Cartoonize a Photo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1dOa2XO3js

Converting a Photo to a Sketch Drawing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K43-_zhQZiM

Softening a Picture

Softening a Picture

Creative Bokeh

Another photography tip. I'm loving these! :) http://themetapicture.com/simple-idea-awesome-result/

Sharpening Eyes in Photoshop

I don't know if any of you are interested in photography, but it is my passion, and I'm teaching myself photoshop by looking up the how-to tutorials. My latest learn was sharpening / defining eyes in photoshop. If you are interested, here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYCaf2NZ9H0

This is the picture I was working on. Here is the before and after "sharpening"

Santa's eyes look so much clearer and brighter!!

I am working on this pic to go on Santa's business cards. Here is his blog, if you'd like to read what he's doing right now: Santa's Back In Town

Favicons

So, I just learned about favicons. Favicons is the little icon beside the website tab. So if you go to facebook, facebook's favicon, a blue box with an f in it, will appear on the tab. Or on a blogger site, an orange square with a B in it will appear. The Pioneer Woman's favicon is a butterfly.

I just made a favicon for my MerrieMelody.com website, so I thought I'd tell you how I did it.

First of all, I went into Gimp, which is a free download editor similar to photoshop, and clicken on File: New. I chose the size I wanted: 16x16. I used a black background. Then I clicked on the text tool, wrote a white M in Curlz, and centered it on my black background. Then I saved it as a .jpg

Then, I went to www.favicon.cc On the left sidebar it offered to "import image". Then I browsed until I found where I had saved my favicon.jpg image. It pulled it up and changed it into a .ico image, which is what it needed to be to show up on the tab. I then saved it back onto my computer.

Then, I went to the "root" of my website and uploaded my favicon.ico file. The root of your website is the backroom where you upload info to your website. Once you put it there, it will "magically" appear on the tab when your website is displayed.

WordPress Websites and Themes

A friend of mine has asked me to build a website for her, but there are two catches: first, she is on a tight budget; second, they want to be able to upload new info and pics themselves.

Now, for the first issue, I have built websites in the past with the help of my computer geek husband (meant in the nicest way possible :) and know that if you make one totally affordable for the buyer, you could probably flip burgers at McDonald's for the same amount of time and make more money.

Secondly, if you don't speak computer geek, it is hard to maintain a site yourself. To maintain a website you have to understand the language, which my friend does not. And then we're back to the first problem of money, because Steve could make a user friendly website... if he took lots of time, which translates into lots of money.

So, I decided to try a WordPress website. Now, please understand that I don't speak geek as well as I should being married to one. I am still wrapping my head around the whole WordPress website thing, but I'll tell you what I know (and then I'll correct my mistakes after Steve reads and corrects my misunderstandings! ;)

First of all, if you are new to WordPress websites, take a look at my friend April's. It looks like a regular, business-like website. You'd never guess that it is just as easy to maintain it as it is to use a WordPress blog, would you?

Just now I looked up "WordPress website" into google's search engine and one of the results was "WordPress for Dummies Cheat Sheet", which is cool. It lists my server hosting company as one of the good ones for the WordPress website option, which is great!

I'm going to go ahead and post this much for today, and then have some screen shots on how to add a WordPress website to your server tomorrow.

Your homework is to go and look at all of the different "WordPress Themes" there are. WordPress Themes are the template for the website I'm going to create for my friend. It has all of the code already written. There are three column and two column websites, along with different colors and styles.

Here are the two I'm looking at for them: The Industrial Theme and Free Web 2.0 WordPress Themes. My friend thinks her husband will like the 2 column one best, so we'll see.

Once I choose and set one up, Steve will then help me tailor it to her needs, since he has the expertise to do that, but the time needed to do that will be minimal since the basics are already done. I'll share those tips and tricks with you here, too.

Okay, so before I say anything that may confuse more than I have already, I'll be quiet, but go take a look at the options on google and we'll talk more tomorrow okay?