Upward | [Digital Photography]

 

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So Here’s Some Cool Train Track Pics I Took For You | [PHOTOS]

Hello and Happy Memorial Day. One thing I love aside from taking pictures at the beach, is taking pictures of train tracks. They entrance and mystify me somehow. I wanted to share them with you. Please feel free to use them and kindly link back to this blog so I can see how you incorporated them into your work.

Enjoy and thank you all for your support and readership!

 

Grey | [Image]

 

Thinking of My Friends [Images]

My brother and I took a little stroll across the street to the beach tonight and I wanted to share these images with you. If your week has been helluh struggle thus far, I want you to have some of this sunshine to stick in your pocket for tomorrow. I hope it helps fight the darkness.

X Chris

 

There’s this photo contest…

…at my job.

And I just wanted everyone here to be able to download/use the images I submitted. Thank you for your support and love.

X Chris

 

Rainy Day Pics for You | [IMAGES]

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

Here’s some lemonade I made for you on this rainy day, with Pixlr. Please feel free to use them in your posts.

Thank you for joining me in my journey.

X Chris

Taken in the parking lot of my church.

These trees line the parking lot of my church.

Taken at a local cemetery.

Not a rainy day pic, I just love this one. Taken in Norwich, CT, USA.

 

We Visited a Butterfly Garden Today [COLLAGE WITH PIXLR EXPRESS]

Hi everyone. I thought these plants and butterflies would brighten your day a little bit. My girlfriend was nice enough to get us tickets so we could go for free – she is a blessing. Just wanted to share the love.

OH! And if you want to do a collage like this for FREE, I used Pixlr, which I posted about last week. This was my first time using the collage feature but it’s so easy a caveman could do it! Check it out, yo.

X Chris

 

Where In The World Are You, Readers? [INTERACTIVE PROJECT]

Hello. I’m Chris.

I live with severe depression and in September of 2014 I unsuccessfully hanged myself – my friends saved me. 

I’m also a history/geography nut.

I’ve seen some pretty interesting locations showing up in the stats portion of surviving the specter, and am interested to know where visitors are viewing from. If you would kindly let me know where you are from and what drew you to the site, I would appreciate your thoughts.

Please feel free to include any other comments or even ideas for future posts.

If you’re interested in being a guest blogger, check out the guest blogging tab and email me your work – I’d love to read what you have.

As always, thank you for taking your time to help with this project and may you find peace through your valley, my friend.

Whether you’re a follower or you just stopped in to see this cool image, would you go ahead and let us know where you live in the Comments section?

Inquiring minds want to know!

 

How To Make Really Cool Edits With Pixlr Express Photo Editor [FREE APP TUTORIAL]

Finished edited image using the free photo editing app, Pixlr Express

I like free stuff.

I’m not talking about free stuff with a coupon. That’s too much hassle.That’s what you call a chore. That’s using-your-finger-to-turn-on-the-TV kind of chore.

I’m talking about free as in a giveaway. Like that Christmas present you get from your mammy. Or a birthday gift you get from your boo.

FREE BABY!!!!!!!! YEAH!

This post is going to show how I use the FREE app, Pixlr to edit images for my blogs, as well as for other social media. There is an android mobile version as well as an iOS mobile version.

And both are free!

If you love adding enhancements to the images on your phone (or desktop) when you’re crunched for time or on the go, this formidable app is the one to use. I swear by it.

For this tutorial, I’m using the desktop/PC version. Both the mobile and desktop version are virtually similar so there won’t be too much of a learning gap if you switch between the two.

Let’s jump right into it! Here’s the steps-

Pixlr Express home screen

1.   First, go to the Pixlr site on your pc/Mac. Here’s where to find it if you’re following along on your workstation – http://pixlr.com/express/

2.   Open the file you want to edit.

♦   You can use the Browse button to open a file from your computer,

♦   The Open URL button to open from a web source, or

♦   The Webcam button to capture an image from your web camera.

♦   There is also a Collage button that I would suggest playing around with.

Pixlr’s 7 main editing modes

3.   Understand the editing modes. Once you’ve opened your image you will see the interface shown above. On the top left there is a Save and Close button and on the top right are a Undo, Redo, Fullscreen button, as well as a Minimize/Maximize button, and Zoom slider.

Pixlr’s editing modes

At the bottom of the screen you will see 7 buttons (shown above). Since this is the meat of the issue, I’m going to provide a little more detail here. If you want to skip this portion, you can still come back and use it as a reference. I’ll be going over the Adjustment, Effect, Borders, and Type menus because I use them the most. This doesn’t mean the other menus don’t provide cool features (they totally do), it’s just I don’t use them as much as the others.

A.  Adjustment Menu. The options I use the most on this menu are the Crop and Focal features. Again, explore the other options and you will probably discover your personal favorites as well.

♦   Crop – You can perform a “free crop” (X:Y) or use the defaults. There is a 1:1 (square) choice, which is good for Instagram pics and your Facebook profile pic. The remaining options are different size rectangles. You can also manually enter a width and height for something such as your Facebook cover photo. Simply punch in the dimensions used in the image below. For this project I didn’t crop at all.

Dimensions for Facebook profile and cover images.

Using the Focal feature in Pixlr Express

♦   Focal – This feature is REALLY neat because it allows you to focus on a certain point in your image and blur everything around it. There is a circular and linear option so your images can have a tunnel vision effect. You can also adjust the intensity of the blur so it looks anywhere from slightly out of focus to “ruined” by smudging. You can see that I chose the circular style. Dragging the outer (dashed) ring adjusts the blurred region, and adjusting the inner ring enlarges/reduces the area that is focused.

Using the Effect feature in Pixlr Express

B.  Effect Menu. This menu allows you to apply a wide array of filters to your image. You will see that there are a series of options ranging from “Creative” to “Vintage”. Each of these sub menus has a series of filters below it so be sure to explore them all.

NOTE: Once you find a filter you like, select the heart icon at the far left to add it to your Favorites. This way you won’t have to dig through endless options to find that one favorite you were looking for. All you have to do is select the Favorites button and all your favorites will come up. If you want to remove an option as a favorite, simply click the heart again and it will be removed.

Using the Vintage menu under the Effect tab in Pixlr Express

My absolute favorite option to bug around with is the Vintage menu. You can see that I used the Favorites option above since all of the choices have a heart next to them. You can’t see it here, but in the picture at the beginning of this post, I applied a couple different filters from this menu. Don’t just experiment with one. Use 2, 3, or even four filters for different looks.

Using the Borders menu in Pixlr Express

C.  Borders Menu. Next I’ll move onto my borders. Some of these have different filters, too – they don’t act strictly as “borders”. Again you can see I’m using my Favorites menu and applied the “Scrap” effect you see below. I also used the “Sand” filter applying it several times after I rotated it in various directions. It gives the edges a “dirty”/worn look. Again, experiment with the different borders. I’ve added some examples below.

Using the Text menu in Pixlr Express

D.  Type Menu. Finally, let’s check out the Type menu. I don’t use this in my photos but wanted to show it to you because it’s pretty neat. You can use this menu to add text but one really neat way I’ve used it is to make a watermark. Especially useful if you don’t want someone to use your images.

Below, I’ve typed “watermark” in the text field and chosen my font (3Dumb). Then I resized it and adjusted the transparency using the “Color” option. Check out the second image to see what the options are.

How to make a watermark in Pixlr Express

4.   Save the edited image. When all is said and done, you can save your image. But first, here’s some pointers I use-

Give your edited image a different name so the original is always preserved.

♦   File name. To preserve the original image, I always add a letter to the end of the file. That way if I don’t like the edits and needed to go back to the original image, it will still be accessible.

Always use the highest quality resolution (100) when you save your images.

♦  Quality. I always ensure the quality is at 100.

Here’s some other images I’ve edited in Pixlr-

Thank you so much for taking your time to read this post, my friend!

Have you experimented in Pixlr? Do you have a pointer for the rest of us? Or maybe you have a favorite app you use? Share with the group in the Comments section so we all can learn!

 

Free To Use Beach Pics [PHOTOGRAPHY]

Feel free to use these images for your posts! Let’s create some community by sharing what we have.

 

A little slice of heaven.

 

Lightning

 

Clouds and Shtuff

 

Sea glass

 

Dunes at Sunset

I really love the fist one. Would be awesome in a sepia tone, too!

 

Lightning

Man, check this out! You can see the bolt forming on the left from the top and the bottom! With a rainbow on the right. Totally cool money shot. Yeah, imma nerd.

Oh yeah, glad I’m not that bird on the wire, smh.

 

Storm Pics

For the lightning pics on the bottom, I recorded a lightning strike with my phone’s video recorder. Then used an app that broke the sequence down by frame. Really happy with the way it came out. They were all taken on my Samsung Galaxy S3 a while back. Newer pics were taken on the Note 3 and 4.

 

Sunsets [IMAGES]

Please feel free to download and use these images.

 

Sunset [IMAGE]

Please feel free to download and use these pics as you like.

 

Beach Pics

I’m starting a new category called “Beach Pics”. I live about 100 yards across the street from here. This has been one of my coping mechanisms. I hope these pics provide at least one person some sunshine and hope. Please feel free to download and use them in your posts/as you wish.