www.picnik.com FREE version…a {sort-of TUTORIAL} picnik-in-pictures.

My camera is a little $69.99 Kodak EasyShare C183.  Shocking, I know.  I was actually surprised it even had an official “name.”  And this from  a girl whose mama was a professional horse photographer.  Tsk.

I mean, I am a Nonna!  I NEED to get a great camera.  It is a 14 megapixel and if you use it in bright, filtered light, it is pretty darn ok.  Like this quick shot a couple of days ago {completely untouched}:

But then sometimes I snap one and it is just {blah} or doesn’t actually capture the true feel, what I am really seeing.  The flash either goes off and I didn’t want it to or doesn’t go off and I did.  Or the lighting behind might be too bright to support the actual subject or whatever.  For whatever reason, I decide to have a little artistic fun.  So just because, here are some things I might do using Picnik.com on this digital photograph.

Original shot on Wednesday:

You can see the slight sign, under Gemma’s left eye, of her recent Big Wheel “accident.”  A little collision with a truck bumper.  Speed has its pitfalls.  In this shot, one of 5 or 6 I took in quick succession, the flash did not go off due to the very bright sunlight streaming in and filling the space to her left side and behind her.  It kinda washed out the color.   Fairly blah, which is NOT representative of what I was seeing with my little cutie-patootie!  It is ok, totally fine and pretty in its’ own way.  But Gemma is color!  What did I really see?

Just for fun…

Increased exposure to 20, then increased contrast to 20, too on the edit setting

Doodle feature on the create tab – you can make squiggles and arrows and write words, and the “goofy” feature and the posterize feature in the second image.  I used the goofy tool to make her have those oversized 1960s art eyes.

Left is Holga-ish on the default settings, on the right is Holga-ish left on default for the blur and the grain, but then I faded it 75%

Boost is big.  Boost is fun for a color-junkie like myself.  If a little color is good, a lot is better, right?  Well, no, not always.  Here is a look at Boost.  Left to right ::  Boost at 50%; Boost at 20%; and Boost at 15% + Lomoish faded to 80.

Black and white, just the default.  You can increase or decrease the contrast to make it “more” black and white if you want.  Then I just did the black and white default, but faded it to 50%, which starts adding a little of the color back in.

Remember the olden days when we all bought those Olin Mills packages and thought we were getting super high quality photographs because of those amazing faded borders or the black smokey looking trim around the photo?  Well, you can do it yourself.  Be careful.  It can by utterly hokey.  Use sparingly.  And if I actually am using it, I reduce the “size” of it and fade it out.  These are just so you can see what you can do with “matte” (size 50, strength 10)  and “vignette” (default shown here).

The Cross Process is pretty fun and just goes with autumn, I think, because the yellow light looks like the long, golden light of fall.  I show the default setting for the Cross Process on the left and at a 50% fade on the right.

How about a traditional sepia tone?  You can actually adjust the color tone of sepia you want and like the black and white feature, you may fade it and it begins adding in back color, which is pretty and dreamy and gives everything a vintage, romantic look.  This is the sepia faded to 50%.  On the right?  A good, old-fashioned, rounded-corner 1960s treatment.

Here is a treatment called Orton-ish, faded to 50.  It sort of softens and intensifies your subject.  And then Cinemascope (except that I removed the letterbox feature).  I like the graininess of of it.

HDR-ish is fun and though this is just the deafult, you can increase it until it almost just looks like a drawing.  On the right is Lomo-ish faded to 50.  It softens and brightens.

So, my first shot was, sorta blah.  Not properly lit, cheap camera.  But what I was really seeing in my mind’s eye??  THIS ::

Yes.  Bright, lovely.  Words and happy stickers!

And on that note ::

There are so many fun things you can do.  Someday, when I actually have time, I will pay for the version where you can add a hundred photos at once.  With the free, you can only upload 5 at a time and only use certain features, but that is all I have time for right now, anyway.  Try it!  It is fast and easy!  SUPER fun!!

I call it photoshop for dummies because even I can use it.