations, with the black back drop and without the black backdrop. I noticed that without the flash, the effect was more natural - the flash created a lot of shadowing that I thought was distracting. Additionally, I tried to play with the depth of field. I thought it was interesting to keep the Starbucks logo in the frame, but focus on the "We are honored to serve this coffee". I also tried to do the same with the check boxes on the side because this is part of the identifying mark of Starbucks - coffee made to order - "I'll take a tall, moca-latte, skim milk, half Sweet & Low, blah, blah, blah."

FASHION
The next two shots - of the dress form - one was taken on an elevated level with flash and one straight on with no flash. Again I like the effect of the second one - keeping in mind that I tried to fill the frame while creating a curve that would adhere to the thirds rule. I'm not sure if I accomplished it but I tried. I thought these photos would be useful in a story about fashion in any story.

MUSIC
The record was a hard shot. The plastic caused a lot of glare with flash but without flash I wasn't able to steady the camera enough to complete the shot (the records were hanging on a wall). I thought this would be a good candidate for Photoshop or some other manipulation technique.

Finally - this was a great exercise. I really enjoyed playing with the different techniques and seeing the results. The wonderful thing about digital media (ok - this is going to be very obvious) is that mistakes are show stoppers - you just keep on shooting. The ability to see an image and tweak it on the spot provides not only flexibility but also a little motivation to be creative in the shot.

Assignment 1

This is my first attempt at using Picasa to create a collage for my blog.