If your photos are already on the web and you want a good free way to tweak them, then I suggest you try out Picnik. This latest RIA takes advantage of the Adobe Flex and Flash technology and it can edit photos directly from Facebook, MySpace, Picassa, Photobucket, Flickr and many more. You can also upload your own photo or copy from the web.

It provides some basic image manipulation as well advanced imaging effects seen mostly in sophisticated image processing systems. You can also add text and other graphic art to your images and share them back to your family and friends on all supported web services.

For a small fee, you can also take advantage of some of the advanced premium features like color curve or image levels manipulation. Its built in uploader is fast and can upload up to a 100 images at once. I leave the rest of the features for you to try yourself and share your experiences below.

Note: All the screen shots are taken in the newly released Google Chrome browser.

Christchurch's Tom Tower appears to loom over Cornmarket, Oxford. (Picnik's Orton-ish effect; 300 mm zoom setting.)

And it's only $135 (and free shipping)!

Of course, I don't know how it will look on me until I try it on (which means I need to order it first); but it has all the necessities for my dress: halter top, not too full, simple yet elegant! I shared the link to the dress with my Mom and she loves it too and feels I should order it as well. I just need to decide what color sash to order but in order to do that, Greg needs to find a shirt to wear.

...

Now, onto the weekend - so far!

Saturday was lazy and boring; did some shopping at Target and then the grocery store. Oh, and we had lunch at Chick-fil-a. Oh, and on Saturday morning, Greg's brother called to inform us that everyone is getting together at Mom's (his Mom) as a farewell party because Pat is driving to Texas Tuesday morning (where he begins his 41 weeks of training). Greg doesn't mention our plans about PA Parks. So, when Greg hangs up the phone with his brother... well, family before parks. I was bummed out.

But, there is some good news! There was a check from the local utility company in the mail for me!! It was for $200 and Greg received a separate check, also for $200, from his work because they miscalculated his bonus last month (so, its as if we received three bonus this weekend). W00t! Money for Philadelphia IF we were going.

So, my Saturday night was spent on-line chatting on the message boards, playing with Picnik, and looking at wedding dresses. So exciting.

Sunday started out lazy as well. Did more laundry, napped, cleaned the kitchen, and putted around. At 2pm we left for Michele's party.

The party was nice, except for getting eaten alive by the mosquitoes. We met some of Michele's fiance, D, extended family (ex-inlaws - long story) and some of D's co-workers. The highlight of the party would have to be when the pig was dropped! Greg didn't get a picture of that because he, along with everyone else, was laughing too hard and Amelia kept asking "what happened?". But, there were pictures taken (duh):

Unfortunately, Greg wasn't feeling all that well and we headed home a few hours after we arrived. I did taste the pig and it was pretty damn good! I only ate the meat as I was too afraid to try the skin... because... I know I would have gagged had I tried it; thinking about it now is making my stomach iffy. It's too... un-nerving to know that I am eating the skin of an animal... nope, can't do that. And yes, I even get squeamish when I eat fried chicken (which I rarely do for that reason).

Anyway, moving on...

So, we were home by 6pm. Baked a pizza, played around with Amelia, did more laundry (and it was for Greg - he has more clothes to wash than Amelia and me combined!), and just putted around the interweb and laptop.

Then, Greg receives a phone call from his Mom. We don't know what the plans are for tomorrow, meaning when Pat is going to return from OC (where he is attending a bachelor party) - so, with that news we're going to PA tomorrow morning! Yay! I'm excited. And, I should be going to bed... but instead I am here... and texting.

Nothing else to report for the day. I'm so uber excited about going to the park tomorrow... I'm excited about exploring a new area and the beautiful photo ops! I just wish I had my new camera! Oh well, get to practice with Greg's!

Ok so the first pic is of my turtle, Squiggly. And the second is my recreation of the ladybug pic on the picnik homepage. I took that picture of a firefly and made it look like the ladybug pic!

I'm like totally addicted to Picnik!! lmao. I love it.

By the way, I found this FANTASTIC a'cappella singer on youtube. Her name is Maria and she sings her own covers of popular songs. Take a listen!

So ANYWAY, long story short, I have shorter hair than I thought I would, it's pretty much ok now, yesterday it seemed worse but after a shower and sleeping on it, it pretty much went back to normal, just a bit shorter lmao.

So here's a little quick graphic I made showing my haircut:

Now as you may notice, my hair is lighter in the 'After' image. This is because my hair is much lighter on the bottom, closer to the roots, than it is toward the top. So when I got my hair got, the first thing my mom said when she saw it was "Omg your hair is so much lighter!!!" Lmao. She never knew I had that much lighter hair. I love my hair color because depending on how I comb it, how short or long it is, and how the light hits it, it can change color. I get that from my dad who had the exact same hair type and color as I did when he was younger. So yea, my hair can range from various shades of jet black, to chocolate brown, to chestnut brown, to golden brown. However my hair also has its days when it has plain ashy brown but it's still good lol.

So yea.

Ok second topic, Picnik! I must've been living under a rock or something but Picnik is this great website where you can edit pictures right in your browser. It has great effects, clip-arts, shapes, and text tools that you can use to edit your pictures and it's all for free! I found out about it because two of my friends on facebook have Picnik albums full of fantastically edited photos.

So I immediately signed up, it only takes moments to enter a username, password, and your email address.

So take a look at this:

Above is a picture I took of a huge sunflower outside my house.

And below is the same picture, edited with Picnik:

\

Pretty cool huh?

I love it! So yea, go head over to www.picnik.com and sign up! You won't regret it :). Or if you already knew about it, then, good for you lmao.

----------------

Okay, I had saved this post as a draft earlier and then went out and bought some last minute school stuff. I got a string bag/sack pack/those book bags with strings instead of straps lol. And some pens and pencils etc. Anyway, as I was in the car, listening to Z100, they played two flashback songs, Britney Spears - Baby One More Time and Backstreet Boys - I Want It That Way. So that was just interesting to hear some of that old stuff again. Btw, I feel really bad for Britney because she was so popular back then, she was pretty, she had talent, I mean, she was THE star for a long time. And now everything in her life is really messed up. No matter how it happened, or even if it is her own fault, it's just a shame to see such a pop superstar like her hit rock bottom. *sigh* Well that's my two cents.

And lastly, I know this is old news, but I never blogged about it before. I'm sure you've heard Chris Brown's ad for Doublemint Gum. It was a genius idea since it starts off just like 'Forever' so it makes you listen and catches your ear and then all of a sudden your like..huh? did he just say doublemint? And since most people already like the song and have it stuck in their heads, the ad gets stuck in their heads too.

Now, they sure must've paid A LOT of money for that ad. First they have to pay to get Chris Brown AT ALL. So thats one thing. Then is paying him to SING the advertisement. Ok two things. And they have to pay to use the first few lines of 'Forever' since the song is copyrighted. Three. Ok so that takes care of the RADIO ad. But there is also a commercial so they have to pay for him to appear and use his face in the commercial! That's definitely a lot of money.

Here's the full radio ad:

And here's the shorter TV commercial:

5+ Faves Collage, originally uploaded by William WM.

]]> http://zadoo.wordpress.com/?p=472 Sun, 24 Aug 2008 20:14:50 +0000 zadoo http://zadoo.wordpress.com/?p=472

Durante le vacanze estive generalmente si scattano molte foto, una volta a casa però quasi sempre ci accorgiamo che alcune non sono venute bene. Lasciarle così sarebbe un peccato, vediamo allora come migliorare la qualità delle nostre foto in maniera semplice e veloce. Non avrete bisogno di alcun programma di fotoritocco come Photoshop, nè tanto meno imparare ad usare funzioni particolari, quello che vi presento oggi è un servizio di photo editing online. Picnik è un servizio Web 2.0 che permette di visualizzare, ritagliare, ridimensionare, ruotare, correggere e modificare fotografie e altre immagini con un semplice click. Grazie ad una potente interfaccia basata su Flash, completamente tradotta in italiano, risulta semplice da usare anche a chi non ha la minima esperienza nel campo del fotoritocco.  Di seguito potete osservare i risultati che sono riscito ad ottenere, a partire da due mie foto, semplicemente utilizando le funzioni base di Picnik.

Oltre a permettere l'upload di foto presenti sul nostro computer, Picnik può caricare anche le foto già disponibili su qualsiasi account Flickr, Facebook, Picasa Web Albums, Photobucket, Myspace, etc. A differenza di altri servizi simili che forniscono solamente strumenti basilari di fotoritocco, Picnik invece mette a disposizione tutta una serie di tool avanzati di solito presenti in software professionali (non aspettatevi modifiche alla Photoshop però). Alcuni di quest'ultimi sono disponibili solo nella versione Premium del servizio, che costa 24.95 dollari all'anno, tuttavia Picnik può essere usato anche in maniera gratuita senza alcun obbligo di creare un account. Lo reputo un ottimo servizio che vi consiglio assolutamente di provare.

Hello friends! I am playing with this theme as I design and create some fun stuff!

One that I really like is Picnik. It's a photo-editing site. It's free and you don't have to download anything to use it. That's one reason I like it so much. I have a couple other ways to edit photos on my computer, but I think they are more difficult to get to if I'm working on my blog. If you keep the Picnik page open, you can just download one of your pictures, edit it, and--wham--it's ready to add it to your post.

It's all pretty intuitive too. I think anyone who works with photos and artwork would like it; probably you scrap-boogers--I mean scrap-bookers (and you know who you are) would like it because it's really easy to change the sizes of photos and crop them. What I really like is being able to easily--and yes, it's easy--to overlay text on a photo. There are lots of special effects features as well.

I've used it on most of the pics I've added in my blog, including all of the flower photos in the blog below. I did my banner at the top with it, from the little picture that's under it on the left. I started first with the old Dorrance postcard, which you can see in one of my first posts, Fishing on the Flooded Smoky River.

I'm hoping I run into other sites that are easy to use for non-techie people like me.

Moorland near Linhope Spout

PP in Picnik > Curves > Tri-X

1/60 s | f/7.1 | ISO 100 | 18 mm

Blossoms (Redux), originally uploaded by William WM.

]]> http://robertg69.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/hdr-and-hdr-plus/ Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:33:21 +0000 BobG in Vancouver http://robertg69.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/hdr-and-hdr-plus/ Image via Wikipedia

Another summer house

Originally uploaded by Kaj Bjurman

Yes it's a pretty picture and the HDR effect seems more notional to me.

So I decided to use Picnik to see what effect that could be developed with more color saturation and more pronounced HDRing.

The Picniked effect offers a better visual IMHO.

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A Splash of Color, originally uploaded by William WM.

]]> http://blog.wolffmyren.com/2008/08/07/mish-mash-picnik-party/ Thu, 07 Aug 2008 22:53:40 +0000 willwm http://blog.wolffmyren.com/2008/08/07/mish-mash-picnik-party/

Mish-Mash Picnik Party, originally uploaded by William WM.

]]> http://robertg69.wordpress.com/?p=1282 Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:12:28 +0000 BobG in Vancouver http://robertg69.wordpress.com/?p=1282 Image via Wikipedia

I like to play around with photo images to re-render them into interesting visual effects. Sometimes these effects take on in my eye the look and feel of an art object because of the blending of material form, lighting and teased out colors.

Here's a charming photo borrowed from Flickr

Now here is the visual effect I produced using Picnik

I prefer the visual combination of form, light and color in the latter digitized image.

Coffee Cup (Redux), originally uploaded by William WM.

]]> http://bionikmonkee.wordpress.com/?p=201 Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:59:47 +0000 bionikmonkee http://bionikmonkee.wordpress.com/?p=201 As well as Photofunia (see post from July 31st below) you can also use Dumpr and Picnik to upload your images and edit them. Useful for adding to MySpace profiles, blogs etc... Dumpr is more like Photofunia with different scenes for your image to be placed into whereas Picnik is more of a straight image-editing tool but you can add frames etc...

Here is an example that I created using Dumper.

Rubiks Cube

The image below was copied from flirkr.

I did a little tweaking with Picnik and kind of like this result ↓↓

And then there is this view with Inukshuk and water in the foreground after re-rendering

National Trust property in Derbyshire kept in a state of managed decline

PP in this picture chiefly due to Picnik > Curves > cross process red

Last Friday's picture further processed in Picnik - using focal zoom and Tri-X in Curves