It's strange, but until I started blogging, I never really noticed the beautiful and typically French details surrounding me. Life consisted of Peugeot, boulot, dodo : I only woke up to the beauty around me when I took trips outside of Aveyron, because I was on vacation.
Digital photography freed me up too. It's such a joy to snap away, knowing whatever I don't like can be tossed and what I do can be posted, or at least saved.
I am, however, piling up a lot of photos that I would like to share on this blog, but my photo montage techniques aren't up to snuff. For example, I would have liked to do a quadruple montage of four window photos for this blog, but got frustrated roaming around Flickr and Picasa. For you photography buffs out there, are those good places to do simple photo montage? Or do I need special software or to use some other site?
Any and all advice is appreciated. In the meantime, I like this window on its own too...
15 comments:
Hi,
I use Fireworks for image editing - it's very good. But I don't know what else is on the market - once you get used to a complex package like that you tend to stick to it...
By the way I really enjoy your blog. I found it by chance because I'm hoping (like a lot of Brits!) to move to France one day before my degree in French gets too rusty, and you give a very interesting insight into a less widely-known part of the country.
Cheers
Paul
http://www.jeannot.uklinux.net/
Thanks for the advice, but this program looks pretty expensive and elaborate for what I want to do. I'd just like to do a quad or pair of photos, nothing fancy -- does one really need such a complex tool?
Betty, windows make great photo subjects ! I use Photoshop Elements (the smaller version of Photoshop). I haven't tried flickr or Picasa, so I don't know how well they work. But Photoshop is a good all around photo package that lets you really play with your photos, crop, fix exposure levels, etc. The downside is that you have to buy it - check out FNAC.fr to see if they have any deals. In the meantime, we look forward to more pictures !
Hm, probably not, although there's a lot of options if you're doing a montage: what sort of space do you want between the images, do you want them to blend, etc.
I think Picasa 2 has some sort of "Picture Collage" option. Have you got the latest version?
I do have Picasa 2 and maybe haven't explored it enough. Thanks for all of the advice, anyway. I'll keep digging around, and may end up investing in something...keep the comments coming!
I figured it out. On Picasa 2, you choose the photo montage (perhaps collage in English, although I don't know why...) option, then select the number of photos you want. If I want four, then it will be a quad. Not that difficult, actually. Now if someone could just help me get rid of this horrible header (not the Blogger banner) at the top of this blog...
Beautiful ,Betty-I love to photograph windows and doors.......keep shooting and sharing!
fd's flickr toys are fun. Maybe the Hockneyizer will do what you want?
And what do you mean by the horrible header? The Google/Blogger search thing?
No, not the search line -- I find it useful and since Blogger is hosting my thoughts for free, I don't mind having that. I mean the green banner with "La France Profonde" in it. I don't mind the rest of the template, but would like to customize that part. I mean I know I chose it at the time, but...
To remove the header formatting from your blog:
1. From your Blogger Dashboard, click on the relevant blog "Template" link
2. In the "Edit your Template" box, find the section between
"/* ---( header and site name )--- */"
and
"/* ---( main column )--- */"
3. Delete everything in between! But save it somewhere, in case you want to put it back...
4. Republish your blog.
You will now have a plain header section with no nice formatting or images... this may not be exactly what you want though!
You could experiment with just removing the images (i.e. take out the lines in the abovementioned section which start "background:"
To customize the template properly, you may need to read up on Cascading Stylesheets (CSS) and HTML...
By the way thanks for your post on my site about Tunbridge Wells. I hope your daughter enjoyed her stay - I wonder if there is a school link-up between Kent and Aveyron? I have daughters at school here, so would be curious.
Betty, I see it's snowing in Rodez. Good luck with that ! Did you get my previous comment about the code for your banner ? Blogger was having "issues" when I sent it and I don't see it here, so forgive the repeat, but I can send you code instructions for replacing your banner if you're in Beta Blogger. If you're in old Blogger, there's a forum where folks give instructions for replacing your banner with your own creation.
Take care, wcs.
No, wcs, I did not get those comments. As you can see, I did get some similar comments -- BTW I am not on Beta as Blogger refuses to transfer my accounts, which is another issue...I keep getting invitations to do so and then they are refused. So for the moment comments about Beta would not be relevant, although I hope to get there someday...
The window is beautiful and does deserve a place of its own, I agree.
Thanks for posting the question because the answers are very informative.
I'm being given photoshop elements and, apparently, it's a lot less expensive than the whole package and is easier to use. I think you can have a free trial.
Angela
Thanks for all of the advice. I finally did something much simpler -- changed Blogger models. I see I have to clean up the accents on my sidebar, but I was really sick of that TicTac green header and that is out of here! It feels good to clean things up a little...
Also, I found that with Picasa I could use the simple "montage" function, then choose "mosaic" to put in several photos (see February 10th 2007 for my first try...)
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