Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Technical difficulties

Maybe you've noticed that I haven't been blogging much lately. Of course, we are incredibly busy this time of year, but there's more to it than that. Our desktop computer died a couple weeks ago, which causes more than one problem. I have a laptop, which I've been using for the last three years, while my children have been using the desktop, and now that it's dead, I have a 17-year-old and a 20-year-old with whom I have to share my laptop, so my computer time is limited. Second problem is that we had PhotoShop on the desktop, so now I don't have any photo editing software. My last photo was prepared using Web Resizer, a free online software that has limited functionality, but at least it makes the photos smaller, so they don't take forever for your computer to download.

I'm not sure when we'll be able to buy a new computer, because we have a lot of big expenses this time of year like buying hay and getting the propane tank filled, which adds up to two or three thousand dollars. But that's only half the problem, because we'll still have to buy PhotoShop, which will cost as much as, or more than, the computer.

My laptop is a MacBook, and when I downloaded photos onto here from Katherine's camera, it plopped them into the iPhoto library, which has software that has very few options for editing and is not intuitive at all. In other words, I can't figure it out. I can't even figure out how to get those pictures into Web Resizer, because I can't find them.

So, I need a new routine for blogging, as well as a new way of editing photos. Any suggestions?

12 comments:

Robert Blackburn, Jr. said...

Here is a link to iPhoto tutorials http://www.apple.com/ilife/tutorials/#iphoto . It will do almost anything you need for blogging & web posting, including exporting your pictures at a smaller size / lower resolution. And it's free since you already have it.

Michelle said...

I use a MacBook and although I have PhotoShop I rarely use it. Instead I use the free and easy "Preview" software to look at, crop, save to a lower or higher quality and even tweak with it's "Image Correction" function. I just select the photo files with my cursor and double-click, and they open with Preview....

MichelleH said...

Google has a free photo software called Picasa that's the bomb. It's what I use and it's super easy. It actually links right to your blogger account for uploading blog photos.

Trase said...

A couple of alternatives for photo editing you might want to consider, both are free:

Aviary - online editing software: http://aviary.com/

GIMP - Open Source (free) photo editing software that you install locally on your PC: http://www.gimp.org/

Also, depending upon your computer hardware savvy, you might consider purchasing your computer components through NewEgg and assembling it yourself. You'll get more for less. :) http://www.newegg.com They also sell laptops.

Lisa said...

Irfanview is a great free image editing program. You can't really use it to retouch (remove this zit, think my thighs) like you can Photoshop, but it's easy, fast and powerful for resize, crop, brighten, adjust color, all that. Irfanview.net.

Anonymous said...

I use iPhoto by exporting my photos in a smaller resolution then putting them on the blog. It works well for me.

LindaG said...

Sorry to hear about the computer. Seems to be happening a lot. :/
I don't do anything fancy, so I've been using Picasa, too.
It creates a library of all the photos on your computer (icons too, lol).
I think it works okay.

I hope you didn't have a lot of photos on the other computer. If you did, a tech savvy person (Or Best Buy Geek Squad) can probably recover them for you.

Depending on what is actually wrong with your computer, it might not cost much at all. (It might be as simple as replacing the CPU battery.)

Take care. I know what you mean finance wise, too.

Jennifer said...

I use GIMP on my iMac it's similar to photoshop to get you by. However some of the controls and functions are different so it takes some getting used to.

Mrs Pretzel said...

HIGHLY recommend Picasa, as mentioned by others... and also, for resizing, etc. I recommend using picnik.com

Laura and Kelly Allen said...

Picasa is super easy to use, as are most things Google. It's relatively powerful too. If all you are using Photoshop for is resizing images, it's probably not the best software for you.

To get to the images you have in iPhoto, you can access them by going to:
Pictures|iPhoto library|Originals
(or Modified).

I need orange said...

Do consider PHotoshop Elements.

It can do a huge amount of the things full Photoshop can do, and is MUCH cheaper.........

Charlotte (MotherOwl) said...

I know I'm way too late, but PhotoScape is my tool of choice. It's free, it does not do anything that Photoshop does, but almost. And it seems like you need a working horse, not a racing horse. ;)

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