Cape Town's Theme Park

This is year we took Amanda to Ratanga Junction, Cape Town's theme park, for her birthday. I had signed up for us to be members on the website for free and, when our birthdays came around, we received complimentary tickets. Amanda and I have birthdays a few days apart, so it worked out really well. We just had to pay for Robbie and Amanda's friend, Cristi.

You would have thought that we were VIP guests, because we had the theme park almost to ourselves. For most of the rides, the girls could go as many times as they liked, because they hardly had to wait or not at all. We went on a cloudy Saturday in early March. Sometimes the sun came out and a couple of times it drizzled. We think that perhaps there would have been more people if it had been sunny, but overall, the weather was pleasant.

It was a fun adventure for us, especially the girls, and I enjoyed capturing the moment on my camera.

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We caught the end of Martin Odd's Birds of Africa.

The girls got to touch the two owls.

The girls have their hands up in the
green and white car.

The girls have their hands up in the yellow car.

Hubby and I rode about half of the rides with the girls at least once. The roller coaster ride that I photographed and posted here is called the Bushwhacker and is a family friendly coaster. We also rode the big roller coaster called the Cobra. They have reptiles on display inside the waiting area, but we didn't have to wait. We could look at the neat variety of reptiles behind their glass enclosures while we walked right on through to the ride. It's an extreme coaster experience and one we didn't want to ride again, except for Amanda. We wouldn't let her ride alone, so she'll have to go again another year.

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I'm also on Instagram.

Ich bin auch auf Instagram.

Tina Morley

All original photographs by Tina Morley
unless stated otherwise. 1camera1mom is
mostly in English mit ein bisschen Deutsch.

My 3 Favorite Free Editing Sites

The two photos that I'm using today (the tea set and the cactus plant), I took at Angala's restaurant. I just finished a visual 9-part series on Angala titled Boutique Hotel (Part 1 - 9). You can find the links to that series at the bottom of my post.

Original

HDR

Invert Colors

As a blogger and avid photographer, I spend a lot of time selecting and editing photos before uploading them to my blogs. Here are my THREE favorite FREE resources that I use:

• Picasa 3

• PicMonkey

• Canva

I used PicMonkey to create the collage above and I used Picasa 3 for the text and photo edits.

Above is my cactus plant photo before uploading it to Canva. Below is how I used it in Canva's Blog Graphic. The text I added in Picasa 3. My favorite fonts with lots of options is in Picasa 3. But I have to convert my png image from Canva into jpg for Picasa. I do that with PicMonkey. I upload my png image to PicMonkey and save it in jpg format.

Personalized Designs to Order

Personalized Designs to Order

Related Posts:

The Story of How it All Began

Boutique Hotel - Part 1

The Gorgeous Gardens

Boutique Hotel - Part 2

My 3 Girls

Boutique Hotel - Part 3

The Luxury Suites

Boutique Hotel - Part 4

Flowers at Angala

Boutique Hotel - Part 5

Horses at the Fence

Boutique Hotel - Part 6

The Eco Pool

Boutique Hotel - Part 7

Pets at Angala

Boutique Hotel - Part 8

The Lily Cottage's Garden

Boutique Hotel - Part 9

Cut Flowers - 3

To learn how to make a collage for free, read my post 3 Sisters - 6. 

3 Sisters – 7

You would think that I was clever enough to get the girls positioned just right for these two photos. Not at all! I saw them sitting like this and quickly went and grabbed my camera. Of course, they did pose a bit once they saw me with camera in hand. This is why keeping a camera or mobile phone with a good quality built-in camera nearby at all times is a good idea. It’s all about capturing the moment and making memories!

Check out my cool photo frame! I went with white, so it doesn't look as much like a frame as it does a boarder. It’s one of PicMonkey’s latest additions to their free photo editing site. Once you’ve uploaded an image to edit, click on the Frames icon to the left, scroll right down to the bottom and there you’ll find New Sketchedy. Try out their different options in Sketchedy. There are a variety of choices, so have fun checking them out!

3 Sisters – 6

With eager expectation, I awaited for PicMonkey’s collage application. It’s been available for a few days already, but I hadn’t gotten around to trying it out. It didn’t disappoint.

You can create your own collage in seconds, literally, and for free using PicMonkey. Without any prior knowledge on how to use this application, I got this result with a few simple clicks. I didn’t even bother editing my photos and my collage turned out awesome!

2010 Soccer World Cup, South Africa

Here are the steps I took: I clicked on Collage, three empty frames appeared, which I rotated with one click below the frames. I then clicked on the blue box with Upload Photos to the left, and chose my three pictures from my documents. I then dragged them over to the empty frames by clicking on the mouse and holding it down. I placed them where I wanted them to be. I clicked on the paint palette, wondering what it was for, and saw that it changes the background color. I chose the dropper and picked a color from my photos to replicate. I liked the green in Jessica’s T-shirt and went with that. My final step was to save it in good quality, not best quality as I hadn’t resized my photos earlier and didn’t want a large file size. That’s because I don’t want to upload large file size images on my blogs or else my blogs will load slower.

3 Sisters – 5

This photo of my 3 girls has been edited.

There’s really no reason why you have to put up with an over-exposed image, red-eye or whatever else. The photo editing tools that I’ve been mentioning, Picasa 3 and PicMonkey, are for free and easy to use. Some things just take time to get the hang of them. The best way to learn is by playing, so play with a copy of your photo (not the original) and see what you discover. I may have over-colored this photo, but I have a weakness for color. I love all colors, maybe that’s one reason why I like diversity in ethnicity, because the more colors the better! I live in the Rainbow Nation of South Africa and my family does not stick to one culture or ethnicity. My husband and I are a mix of cultures, even though we are both white, and we have had to learn to get along.

I went all out with this image. One editing tool that I used was Clone in PicMonkey. That is how I got all the grass to be green. Once I had what I wanted in PicMonkey, I went to Picasa 3 to add my text (I like to keep the font the same and the one I’m using is in Picasa, plus I like its text features). Seeing the photo in Picasa, I began to play some more with the editing tools. When you apply different techniques, it’s called layering. You can add any number of layers to your image. Learn while playing. That’s my motto for today!

This photo of my 3 girls has not been edited.
You can see the difference for yourself.

Climbing Rocks – 2

I love the composition of this photo. The kids are all doing something different, yet they’re in the same spot on the rocks. Samantha is looking especially adorable with her hands holding the rim of her sun hat. The rocks also make a stunning backdrop. I didn’t compose the shot. I just captured the moment.

Do you want to apply free and easy photo editing tools to your pictures? I used PicMonkey for this picture and the previous one. They allow me more options to adjust a technique than Picasa 3. I hardly needed to edit these. All I did was open the Exposure tool and then I had the option to choose Auto Adjust or to use the slide bars and do it myself. The options on the slide bars are: Brightness, Highlights, Shadows and Contrast. That’s it!

Amanda Sleeping – 4

This is a very recent photo of Amanda and my last one in this series. I used PicMonkey to edit this picture. They keep adding new features. One of them is Photo Corners and I used that application here. It gives my photo that scrapbooking look. In a sense, my photography blog is my digital scrapbook. All of PicMonkey’s features are free at the moment, so now is a great time to give PicMonkey a try. I’m very happy with my font in Picasa 3 for this blog and so I used theirs, although PicMonkey has really cool font applications to choose from.

Here is the image cropped with no photo editing. She looks like a sleeping angel. Which of these two images is your favorite? The question: to edit or not to edit. I’d love to hear from you. Also, make sure you check out my parenting blog at Amanda’s Books and More where you’ll find lots of fun things to read and be inspired.

Amanda Sleeping – 2

I used to get upset when my roll of film was developed and the colors came out wrong. Some shops developed your film using the right “mix” for the type of film it was. For example, Kodak film got a different treatment to Fuji film. I was otherwise at the mercy of whoever developed my film. All of that has changed now with the digital world we live in. I don’t have to get upset, because I can use either Picasa or PicMonkey for free and change my colors all I want. Today I’m posting an unedited image and an edited image and you can see for yourself the difference between the two.

This picture of Amanda sleeping was taken in 2011. She arranged her dolls like that with her favorite broken Baby Born swaddled up and Piglet. To me it looks as if she was one of the dolls, she’s so cute.

Related stories:

• My First Cameras
• Broken but Precious

Simplicity – 14

This is my last post that I’ll be doing in this series. This has been an experiment with Picasa 3, which is free desktop software that runs on Windows, and it has been quite a journey. I think this is a great photo editing tool to finish off with. I love the dynamic and modern twist that it gives my image. I used Posterize, which has 3 slide-bars, namely Number of Colors, Detail and Fade. I adjusted all 3 of these until I was satisfied with the result.

Just because I decided to stop at this point doesn’t mean that I used up all the editing tools that Picasa 3 has to offer. There are still more to choose from, so check them out and have fun editing your images. I’m really looking forward to hearing from you so please leave a comment below stating which your favorite one in this series was. Stay tuned tomorrow for a brand new series.

Simplicity – 11

Here are 3 images using the same application as a starting point. I achieved the white roses with shadowed borders using Holga-ish in Picasa 3. When you click on Holga-ish, you will see 3 slide-bars, Blur Edges, Grain and Fade.

If you want a black and white image, then don’t use any of the Fade slide-bar. To get my roses in black, I added Invert Colors.

If you want your roses to have color, then use the Fade slide-bar. I adjusted mine to the middle. Then I added Sharpen and a bit of Vignette for the shadowed borders.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my 3 images in Holga-ish. Don’t forget to choose a favorite application in this series once I’m done. I'm looking forward to reading your comments.

What is Picasa?

Picasa is photo editing, desktop software that runs on Windows and the best part is that it’s for free. Go to download if you want it on your computer and learn more if you want to read a review on it.

Simplicity – 8

How to Make Your Own Coloring Paper:

Today I’m going to share with you how to make coloring paper using your own images. You can do this easily in Picasa 3. Not only is it easy, it’s also for free, except for the ink and paper that you will use to print on. What makes this a cool editing tool is that you can give your child personalized coloring pages. It can be pictures of your son, daughter, grandchild, favorite pet, or a holiday you took together. All you need is a special child in your life, a story in your photograph and the rest is making memories by coloring.

Here’s what you do: click on the Pencil Sketch button in Picasa 3. It will open to reveal three bars, one for Radius, one for Strength and one for Fade. You can adjust any of these three to get the effect that you want. I did not use the Fade bar on my image, as it brings the original color back into the picture. I wanted to keep my photo in black and white.

I wish you lots of fun making your own personalized coloring paper!

If you want to get the free download for Picasa 3 or read a review on it, then go to my post “Being Herself – 3.”

When I’ve completed this series, please let me know which your favorite picture was. You can do the same with my earlier posts. I have a series on “Being Herself” and another one on "Kids with Animals.” Perhaps you have a favorite amongst those as well. I’d love to hear from you.

Being Herself - 4

In this series of “Being Herself,” I have attempted to choose photos that best depict Amanda’s inner soul. In this shot, Amanda is 2 years old. As you can see, she’s making a study of the white roses by plucking the petals and smelling them. In order to create this photoshopped effect, I used Picnik. For this one I used Sharpen, Clarity, Boost, Matte and Text. I also posted another one of Amanda on her blog, a photo that I took of her today, where I used Stickers.

As you probably already know, Picnik will be closing on the 19th of April since Google is the proud new owner of these great editing tools. The cool thing is that Google has generously unlocked their premium features for the non-paying public to also enjoy.

Something you might not know is that the creators of Picnik have a new free on-line photo editing program called PicMonkey. It’s already been highly recommended by people who love Picnik. I’m sure that I will also use PicMonkey in the future. I have given it a try and it’s easy to use. I first heard of PicMonkey through Jonathan at Blogging Your Passion. I also added a review by Yahoo! for those who want to learn more.

Being Herself - 3

As you can see in this photo, Amanda is aware that I’m there when I took the shot. However, she’s not posing for me and that is why I’ve included it in this series. I think one of us put Amanda on Jessica’s Foosball table. Of course, she wouldn’t be allowed to stay there without someone watching.

I used “sharpen” and “Lomo-ish” in Picasa 3. These are photoshop tools found in Picnik. What I like about Lomo-ish is that it makes Amanda look more baby-ish. It’s a really fun photoshop tool. Picasa is desktop software that runs on Windows and the best part is that it’s for free. You can go to download if you want it on your computer and learn more if you want to read a review on it.