It’s all very well have great content, but part of the joy of blogging is knowing how to present it. One of the best things about reading blogs is looking at the amazing things some bloggers can do with images. From beautiful style lay outs, to collages, to image collages, there are endless ways to make your blog more enticing. However, sometimes photo editing can seem very technical and scary, especially if you are new to the blogging scene. Do you ever look at other blogs and wonder ‘how did they do that?’. Well, I did a little digging and found some great free tools for you to try, no PhotoShop in sight! Here are some of my favourite picks:
Canva
I have only just discovered Canva.com, and if you have never heard of it, I suggest you check it out. You can create those amazing image and quotation posts you find on Tumblr or Pinterest, and there are a wealth of font styles, backgrounds, and colours to choose from. As well as their own stock images, you can upload and edit your own, and create amazing single images, or choose from the variety of grids available. I love their ‘Layouts’ section, where you can pick a theme, and use your own story-board images – really great for when you want to tell a story with images! Check out Canva here.
PicMonkey
Pic Monkey is more akin to PhotoShop, but a bit clearer. You can upload your images, but have a bit more freedom with the editing process than with Canva. I have seen a lot of crafty and fashion bloggers use Pic Monkey grids, which always look so clear and pretty. Definitely try this out if you are thinking of moving on to PhotoShop soon and want to get in to the swing of things. Check them out here.
Picasa
This is Googles’ contribution to your blogging ammunition, streamlining all your Google accounts, so you have seamless access to your Google+ blog profile. Really useful, especially if you want to pad out your Google+ profile and stand out from the crowd! Check Picasa out here.
Fotor
Fotor is a bit similar to Canva, but well worth trying out. You can put your images and blog photos in to nice grids or collages, and they have some lovely filters and photo editing tools to make your pictures ‘pop’. I really like their ‘collages’ where you can choose from a variety of different shapes. Have a play around and see what you come up with! Check them out here.
Love this! Very helpful!
Thankyou!
Rach x
Pixlr is also one of my faves!
Janine Maral from http://www.janinemaral.com/
Yeah – we love Pixlr too! I really like the app for the phone too! It really vamps up your Instagram account!
Tried Canva and found it worse than useless! Just kept advising a 404 error. Very disappointing.
Thank you for this. Going straight on to have a look at these tools and check them out!! Maybe just what I need.
It’s really intresting app.Thanks for all of these tools.
Thank you for this. I do have Photoshop and it will be interesting to try the alternatives that you have mentioned. I suppose I can try and see which one I prefer to use to enhance photographic images
I love Fotor & Pixlr. They’re my favorite tools for editing.
I have only just discovered Canva and can’t wait to have a go with it. I did play with Picasa for a while but found it slowed my whole system down, so uninstalled it. Picmonkey is great, too – so easy to use.