Facebook Photo-Editing Tips

Recently, I've been having great fun with a relatively new facebook feature, Photo-Editing. This feature compensates for the fact that they haven't offered me any new post backgrounds for much too long. Actually, that's why I decided to try clicking the cute little brush I had been noticing in the lower right hand corner of pictures when being up or is it downloaded to my page.

I hope these photos make it clear. If you have questions, don't be shy. Ask me. I read and reply to comments.

Yes, besides editing, you can tag people.

As you can see, there's a very complete menu to choose from.

Choose the color you want, by clicking in the right spot. It can be changed if you don't like it. You can also choose fonts by clicking where it says Arial.

In this mode, you can move, shrink or enlarge the box that has your text..

Don't be afraid to experiment.

PS The photos illustrating this aren't very clear/sharp, because I used my old camera. The phone was charging too far away.

New Mind-Boggling Photo-Editing Technique

It's hard to believe that just a few years ago, I barely knew more than cropping as a my repertoire of photo-editing. Now, besides "lightening," sharpening, turning the photo into black and white, etc. I've discovered that you can change its shape.

I thought people in 52Frames were kidding when they said that I could change the perspective of a picture. I could make a distorted one into a perfect square or rectangle. Someone told me that I could do it with Snapseed, an app I have on my phone for editing. They were right. I did fix the photo with the Perspective Tool.

I'll show you what I mean with a photo that was really distorted. I turned this one...

into... this.  Until I did it, I  couldn't believe such a thing could be done.

It's like magic. Isn't it?

Fun Phone Photos

Last night on the Jerusalem lightrail I took this picture. I'm not quite sure what the app is, but it seems to be connected to facebook, photo "story." Everytime I use it it gives me different options. This is a sort of kaleidoscope view of the cabin in the train where the driver/engineer sits. IMHO, it's great. I was "focusing" on the trilingual plus icons sign asking passengers in the front seats to be quiet, since noise/talking disturbs the driver.

This morning I had taken too many pictures of the morning sky for my #morningcoffeehaiku. So, I decided to take the least interesting one and use one of the "effects" of that "story" app.

When I clicked it, I hadn't the vaguest idea what would happen. This is it!  I just couldn't resist adding the "Good morning, בוקר טוב" to it.

What do you think?

Disagreements Re:My Last two 52Frames Shots

This week, as Sunday, which is the deadline, was the last of 2017, the 53rd Sunday of the year, a very unusual occurrence, 52Frame's challenge was "Endings."

For me it was clear that I'd have to photograph our local Shiloh Cemetery. I managed to get down there just as the sun was beginning to set. I had the end of the day and the end of lives all in one package. 

I've been using my smartphone, the Samsung J7 as a camera. It really is better than the cheap camera I bought a few years ago. First I photographed it in black and white, but it looked too stark and cold. Then I tried the sepia, which gave it the warmth and character I had envisioned. The cloudy winter sky added the perfect dose of sadness.

When I consulted with member of a "subgroup" from 52Frames, I was told that the sepia was too yellow. I toned it down and added the vignette, hoping it wouldn't be too kitschy. I, davka, like the look it produced, a bit more sorrow, looking into a tunnel of sad memories, which really is the case. This is a community cemetery and I really did know almost everyone buried in it. There are so many stories...

"Cemetery Sunset"
Sad as I knew most of the people buried here. Their ends came much too soon. 

So far, there have been a nice amount of comments. Most people like the basic photo including the light sepia, while there's a split in opinion about the vignette effect.  What do you think? And why?

The previous week's photo, Black and White Minimalism, also had people either liking or hating one of the elements.

"Window Up High"

I took it in my daughter's house on a wintery day. Even though it was less than two weeks ago, I can't remember if I had photographed it in Black and White or removed the color in "post-production." Besides a bit of cropping and sharpening, there wasn't much to do. I liked the simplicity and asymmetric look of it, with the focus on the light in the perfect spot.

Comments have been almost evenly split about that lamp. Some people love it, and others find it distracting. I couldn't have removed it, though I could have turned it off. I think it adds a good visual focus of white on all the grey and black. What do you think? And why?

Could It Be Real?

Last night I took a picture of the Shiloh Tabernacle Synagogue from the vantage of my neighborhood. It was all lit up and gorgeous. Suddenly I had idea. As soon as I got home I used the double exposure tool on Snapseed. Yes, I pasted/superimposed the synagogue over the location where it's believed that the Mishkan, Tabernacle had stood in Shiloh from the time of Joshua until Eli, the High Priest.

It's far from perfect, but...

Amazing Results With Photo-editing, Snapseed

For the longest time, I totally avoided and looked down on "extreme" photo-editing. I was raised in the film photography world and was always warned by my parents that it was a waste of money to develop and print bad shots. I had one chance, and one chance only, to click and produce a perfect photo.

So, as you can imagine, it's rather traumatic to accept the digital photography reality in which people may take dozens or more shots of the same scene. Trying to choose the best, after three or four, my eyes go foggy and I just can't see what's better or worse. I'm not a visual perfectionist. The truth is that I'm just not a perfectionist at all!

Now I must admit that even though I highly doubt that I'll be taking more than a handful of photos of the same scene, I have not only discovered the fun and art of photo-editing, but sometimes I fear that I'm addicted.

This week's 52Frames challenge was to use our phone as a camera. To be honest, I've been using my phone pretty much every week for months. Its pictures are far superior to what my cheap camera can produce. That created a bit of a dilemma. I needed to submit a photograph that would be a superior one, davka, because of my phone.

Here is the photo I submitted:

"Flower"
I used two new techniques here. Negative color and a new application recommended by a framer. Thanks

This is the story:
I decided to use a photography option that my Samsung J7 offers. I photographed this pretty flower in the negative. It looked pretty unusual, but just not special enough.

I'm also in a small 52Frames group which is to help each other out with ideas. One of the members of that group suggested that I use Snapseed, a free photo-editing application. So, that's what I did. It lightened the photograph just enough to give more detail and contrast between the flower and the leaves. What do you think?

Before and After, Think for 52Frames

A few days ago, I blogged about the photo I had submitted to 52 Frames for the "Think" challenge and promised to reveal the original photo. So, here they are:

After lots of editing, this is what I sent to 52Frames. 

This is the Chords Bridge in Jerusalem.

The theme was "think," and one of the suggestions was to turn reality upside down. That's what  I did. What do you think?

Think! Interesting Challenge from 52Frames

"Alternate Reality"

I must admit that this week's challenge has proven most challenging. I kept reading and rereading the email with suggestions. And then finally certain words Yosef wrote hit me:"change the way reality normally looks"I trust some of you will try to guess what was photographed. My plan is, bli neder-a Hebrew phrase meaning "not an oath," to blog about it later, after giving people a few days to guess, and show the original photo alongside. In the meantime, keep guessing. 

I just wonder if anyone can correctly guess what I photographed.  Does anyone recognize it? My plan is to post the original in a couple of days. In the meantime, Think and guess.

Pop Me, Self-Portrait for 52Frames, 2017

Every year 52Frames begins with a Self-Portrait. My first attempt was so overwhelming and traumatic, I can't picture it in my head. The second year I held my high school graduation photo to show how much I've changed. Last year I fooled around using mirrors and reflections in the New York hotel bathroom where we were staying at the time, (the hotel, not the bathroom.) And since we weren't home, it was taken with my phone.

This year, a new phone and another vacation. This time we were in Jerusalem and I overcame a fear -giving me the Extra Credit- and propped up my phone on a shelf in a store, the Moriah in the Old City, set up the timer, posed myself and shot.

Even after some color tweaking, I realized that I looked rather ridiculous. My glasses were still black from the sun, and I just wasn't wearing the right clothes for a portrait of any sort, south of the Arctic or north of Antarctica. So I began searching and experimenting with all of the various effects, kitschy and otherwise that my new Samsung J7, the top of the cheap line of Samsung smartphones. Finally, I hit pay dirt!

"Pop Me"
My generation. Like this I feel young again.

I love it!

What do you think?

I Need Sunshine!

I'm just not a winter person, not at all.

When I take a picture of what should be the bright sunrise and I get just white, I'm miserable.

Rain's predicted both today and tomorrow. Why can't it just rain at night, so we can wake up to a clean world and bright sunshine?

I tried editing the picture taken this morning, but it ended up looking like a sandstorm was coming from the east.

So I added a bit of color. Like it?

Here are some great sunrise pictures I've taken from my house on other winter days. It's sometimes glorious!!

Yes, I know that in a few months I'll complain about the heat, but I won't complain about the gorgeous sunrise!

Photo-Editing on My New Computer

Never say never...

I had always considered myself a purist as photography goes and would put down those who did too much beautifying of their photos. In  a sense I still consider it cheating, but I now realize that I'm at, or more precisely-- I've been at a terrible disadvantage, because many other doctor aka photo-edit their photos a lot, while I rarely did more than simple cropping.

Sometimes on the 52Frames page on facebook a member would post the "before and after" of a photo, and I'd feel miserable. It's bad enough that their expensive camera takes much sharper pictures, but then they have these fancy advanced photo-editing program that gets just the right colors and effects I couldn't even imagine.

Now I still have the same relatively simple and inexpensive Canon IXUS 145, but my new computer has a better photo-editing tool. I'm not quite sure what it's called...

Last night I took one photo and just kept changing it. What do you think?

52Frames, "Rule of Thirds"

For 52Frames this week the challenge was "Rule of Thirds," which in simple terms means that the focal point of the photo has to be off-center, asymmetric. My general tendency, even seen photos I took as a child under the age of ten, is to compose symmetric pictures. Here's the photo I sent in this week.

"From Biblical Times"
This jug/container is modeled after the three thousand (3,000) year old giant storage jugs that had been found in the archaeological site of Biblical Shiloh, a few minutes walk from my Shiloh home. The remains of raisins and wheat have been found in those containers at the site. Some of the containers/jugs are on display in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

Camera: Canon Canon IXUS 145
Location: Shiloh, Israel

And here are the two I almost sent:

All of these photos have been cropped a bit to emphasize the proper ratio of thirds, but no other photo-editing was done. And the other three were all taken in Jerusalem.

Did I choose well? What do you think?

52Frames from New York, Didn't Miss a Week!!

Last night Yesterday afternoon I finally landed home in Israel. I had been away for just over two weeks. I did my best to blog on this blog and Shiloh Musings. And I also managed to submit photos to 52Frames the photography group of weekly challenges/themes I've been in for almost two and a half years.

At 52Frames we start the year with a self-portrait which isn't supposed to be a quick smiling/mugging selfie. It's supposed to have more thought out composition and artistic pizzazz. I ended up posing in the well-mirrored bathroom in our Blakely Hotel room, New York City, where we spent New Year's Eve, since the timing of the visit had been timed to allow us to attend a big family wedding that night in Manhattan.

"Dedicated Framer"
Self portrait on the go. I am traveling and refuse to miss a week. All I have is a phone with minimal memory.

--------------

Start 2016 right. A new photo challenge in your inbox, each week. Begin your 52-week journey anytime! Tell your friends! Start here:http://bit.ly/52f-fbstart

 — with Batya Spiegelman Medad.

The photo is unedited, since it was straight from the telephone, an overtired Galaxy II which freezes and needs lots of "undoing" if I try to edit photos.

The second week's photo, also taken in Manhattan, was supposed to be black and white. And again since my phone is too overloaded and crotchety to play with, I was afraid to "tell it" to photograph black and white, so I "bleached out" the color on my friend's computer after mailing it to myself and then downloading on her computer and seeing what photo-editing program was easily available.

"New York! New York!"
At present I'm in New York City and do not have my usual computer. Enough with the excuses; this is a lovely neighborhood as you can see.

--------------

Start 2016 right. A new photo challenge in your inbox, each week. Begin your 52-week journey anytime! Tell your friends! Start here:http://bit.ly/52f-fbstart

 — with Batya Spiegelman Medad.

This was the best I could do in editing (cropping, color change and whatever) on the unfamiliar computer, an Apple.

For the upcoming weekly challenge, I've taken a gazillion pictures, which I must go through, edit a bit and choose. Sometimes life is easier for a gypsy...

Redoux, If Only Life Was So Simple

For the last 52Frames photography challenge of 2015, we were offered the chance to recreate a previous photo from the fifty-one 51 we had submitted this year. In real life we don't get these opportunities. We can't take back words or substitute a bad outfit after the event etc. And I'm sure I'm not the only member of this group to wish I had been given another chance to submit a photo after the album was already published.

This was the chance!

I didn't really like the final result of my "Abandoned" photo, and since it was taken in my neighborhood, I took this opportunity to revisit the scene.

Here's the original photo I had submitted:

"Benched Bench"
I don't live in Jerusalem and have no idea of how this uncomfortable crooked bench ended up in my neighborhood. It looks pitiful and is certainly abandoned. I've never seen anyone sit in it either. It has obviously been rejected, sent off the field, benched, the Benched Bench.

And here's the new one from the What I've learned Album:

"Abandoned Bench Redoux"
I was never completely happy with "Benched Bench."  There was something too harsh in the black and white. So since it's in the neighborhood, I went out and photographed it again. This time it was late afternoon, with long shadows, and I processed it differently. Using IrfanView I kept reducing colors until I got to the minimum, 5, before there would only be black, grey and white. It looks so perfectly abandoned and dusty, just right.

What do you think?

Mash Up- Incongruous Composite for 52Frames

This week's 52frames assignment/theme/challenge had me quaking on my tripod. "Mash-up" as I understood it required advanced photo-editing combining incongruous, humorous, unrelated elements. I think that one of the examples had flowers coming out of a cigarette box. I just don't have the facilities/program/equipment for that.

But since in the two years or so I've been a member of the facebook-based photography group, I've never chickened out of a challenge, and this wasn't the time to weaken. I knew that I did have a shape-pasting option on "Paint," which is one of the freebies on my computer, so I decided to paint stars on a daytime scene.

I ended up using the gorgeous photo of Jerusalem I had taken when waiting for my son to pick me up on the road to Givat Shaul. I also toned down the stars from the original bright/strong sun yellow which glared in the delicate light tones of the Jerusalem stone-faced buildings.

Here it is. What do you think?

52Frames Mash-up

"The Unexpected" Me and "Run," 52Frames

This week's 52Frames theme was the hardest for me yet. That's for two reasons. One was that last week was the two day Rosh Hashanah holiday, when I was very limited in the time I could photograph. And the second problem was the theme, "My Personality."

I just couldn't figure out how to visualise myself at all. I had images of piles of junk, anarchy, balagan = a big mess as it's said in Hebrew. I also thought of a nice sunrise or sunset for "transition." Isn't life one big transition? But there was a horrendous sandstorm in Israel that went on forever and made those usual times of beauty into a grey indistinguishable mess. I also thought of using a photo of my Rosh Hashana fruit head, but then realized that I had taken it before the permitted time.

After Shabbat, in a panic I went through the few photos I had taken during that hectic week and just found some from my late summer, dried out garden.

Even in a dried out grape vine, you can sometimes find some delicious grapes.

the original photo

I cropped the grapes from the picture, and above is the result after changing colors and visual texture. I used the free IrfanView which comes with my rather old computer.

The well-cropped photo-edited grapes:
Unconventional, non-conformist, unique. Well, I must admit that this week was tough. I just couldn't find the right photo, nor much time with a major Jewish Holiday when I couldn't take pictures at all for two days. When I took the photos of the overripe grapes on my vines, I was going to call the photo, "past its prime," or "over-ripe" or something like that to refer my age. But then I decided to play with the colors, and only a grape grower expert would guess that these grapes are from the very end of the season. 

I did the best I could, which in sense makes it the perfect photo to visualize "My Personality!" I did not give up, nor give in. 

The previous week's theme was "Run." As you can see in the background sky, the sandstorm had already begun, and running was not something anyone in their right mind would be doing. And I certainly wouldn't ask anyone to run for me. Many people barely walked out of air-conditioned homes and offices. I was planning on using a timer or clock to visualize "running out of time." But those girls saved me at the Tefilat Chana.

Run
"Running to the Site of the Tabernacle"
After praying at the site of the Biblical Tabernacle in Shiloh, I noticed these girls running and managed to capture them for this week's photo. I have no idea who they are, but from that gorgeous grin you can see here, it didn't seem to bother them that I was taking their picture.

Trust, Edited by Somebody Else, 52 Frames

For a  photographer a photograph is a special thing, and many find it hard to trust someone else's editing touch and taste. So, davka for this week's 52Frames photo challenge, we had to hand over our "baby" to somebody else for editing.

I was extremely lucky that the  very accomplished Fran Vegh Rosenwasser offered to edit my photo. Here's the finished product:

And here's the original:

Fran, thank you!