Be Funky

Be Funky. Express yourself. Be Funky is a fun and simple way to edit photos creatively. Simply, set up an account, upload photos, and then edit them according to your tastes. I tried it out:

Sorry ladies, he is spoken for

The site doesn't do as much as Photobucket but it does do fun "artsy" stuff to your photos. I don't like how the pictures save with a border. If you don't want the border, just crop it out using some other photo editing program... kinda lame that you have to do that extra step but at least the pictures are fun. Have fun!

Photobucket

Many people are into using sites like Flickr and Shutterfly to share pictures on the web. Those are great sites. Maybe someday I will talk about them more specifically. Today, however, I want to focus on a site that is similar as far as uploading photos go, but awesome-er: Photobucket.

Awesome like the Star Wars rockband (I bet someone used Photobucket to make this picture):


Photobucket lets you upload pictures, store them on their servers, make slide shows, make virtual scrapbooks, and edit pictures. The uploading, storing, and slide show creation are all pretty run-of-the-mill. I like the fact that you can upload multiple pictures at a time, too. Really though, the best features Photobucket has to offer are the photo-editing and the digital scrapbooking.

Photo-Editing: Perhaps the best example of how you can use photo-editing to customize pictures is the logo for the dull bulb. I used Photobucket to change the look, colors, add text, etc. Basically, once you upload a picture to the site, you can click the "edit" button and begin making your pictures awesome-er. Its really easy to use. Just go try it. Setup a photobucket account, upload pictures, and edit one. Get busy making awesome edited photos.

LOOK WHAT I MADE:
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Digital Scrapbooking: This part of the review is from the guest writer Baby G. She says:

"Photobucket has a new feature called Scrapblog. It is basically a really easy way to do digital scrapbooking and it is FREE! The first thing you do is choose a template that you like. There are about 144 to choose from. Each template has anywhere from 1-9 pages. The cool thing is that once you choose a template you can personalize it by deleting, adding, or moving everything you see.

"Let’s start with pictures. You simply click on pictures that you have already uploaded to your Photobucket account and you can add things like frames or borders. There aren’t rigid spaces where you have to put your pictures. You can put them anywhere, at any angel, and at any size you like. Next let’s talk about text. You have the same liberties with the text as you do with pictures. There are lots of fonts to choose from. Next, they have things called stickers. The first time I used Scrapbook I thought I could only use the stickers that went with the template I chose, but that is not correct. When you click stickers there is a button at the top called “Get Stickers.” Once you click that, it takes you to all of the stickers they have for every template. The stickers are the cute little things that are always so expensive when scrapbooking like; borders, cute phrases, pictures, and basically all the decorations you could possibly use to scrapbook.

"If you have made a Scrapblog you want to publish you just click “Order Prints.” You can have a book (soft or hard bound) mailed to you or delivered at Target. I have found Scrapblog to be very useful for my blog as well. You can save one of your scrapbook pages as a .jpeg and use it for a collage of pictures on a post or as a very personalized header."

So there you have it- Photobucket.

Picasa

This is what Google says about Picasa:

• Locate and organize all the photos on your computer.
• Edit and add effects to your photos with a few simple clicks.
• Share your photos with others through email, prints, and on the web: it’s fast, easy and free.

I tried out the software and I think it is pretty decent, especially if you don't have a Mac. Why do I say that? Well, in my opinion, the photo management in Windows really sucks. I have used both Vista and XP to manage photos and I have to say that neither match up to the abilities of Mac's iPhoto(which may be why Google has not produced a Mac version of Picasa, there is just no need). So, Picasa is really good for XP and Vista users because it fills that lack of photo management software void. It is easily just as good as iPhoto. It even has more features.

Compare screenshots I made of Picasa (left) and iPhoto (right):












Features:

Import: Picasa imports all of your existing photos from your hard drive automatically when you first start up. You can then import more pictures from any device (camera, USB drive, etc) using the import button on the top. The neat thing about this feature is that Picasa will automatically organize the photos according to date, into albums. Lets say you went to the park with the family and took a bunch a pictures. You then import those picture into Picasa and it sets them up as an event according to the date (or action of importing in general - for events that span multiple dates) and puts them in an album. You can now see, manage, and edit all the photos you imported. Simple and amazing.

Get Organized: Picasa allows you to organize your photos according to albums. It would be the equivalent of creating a folder for your pictures in explorer but it does it much "easierly" and with a lot more style.

Edit: Picasa also works as a basic photo editor. You can fix red eye, add effects, change contrast, brightness, etc.

E-mail, Blog, Export: Picasa is tied to your Gmail account and you can use it to e-mail photos via email. You can also post photos directly to your blog using the "blog this" feature. Lastly, you can export photos out of Picasa in the same organized way your brought it in.

Collage and Screensavers: Last, but not least, you can make photo arrangements (collages) and screensavers using Picasa. They are easy to make and somewhat fun.

So there you have it. Picasa. Its a great piece of software for XP and Vista. Just make sure that you try it out and really like it before you purchase it. Wait a second.... Its FREE!!
DOWNLOAD IT NOW!