pctoolbox.co.uk

Picnik is a brilliant free online photo editing tool and ideal for all users (from novices to pros).  The website has a wide variety of features which can help you make ‘average’ photos look ‘amazing’.

Free features include rotate, crop, flip, re-size, exposure options (including exposure, contrast, highlight, shadow and brightness adjustments), colour options (including saturation and temperature adjustments), sharpening options (including sharpness, radius and strength options) and red-eye adjustments for humans and animals.  All you need to do is register with the site and then you’re ready to start editing!

If you want to use more features you can sign up to their premium package from just $2.08 (£1.30 at time of writing).

A feature explained…

Rotate

1. Select rotate from the features panel (click image to enlarge)
   
2. You can then press left or right to rotate the image anti-clockwise or clockwise respectively (click image to enlarge)
   
3. The image can also be angled by moving the ‘Straighten’ slider adjustment (click image to enlarge)
   
4. Finally, the image can be ‘flipped’ by clicking either of the two buttons to the right of ‘flip’ (click image to enlarge)
   

Want to find out more? Check out picnik.com

You don’t have to have all these snazzy photo programs to print a decent photo on your PC.  Vista have a great tool which is easy to use and comes preinstalled on your machine.  Here’s how to use it…

1. To Start click on the Vista Start Orb and select Pictures
   
2. Click once on the photo you wish to print.  If you wish to print multiple photos hold down ‘CTRL’ on your keyboard whilst clicking on the photos you want to print.  Then click print at the top of the window.  (Click on the image to make it larger)
   
3. A window will then appear.  You will than have a few decisions to make…
   • First of all select your printer, paper size and print quality from the drop down.
   • You can also choose how you wish the photos to be laid out on your paper by browsing the options on the right hand side (please note, if the options aren’t there it is because the paper size you have selected has no options to choose from).
   • If you want to print more than one copy of each picture you can by changing the number in the box.
   • The ‘fit picture to frame’ stretches your photos so they fill up the entire space that you have given to each photo, but beware in some cases an edge of the photo maybe cut off by selecting this option.
   • If you click options you are taken to ‘print preferences’, colour management etc.
     (Click on the image to make it larger)

   

4. When you’re happy with all your choices click print!

Any questions?

Memeo Share is a new Video and Photo Sharing Tool from Memeo themselves.  It enables you to upload the videos and photos for free to share with friends and family all over the world.  They don’t even need to have a Memeo Account to view them!  It’s simple to use and a good way to share your experiences.  All you need to do it download the program, create a Memeo Account and then you’re ready to start sharing.

It is designed so that people, once signed up, will be able to share and download all your photos.  So if you have close family and friends abroad it is an easy way to share them so they can download them as well!  Saves emailing them all!

When we gave Memeo a try we noticed a few problematic areas.  For example, the general photo/video organisation isn’t that great on some screens, so you have to scroll each time to view the whole image.

We would personally prefer to use Google Picasa because of this but it is still a good tool and worth a look if you’re just interested in sharing!

You can really tell when it is Christmas with sites like this appearing! Elf Yourself…the site allows you to upload photos of 4 friends/family or colleagues and position them correctly so they are the face of an Elf and then once you are finished you can watch your friends dance!!   It is quite good fun!  If you are feeling really adventurous then you can add a voice message to your dancing elves too!

Checkout the Brandstar Elf Yourself and have a go!

Have Fun!