Thing 9 Taking and Editing Photos

Line Camera: This does not seem to appear in the app store. Has it gone away? Today's date is January 30, 2014. Maybe I'll come back later and see whether it mysteriously reappears.

For now, however, I'll move on to Photo Editor by Aviary. This is a fun little tool that I suspect I'll be spending too much time playing with. As I've been saying with most of the apps, this one is really easy to use in a variety of ways. In fact, it's one of the easiest, and, for the money, one of the best. And as has been mentioned, it could be an effective marketing tool for the library.



This photo used a variety of editing tools: cropping, sharpness, contrast, color saturation, distortion,framing, and high definition, and probably a couple more that I missed. Unfortunately, the printer did not capture some of the subtlety of the actual print--something to keep in mind.

Here is another sample of a book cover altered somewhat. This editing is done through Photo Editor and has endless possibilities for marketing books.

And a final sample using Photo Editor with a willing victim . . . Taking and posting photos (and giving them away to the "victims" are related ways to build goodwill and a positive attitude toward the library--so long as your photo subjects are willing and not embarrassed by the results.

ColorSplurge: Having enjoyed Photo Editor by Aviary, I decided to go on to ColorSplurge by first watching the tutorial video, which demonstrated how a background can be in color while the subject is in black and white and vice versa for dramatic effects. The narrator pointed out that you can use a postcard feature, which is a nice plus, and that you'll obtain better results if you take your time in using the color tools.

My results: I enjoyed using ColorSplurge, but was annoyed by the constant requests for product upgrades or related products. Pop-up windows for advertisements were a headache. I also couldn't figure out how to save the results to transfer them into PhotoEditor, so I emailed the colored photo to myself and then added it to this site. Here is the result of just coloring the people and leaving the background in black and white:

While I just focused on their faces, I could have used another color and colored in their clothes. The the app is versatile and fun to use--although, as one reviewer pointed out, it does have a habit of crashing.