Archives for May 2012

how I edit my pictures: a tutorial

My second tutorial ever!

Remember my first one? Those totally amazing tissue paper pom-poms?

Yeah, well one fell off the ceiling a few weeks ago and Zan rolled over onto the tack in the middle of the night. I hope you’re laughing right now because I am.

Although, to be quite honest, he definitely wasn’t.

Aaaaaanyways.

Welcome to Tutorial numero duo: How I Edit My Pictures.

(I realize this post might not be relevant to a ton of people, but I’ve gotten a handful of questions about it over the past month, so I thought I’d give it a go.)

Let me start off by admitting that I don’t know if this is the best way to edit photos, but it’s free, and fairly easy, and above all, it works for me. So for those of you that are interested in how I get things done around here, or are even maybe just a little bit curious, read on…

First off, I use a MacBook.

I totally and completely swear by all things Apple and you should too.

FOR SERIOUS.

I use iPhoto and Pages to edit my pictures for my blog:

Pages is basically the Mac version of Microsoft Word, but WAY better in my humble opinion. My MacBook came with Pages installed, when I purchased iWork with my computer.

Now, if you don’t have Pages, I guess you’re straight up out of luck to try it my way. I think you can do more or less the same thing on PicMonkey, although I don’t believe they have a collage feature yet, and iPiccy is another online photo editor I just heard about, which apparently does have the collage feature. There are probably more out there, but they haven’t crossed my radar yet.

Okay, okay, I’m about to start this crazy tutorial, so I hope you’re ready.

Basically, I just go into iPhoto first, into my events, and choose a photo:

Let’s get one from Fenway Park, okay?

Then I do a little editing right in iPhoto:

Now I’ve been trying to shoot my photos in manual mode for a few months now. I’m really loving how they look, but I often find they are just a liiiitle bit too dark. I just play around with the exposure a bit until I get the photo looking nice.

You can also play around with cropping here too. And touch-ups, and red-eye, and the like. Go to town on your photos! You really have the chance to make them look like gold in here.

Now quite often I filter my photos and that gets a little more complicated. Basically, I email myself my photos to my phone and filter them through Instagram (in airplane mode), then email them BACK to myself and open them up again, filtered this time, on my computer. It takes some time, but not that long, and I often like the filtered look for certain posts.

(You can also filter online at PicMonkey, which is fairly easy as well.)

After you have your photo the way you like it, you’re ready to move into the graphic design part, which I do in Pages. Pages is technically a document program, but I’ve figured out how to do a LOT more with it, and it’s easy too.

Okay, let’s do this:

Now you’ll be working strictly in Pages. This is the fun part:

Fonts are my favorite thing EVER and you can download so many for free!

I’ve gotten a bunch of mine from Going Home to Roost and In My Own Style.

Also, Pinterest is perfect for this sort of thing. Just type in free fonts and loads of links will pop up. So awesome.

From here, you basically just take a screen shot of your final image:

 

To take a screen shot on a Mac you just need to press SHIFT, COMMAND and the number 4 all at the same time. Then you just drag the curser over the image and in saves the images automatically on your desktop.

EASY PEASY LEMON SQUEEZY.

And… TAADAAAA:

Done and DONE.

Oh, wait, you wanted to know how I do collages too, right?

So remember when we dragged that photo from iPhoto into Pages? All I do is drag as many photos as I want into Pages and then resize them and rearrange them as I please.

You can do anything from instagram pictures, to regular camera photos too.

Here’s a little collage I just whipped up:

Oh, 2004 World Series, I will never forget you.

And so really, that’s that.

I don’t know if it’s the best way, but I have a lot of freedom with it, which is something I don’t find on many of the online editing sites. Also, at this point I’ve gotten so familiar with the whole thing, that it takes me probably around 25-30 minutes to edit a bunch of pictures for a post. Not too shabby.

So there you have it. THAT is how I edit my photos. I hope it entertained you a little, and if I’m lucky I might have even helped a few people out.

Feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email if you have any more questions! I’ll try to get back to you if I know the answer, but really, like with anything, the ease of it comes with just a bunch of trial and error. I do think I’ve found something that works well for me, which I’m happy about. And maybe, hopefully!, it can work for you too.

Do you have a different way of editing for free that you like? Care to share?

 

And now, I will gladly announce that this is THE END of this incredible long and likely confusing tutorial.

Adios for now, friends.

I’m out!

snapshots.

It was just one of those weekends that makes you feel good all over.

Warm sunshine on your skin and good company to last the whole way through.

There are more details to share, and more pictures too…

So getchoself ready.

 

And above all else, here’s to wishing the weekend would last forever.

Sigh.

south end lovin’.

This rainy week is just about distroying me, so I’m posting pictures today of sunshine.

Oh, sweet glorious sunshine. Come back to me…

The South End in Boston is one of those places that you don’t really hear too much about if you’re not from the city. Frequently confused with Southie (think: The Departed), the South End is located between Back Bay and South Boston. No train lines run there (except the Prudential stop off the E line) so it’s not a place that’s often visited by tourists.

Newbury Street in Back Bay? Everyone knows that.

Beautiful Beacon Hill? Historic and very often visited, and rightfully so.

The North End? I’ll take an Italian pastry please. With chocolate ricotta cream.

Charlestown has the Bunker Hill Monument and Kenmore is home to Fenway Park.

But the South End? It’s a hidden beauty and one of my favorite places to be.

They have beautiful brownstones and lots of parks, and they have a good amount of little independent shops that are always fun to pop into, too. There’s the SOWA Open Market to hit up on Sundays— an amazing indoor/outdoor flea market that’s one of the largest and best in the city of Boston. Oh, also, if a friend is visiting, I usually take them to either breakfast or lunch or dinner in the South End (or all of the above) because, in my humble opinion, there is no better food anywhere than the food you can find there.

Daaah! I am craving a Buttery Biscuit even as I type this.

SO. AMAZING.

Want to take a walk? Let’s go…

So beautiful, right?

Yeah, all that sunshine and pretty made me feel better, too.

And seriously I think the real live sun is supposed to come out this weekend, so I’m thinking of hitting up the SOWA Open Market this coming Sunday. Who wants to come with?!

a little lady in white.

Little (or should we say big?) Isabel made her 1st Communion this past weekend.

I’m serious, every time I get to spend time with those kids I wonder why I don’t do it more often.

They are the SWEEEETest.

The church service was at St. Leonards in the North End and I was happy to get to spend a little time over there because I seriously LOVE the North End. I need to get back to that area again soon with my fancy cam. The sights and sounds were just speaking to me the whole time.

Are any of you guys Catholic? I was raised Catholic so this whole day just brought back so many memories of pretty white dresses, spring flowers, and the excitement of tasting that little piece of cardboard-y foam.

I kid, I kid.

(But really, though, I think that’s what it’s made out of.)

We sang hymns and took pictures and all around just celebrated that little cutie in the white gown. I’m so glad they invited me to join, I wouldn’t have wanted to miss it. After the service we all went back to Charlestown for some hor dourves and dinner. There is something about that small part of Boston that just gets my nostalgia rolling. Since I spent the better part of my 1st years in the Bean working over there I just get this happiness every time I visit.

Yet another place on my list of Boston neighborhoods to photograph– the streets around the monument are gorgeous!

Here’s a few pics from the day courtesy of my iPhone…

And that kid with the bow tie??

I CAN’T EVEN.