Tech Table Wednesday, May 14, 2014
May 14, 2014
Justin: Welcome to MPA’s Tech Table. I’m Justin.
Diana: And I’m Diana.
Justin: And we’re your hosts. We’ll be serving up a heaping spoonful of all things tech.
Diana: We promise it’ll be easy to digest.
Justin: It is Wednesday.
Diana: Yes, it is Wednesday. Happy Wednesday!
Justin: Happy Wednesday! It is Web Wednesday here on Tech Table, where we talk about a website, web topic, and today you want to talk about PicMonkey.
Diana: Yeah, PicMonkey.
Justin: This is like photo, as in picture.
Diana: Yeah, it’s photo editing. “Photo editing made of win,” is their slogan on their website. And I found PicMonkey, actually, through one of my social media gurus that I talk to regularly. She actually suggested this for when we’re making a meme, if you’re familiar with a meme, just like an image on the Internet that people share, oftentimes. Sometimes there’s text on it or, you know, alterations to it, but you can do so much with PicMonkey. I went over there one day and I said, I’m going to try this out. I have literally never done photo editing before.
Justin: That’s true.
Diana: Okay, I always think that’s really cool but I’ve never really done it.
Justin: Right.
Diana: So, never used Photoshop, never used InDesign, anything like that. So, I went to PicMonkey. I was a little scared but I thought, I’m just going to try making a simple graphic.
Justin: Yeah.
Diana: And what I did was I just kind of did a simple web search, and found clip art, for lack of a better term, of a speech bubble. And I uploaded it to PicMonkey, and then I wanted to put a Q on it, just the letter Q. And so, I went into the PicMonkey file that I’d uploaded of the speech bubble, and I selected text right on the little menu bar.
Justin: Sure.
Diana: And up popped a little bubble on the speech bubble. It says, “Enter Text Here.” I entered the text. I was able to modify the text to be whatever font I wanted in their program, the color. I could make the size different, the shape. I could, you know, rotate it diagonally, or flip it around, or mirror it.
Justin: Sure.
Diana: I could mirror the image. I could change the color of the image. Suddenly, I felt like a designer.
Justin: Yeah, it’s pretty cool, and some people like doing that. Now, does it work in coordination with certain applications? Is this something that works with Instagram?
Diana: Not currently. Not currently. This is all just web browser based, website based, that you just go in and upload. You can upload your own picture, whether it be a photo from your phone or from your computer.
Justin: But once you save the image and you create it, then you could put it in Instagram.
Diana: Yeah, absolutely you could. Yes, yes. But as far as I know, there’s not a partnership, per se.
Justin: Right, it doesn’t work inside of the program.
Diana: Right. So, here’s just kind of a quick rundown of some of the things you can do with it. Like I said, you can kind of create these little graphics if you want or you can take an existing photo, let’s say you took a photo of a flower and it’s just a little bit blurry. You can go in, upload that, and you can modify how it looks.
Justin: Oh, wow.
Diana: You can add sparkles or whatever, kind of Instagram-y, and you can fix red-eye in photos of people, over-exposure. If you have a thumb in the corner, like I sometimes do with my iPhone.
Justin: Or, like you always tease me, I always have a thumb.
Diana: Yes, or a finger. You can get rid of that in just a few clicks. You can add drama with different kinds of filters with your camera looks, focal effects.
Justin: I don’t think most people need more drama on their Facebook.
Diana: Yeah, that’s possible. But basically, it’s a free photo editor that works in your browser, nothing to download or install.
Justin: Cool!
Diana: Fix photos, add filters and text, touch up facial features, create outstanding graphics, and they say it’s, “ridiculously easy, staggeringly gorgeous.”
Justin: Well, there you go.
Diana: And I agree. PicMonkey: PicMonkey.com.
Justin: Well, that’s a great find, Diana.
Diana: Oh, I love it. It’s really fun.
Justin: Thanks for sharing with us.
Diana: Yeah.
Justin: Until next time.
Diana: Take care.
Justin: Tech Table is brought to you by MPA of Bloomfield, Iowa, and God’s Country Radio. You can visit us online at AskMPA.com.
Diana: If you have questions or comments, please send them to questions@askmpa.com. That’s questions@askmpa.com.
Justin: And thanks for listening.
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