Tools of the trade

Members of Medieval guilds each had their specialty and the tools to help them carry their specialized tasks. Well, I feel a bit like one of these brothers while I am here trying to take pictures (with still no camera) and have fun with them. Usually, hubby's camera offers a whole range of possibilities, not to mention iPhoto.

These days though, I had to find new ways to play around with pictures taken (quite unsuccessfully) with my phone or with existing pictures. That's when the tools of the trade come in handy.

The first one I would like to tell you about is Tiltshiftmaker. This free service lets you upload your picture and give it the tilt-shift effect you want by selecting a couple of settings. The final result may vary significantly depending on the settings you chose, but also on the type of picture you selected in the first place. I find that eagle-eye pictures of monuments or of people/crowds give a better rendering of the miniature style image - this is where I expect you to spread out your winds and fly away.

More down to earth, and to give you an idea, here is a little "before" and "after" session:

Before:

After:

The other lovely tool I found out about only recently is Rollip: it allows you to give the Polaroid effect to your pictures, chosing from a wide range of effects, styles and even fonts to write messages on the final picture. No need to fly away here... You can see an example below:

If you would like not to write anything at the bottom of the picture, this is also one of the available options; and if you would like the colors to be less faded, no problem either... The tool is easy to use and quite fast too. The advantage of both lies in the fact that you do not need to download and install anything. Definitely a bonus in my book. Have fun!