Tips & Tricks for This Site!

Sync your Digital Picture Frame or iPhone

Rachel — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 19:27:57 +0000

You can sync the photo collections on this site to your internet-enabled digital picture frame! Pictures will display on the frame and the collection will update itself when you add new photos.

To sync your pictures to your frame: sign in (or join) then click the “Feeds” button at the top of the page. Under Current Feeds, copy the RSS link (or create a new one) for the desired collection of photos into your frame’s RSS feeds section. Functions and menus vary between frame models, but you will want to find where you can enter a custom RSS feed. The frame must be online to show pictures.

iPhone users can download the free Pocket Pics app from iTunes then enter the Pockets Pics ID from the same page into the app. Photos from that collection will be shown immediately and will update as that collection is updated online.

Sync your Collections

Order as you view…Ordering online prints just got easier!

Rachel — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:53:23 +0000

As you view your collection, you can use the – and + buttons above the scroll bar to enlarge the images. Or, roll over any of the thumbnails and click the button that says “View.”

Click View

Then you will be taken to a screen where you can view images one at a time, and order prints simply by clicking on the preferred size in the right hand margin.

Viewing images larger

With digital cameras, you likely end up snapping multiple pictures of the same scene to make sure you got the best shot…so you end up with a lot of similar pictures that can be hard to tell apart. If this single photo view isn’t big enough, click the “View Full Screen” button, and get a close look!

View Full Screen

(Note, sizes shown will vary by retailer.)

The wonders of the “Orton-ish” effect

Rachel — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:51:28 +0000

Orton-ish is a great Picnik effect that gives your photo a smooth and dreamy look. This effect mimics an effect named for Michael Orton…which involves a lot of over exposing, stepping up, overlaying and focus specifics. Basically, the result is a saturated glowyness. Click on Edit Photo in the enlarged photo page to use the Picnik editing tools and filters.

Setting to know: Bloom controls the glow, brightness the saturation and fade how much you want it to blend into your original photo. Looks good combined with the Focal Zoom effect too.

Orton-ish filter + text

Orton-ish filter

Cropping a photo

Rachel — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:48:13 +0000

To crop a photo:

Roll over the image and click the View button to view it larger.
Click Edit Photo, just above the photo, to use the Picnik site tools.
When the photo loads, click the Crop button under the Edit tab.
Use your mouse to drag the corners or sides of the box to the desired crop. To rotate the crop zone from horizontal to vertical, for example, adjust the corners of the box in or up and the crop zone will automatically switch to vertical.

Cropping a photo

Tips:

The crop zone should match the print size you are ordering, so that more or less of the photo is cropped than desired. Use the dropdown menu to choose your print size and this will set the crop guides to match so that the photo will fill the paper and you won’t have white bars at the top or bottom.
Save a new copy! You may like to go back to your original at some point, so to be safe, save a new copy once you crop, or make other edits.

Sync photos to your iPhone with the Pocket Pics app

Rachel — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:36:38 +0000

With the Pocket Pics iPhone app, you can now sync your collections to your iPhone or iPod Touch in a snap. Subscribe to your own photo feeds or keep up to date with friends and subscribe to theirs. Any time new pictures are added to the collections, they’ll automatically show up on the phone! Create an account, upload photos and create a feed to them on the Feeds page. Type the code in the app, and you’ll start to see your photos right away!

Demo video of the app in action:

Pocket Pics lets you:

Subscribe to online Pocket Pics-compatible photo feeds generated on this
View shared photos directly on the iPhone (or iPod Touch)
Keep track of which photos have been viewed and which are new
Share photo collections via email
Save photos to the phone’s library

This app is now available on the iTunes store or via the link from the Feeds page (sign in to see the Feeds page). Stay tuned for updates and more features for the Pocket Pics app!

Try the mod “Holga-ish” filter

Rachel — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:17:01 +0000

View your photos larger, then click Edit Photo to go to Picnik. Under the Create/Effects tab, you’ll find this filter called Holga-ish. It turns your photo a contrasty black and white.

Photo as Original and with Picnik's Holga-ish Filter

But what is Holga? The ? button tells me: “Plastic cam quality without the plastic cam! Holga-ish mimics the wondrous Holga camera when using the sublime combination of black and white film and a red filter.”

Turns out, it’s a flawed 120mm toy camera from the 80s that makes kind of artsy vignetted photos, has a bit of a cult following today and also has caught on in the digital world too, with the use of lenses and also applied filters, in Photoshop and, here in Picnik.

Holga Sweethearts

For truer Holga look, I should have cropped the photo square first, then applied the filter. But with the text (font face is “Bleeding Cowboys”) (Yikes), and some sticker hearts…I think it came our pretty good!

Some Holga sites..galleries, guides, etc.

http://www.davidniles.com/holga/gallery.html

http://www.theverb.com/holga/camera_links.htm

http://www.holgablog.com/2009/04/09/the-massive-guide-to-all-holga-cameras/