Online Photo! Editor is a free photo manipulation, enhancement and editor. It is a very basic manipulation tool but often that is all you want or need.
Often textile artists take photos to act as jump off point to a design. What they need is a way to trace basic elements of an image so they can work those elements into a pattern.
Although this tool is designed to enhance photos and remove things like red eye I wanted to see if it could be used in other ways.
Although both these photos I used could be traced easily sometimes mucking about with an image on a computer means you see other possible ways of treating the subject matter. This is where these online toys come into their own as often you can see shapes and elements that you would not have seen in the image if you left it alone.
This is a photo I took when we went to China. As you can see the colours are wonderful and it is what caught my eye, but I wanted to see what else could be seen in this design source.
If you use a computer to strip the colour out you see other elements of the design easily such as the swastika element which I had not spotted until I was playing with it. Now I see it its staring me in the face!
Anyway try out Online Photo! Editor as it is free and Pho.to (the people who developed this tool) will host your images so you can share them if you want to.
http://picnik.com/ is great too. It’s built into Flickr now, which is super helpful!
Mmm, that looks interesting!
I agree with you totally about the use of Google Reader etc. I also read a fair few blogs on there and find it much quicker then having to visit each one in turn. I do click through to comment on some still – mostly where I would have done so from a ‘direct hit’ visit, but, naturally, it’s easier not to bother. I think this is really taking off and comments are dying out somewhat mostly ‘cos of that. I don’t suppose it’s of great universal importance, but feedback is nice, isn’t it?
You’re right about how blue that sampler appears! It is only the photo though as it’s actually bright white. I’m having some troubles with camera and screen at the mo as my laptop is dead and the PC main screen (Sir uses 2 at once) does show things up rather blue, so I don’t know how much to correct at times. I’m hoping for a nice camera as my anniversary pressie next Friday, so quality should improve soon. Let’s hope….
That "swastika" element is "Buddha’s Path" – adopted by the Nazis for their mess. It originated in India, but actually is found all over the world in ancient art as a symbol of peace – in native American art also, but the Navajos nixed it when the Nazi’s started using it. I put in on Mary Corbet’s Pelican of Piety, which was a mosaic in an eastern European church – she wanted it there like it was on the original. The needlepoint version of it is on her blog – the one I painted for her. I love it on the Chinese picture!