PicMonkey Tutorial

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YAY IT’S FRIDAY I AM SO EXCITED THAT THIS WEEK IS OVER!!!!!!!!!

Anyone else?!? This was a LOOOOOONG week for me, most of it just stress I put on myself, but nevertheless I am so excited that it’s over. I’ve still got a ton of work to do this weekend, but I’m less anxious. And I have 2 classes between me and my freakishly early flight on Wednesday morning! Well, it was going to be freakishly early but my mom would have still been in bed when my plane landed in KC…

Anyhoo, I did have one highlight in the middle of my week: A blogger meet-up at Bountiful Eatery! I went here once before with Chelsey and Tina, and then another time with Lindsay!

  

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The owner offered to host a blogger meet-up, giving us a discount, so of course I said yes! I was so excited when 10 girls RSVP’d yes to the event, it was so nice to see everyone! Haha I was a bit out of it mentally (thinking about my presentation and how I was going to fit in everything yesterday morning) but they cheered me right up!

For dinner I ordered their bison pita, which came with two sides. I chose the quinoa side salad and then a greens side salad with Chipotle lime dressing.

I still can’t get over how amazing this pita bread is. Seriously. Try it if you live in Chicago. The burger was a little well-done for my taste (and a little big for the bun!) but then again I didn’t specify when I ordered, I’ll have to remember that next time.

The owner also brought out a few desserts on the house, which was so nice of him! Tofutti Raspberry Bars and Loaded Brownies. While I was snapping my picture I managed to catch Kelsey, the ninja photographer, in the act! I call her this now (as of right now) because whenever I go on her blog I find new candids that I never knew she took… you’re welcome Kelsey, I know you wanted a nickname.

I was editing my photos for the meet-up and realized this was a great opportunity to talk about what I do to some of my pictures. I actually rarely edit, although I really should, because I’m kind of lazy. But it really does help. What do I use?

PicMonkey. I love picmonkey. If you’ve seen my weekly workout posts, that’s how I make them, with PicMonkey!

I wanted to do this because I think some people are intimidated by the site. I remember Annette saying she just didn’t get it! I’m sure many people feel the same, or don’t have the free time like I do to mess around with it…

So, you saw the first picture in my post right? Well I edited that with PicMonkey as a demonstration. Here’s the before:

After:

So how do I do it?

Well first, there are several sections in PicMonkey, along the left side. Each icon you click on gives you different ways to edit your image:

Well just go to PicMonkey and upload a picture from your computer. Then the first thing I always try is the Auto Adjust. Just click it.

Sometimes it’s perfect and I’m done! Sometimes it’s too bright and white. Like with this picture. So then I clicked exposure and adjusted it so it wasn’t as bright.

Then, I clicked on the beaker icon, which is effects, and I choose boost. You might click this and go: WOAH! Too much! You can then adjust the amount of the affect on the left:

These affects can be pretty artsy, it’s fun to play around with them.

Then I felt like the image was a bit blurry, so I went back to basic edits and chose sharpen, which I also hand-adjusted.

Finally, I didn’t like how bright the lights were at the top, they were distracting once I’d boosted the image. So I cropped them out, also under basic edits:

And there you go! Here’s my food before and after as well:

To add the text and the arrow on the picture of Ninja Photo Hands, I clicked the overlay icon and chose arrows, and then the text icon and chose my text. So simple!

Just play around with it and once you get the hang of it you can make tons of fun images, even just for no reason. Like this picture I sent to my friend last night confirming that we were going to make glitter tumbler glasses over the holiday:

 

Do you use picmonkey, or another photo editor?

 

Any other tips or Q&As that you want to know? Ask away!