Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Photo Editing with Picasa and Picnik

I usually use Picasa to edit my photos before I post them. I admit that I don't spend a lot of time on editing because I often just have enough time to pull a post together after work. But when I have extra time I love playing with Picasa and Picnik. I was inspired today by Sarah at Thrifty Decor Chick to try a few new techinques.


This is my SOC (straight out of camera) photo, below. All the photos in this post originated from this one photo. I still need lots of practice on how to work my camera (Nikon D3000) but I think my skills are slowly improving.


 The same photo cropped a bit more in Picasa and with Boost applied in Picnik.


More cropping and a bit more Boost.


For this final photo I used Lomo-ish.


Both Picasa and Picnik are quite user friendly and are FREE. Do you use a photo editing program? My next photography goal is to learn how to use textures. What is yours?

Thanks for stopping by!
Elizabeth

8 comments:

Red Gate Farm said...

I do use picnik, mostly for lightening a dark photo or making it a little clearer. It's a lot of fun to play with! I also use it to create all of my blog headers and have made invitations with it as well.

Now I need to try some of what you did :)

~Chirs

Cheryl Ann said...

Elizabeth, I just started using Picasa and Picnik myself! I usually just crop what I have, but I'm also experimenting with my camera's manual settings (I have a D40x) and sometimes they come out dark, so I can adjust the exposure using Picnik. I'd like to experiment more over the summer! Great post! Isn't it interesting to see how the focus of a photo changes?

Rural Revival said...

I used Picasa quite a bit, it has wonderful editing tools. I've switched to Photoshop because I have a teacher in-residence, and it's been a long learning curve but very fun. I have to say I learned some things in Picasa that were a big help switching to photoshop. Love you photos and what you did from one single one!

Loretta Fontaine (APPLESandRUBIES) said...

Elizabeth- Your photos look beautiful!

I'm a Photoshop girl, and try to take a little time to crop, adjust levels, adjust contrast and hue. My brother taught me many of his skills, he does it for a living!

Loretta

p.s. Hope you got my email on ordering my dress with your NOVICA giveaway gift certificate! I can't wait for it to arrive from Bali! Thanks!

ℳartina @ Northern Nesting said...

Pretty photos Elizabeth! I love to play around on Picnik. Martina

Julie Harward said...

I hardly ever use them but I should..I know my pic's would be better if I did. This is very cool! :D

Mindy said...

I saw that same post from Sarah! I, too, use Picasa, but I hadn't played with Picnik yet. Today, after reading the post, I played around with it for just a short time. It's a time warp - I got sucked in and didn't want to leave!

Crafty Gardener said...

I use Photoshop to crop and edit and add text, and I use Picasa to make the mosaic photos I use on my blog.

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