Thing #6, finding something fun to play with in the go2web2.0 toybox

If you have figured out anything by reading this blog, you have probably discovered that I love pictures, whether they are photos that convey deep meaning, or are simply catching people and animals at their goofiest.

Because to me, a picture has so much to say. Although I am language oriented, I find that pictures can express so much. I think that creative photos have the potential to evoke creative thinking in students.
 So it probably comes to no surprise that I was seeking out some nifty photo editing tools. I sorted through a few because some had limited capabilities. Some had too many ads intermingled among the procedural buttons. I tried pixlr and found that it did not have too many cool effects. I found that picnik was gone, as was slide.com. I played a bit with loonapix, which places your picture within another picture, among other things. The TV above is the product of loonapix.I could impose my image on their stock images, cut and impose heads on bodies, add frames, and crop my photos in different shapes.  It was fun,  but I felt limited with this tool because I was looking for more special effects. 

What I really wanted was a photo editor that could take my already warped collection of photos and add some special effects. I ended up  choosing fotoflexer. I had used this tool years ago on my photobucket account. I like fotoflexer because there is not an overwhelming amount of ads. Also, having no software to download is always a plus, but that is true about most web 2.0 tools. Fotoflexer can also take photos from other sites, Facebook, myspace, flickr, picasa web albums, and photobucket. If you don't want to register with fotoflexer, you can upload from your own computer or memory media. 

What I dislike about fotoflexer is that it is very slow! Saving, editing, converting and reverting took forever at times. Shockwave crashed a few times too. I tend to work with high resolution photos, so I think that may add to my impatience. 

My photo of Eleanor "Bayo" Snippes and her friend Captain Jack Sparrow has been modified in many ways. I like to play with special effects.I'm not sure whether these effects make particular creative statements, but they are good for decorating blogs. 

I would probably use a combination of  loonapix and fotoflexer to because there were aspects of each that I enjoyed using. And I will probably keep looking for more of these type tools to play with. And I will keep looking for the opportune Kodak moment!