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

Cape Town - Part 5

Another visit to Cape Town gave us an opportunity to visit Charly's Bakery for the very first time. We'd seen a few episodes of the family-run business on television and I was keen to see and taste for myself. Our two eldest daughters were having their ballet lessons, so it was just Hubby, Amanda and me.

We found that we had to fend for ourselves once inside. It was one of those places where you have to learn your way around on your own while customers are pressing against each other. You also have to find your own table outside, if there is one available, and you can't order from the table.

The prices were high, so Hubby and I decided to share a slice of lemon meringue pie and Amanda was allowed one item of choice only. Our lemon meringue was superbly delicious, but Amanda didn't finish her small square chocolate cake. I tasted it to see why she didn't like it. It was a bitter semi-dry chocolate cake with a layer of marzipan under the chocolate ganache topping. Amanda actually eats dark chocolate and likes it, but this cake was not very kid friendly.

Click on the images to view them larger. It's totally worth it.

Amanda tasting her chocolate square

Our shared slice of lemon meringue

Small cup-cake mosaic on the
outside wall of the bakery

Small heart mosaic on the
outside wall of the bakery

Painting of Nelson Mandela
on a building opposite
the bakery

Center of Cape Town

Related posts:

Cape Town - Part 1 

Fast Food

Cape Town - Part 2 

Ballet and Garden

Cape Town - Part 3 

High Tea at Mount Nelson

Cape Town - Part 4 

Company's Garden

Cape Town - Part 3

Here's another fun thing we did with Amanda on a morning that her sisters were at ballet. It's something I had been wanting to do for a very long time. We went for high tea at the Mount Nelson. It was a fabulous experience. The hotel was as grand as its name, but I didn't take any photos inside, except for the galaxy themed passage that was near our outside table. The gardens had beautiful flowers, interesting statues, a large fountain and even larger trees. Click on the images to view them larger.

Entrance to the Mount Nelson Hotel
with the Cape Ballet Centre
in the church next door

Amanda took this picture
with my camera. I only
had to straighten it.

Amanda in the galaxy themed passage.

Amanda's many faces.

She ordered coffee. Unfortunately,
it was too bitter for her.

Hubby took this photo of us.

Amanda took this photo of us.

Another photo by Hubby.
Our high tea treats.

Related posts:

Cape Town - Part 1

Fast food in Cape Town

Cape Town - Part 2

The Cape Ballet Centre

and

The Company Gardens

Cut Flowers - 10

The roses and lavender are from my garden. I took lots of pictures of them, trying different backgrounds and focusing on different aspects of them. Do you see the wire bicycle? We bought that from kids on the side of the road in Zambia.

My favorite part about the roses was the darker shades of pink on the outer petals. I've done a series on them named after the type of rose they are, Simplicity. The Simplicity series gives tips on using a variety of photo editing tools.

Cut Flowers – 6

Roses and Irises

One thing these photos have in common is that I used a flash. My advice when using a flash is to be aware of what effect you are wanting and to try different things. Often people will tell you to make sure the flash is off when you’re taking a photo. This is because it tends to wash out the natural colors in the image, especially when taking pictures of people up close. However, it can also create an interesting effect as in these three pictures of flowers. Another good use for flash photography is when there are unwanted shadows on your subject. By using the flash, you can eliminate those shadows. But, if your subject is near a flat surface like a wall, then you can end up casting shadows, which doesn’t usually look nice.

Cut Flowers - 3

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

Cut Flowers - 2

Bouganvilla from my garden.

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.