When a die hard Photoshop user tries new things: Part 2 - BeFunky

Opening up Google Chrome and clicking on one of the free image editors I added to my browser, I first went to BeFunky. Now, it says it adds the app to the browser, but what it really appears to do is simply add the icon as a bookmark to the site. I should also mention that I did not register to use any of these editors, although you could register. I believe that by registering and logging into your account, it will store a copy of the image you worked on in your account, and also places a copy in their gallery. I don't need any extra spam and chose not to register. When you first go to BeFunky Photo Editor you are given the option to get the app from Google Play, Get Started, view their gallery, or login - I opted for the nice big green "Get Started" button. From there you can upload an image from your computer, get one from an account online (like Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket, your BeFunky account, or webcam), or select one of theirs to play around with.

The image opens in their editor and you are presented with a whole slew of editing tools on the left side menu. I was impressed by all of the options for a free editor. The tools included the standard straighten, crop, and resize, along with brightness/contrast, color controls, hue/saturation, exposure, sharpen, and even temperature control (something you don't always see in photo editors). These tools are also all spelled out for you - no guessing at what the little icons mean. Each tool has slider controls that allow you to fine tune the amount while you preview the image. You must also select the "apply" button for each edit option to take effect. There is no apparent selection tool or magic wand, however, most of the edit tools give you the option of a paint mode that will allow you to paint in the effect (by checking the reverse box) where you want it. You can also select the size of the brush in these options.

One nice feature of this editor that is like a feature in Photoshop (that I cannot live without) is that the undo button (at the bottom of your work space) stores each of the applied edits like a history palette. It gives you a mini thumbnail of each of the edits with the name of the applied edit underneath, so you can literally see each of the edits as they were applied, and go back to a particular one if need be. One of my favorite tools in Photoshop is the healing brush. (I don't know how I managed without it in the earlier versions of Photoshop.) BeFunky does not have a healing brush, but it does have a "Wrinkle Remover" that works similar to the healing brush. (Although I'm sure it is missing Adobe's more advanced "Content Aware" processor.) BeFunky also appears to not have a basic paint brush or pencil on its own, nor a color palette or dropper to select colors from the image. The exception to this is in the Eye Color, Lipstick, and Blush tools. These have a simple color palette and selector that allows you to have some control of the color in the color bar, but lacks a dropper tool to draw a color directly from the image itself. I do have to admit that using the paint brush and its intensity sliders takes some trial and error to get used to. I also think the Clone tool takes a little bit of getting used to and is not able to match the surroundings as closely as Photoshop would be able to. The Matte and Vignette tools are nice options, and something I wish Photoshop had without having to go through all the layer masking and object selection steps.

Blur Filter with Paint Mode
(& Reverse) selected showing
brush size at 25 px.

Image edit history showing when the "undo" button is clicked.

The Effects palette had options for 26 different featured photo effects (or filters) with multiple options in each effect (also with sliders for more fine tuned control) much like the effects in OnOne Software's Photo Tools Pro, one of the plugins I use with Photoshop. If you upgrade to one of the paid versions of BeFunky Photo Editor, you also have nearly 80 additional photo effects available to you. Included in the featured (and advanced/upgraded) effects are Black & White, Charcoal, Cooler, Cross Process, Cyanotype, Grunge, HDR, Motion Color, Old Photo, Orton Style, Patriotic, Pinhole, Pop Art, Sepia, Sunburst, Warmer, and Vintage Colors (with more options).

The Artsy Palette includes many of the filters that Photoshop users are accustomed to under their Artistic Filters palette, such as Cartoonizer, Gouache, Impressionist, Inkify, Oil Painting, Pointillism, Sketcher, Under Painting, and Water Color, with several versions of each filter under the selections. Again, many, many additional Artsy filters are available with the upgrade/paid version of the editor. I didn't play around with much under this palette, although the Cartoonizer is kinda cool.

The Frames Palette had many options to choose from that were featured and many more that were included in the upgrade/paid version. Each one would allow a sampling of that type of frame though that you could use with the free version. I included a screen shot of the menu on the right so you could see the available options. I played around with these options but in the end opted not to use any for the particular image I was editing. The Instant (like a Polaroid photo) and the Filmstrip options I think were the coolest.

I looked around in the Text and the Goodies palettes but did not use any of these for this photo. The text is pretty self explanatory, allows you to add text to your image as an overlay. And the Goodies palette were shapes, bubbles, and themed stickers you could add to your photo.

I was able to save my edited photo directly to my computer from BeFunky, although you are also given the option to share the image in BeFunky, Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr as well. It says to Save to your Desktop, but I was able to navigate to the folder I uploaded the image from and save it there. Saving options are in .jpg and .png formats with a 1-10 image quality scale. I saved my reduced size image at 8 on the quality scale. This is how it turned out:

I opened all of the images back up in Photoshop so I could compare them all side by side and see the image information. The image was reduced to 72 dpi (I think when I uploaded it) from the 300 dpi image I started with. BeFunky appears to be the only one of the 4 photo editors I tried that reduced the image to 72 dpi. The others all kept my image at 300 dpi. Unlike Photoshop, there did not appear to be any way to change the dpi settings of the image. But it did allow you to enter in your own pixel or percentage sizes for the resize. You could also select one of the standard sizes like 4x6, 5x7, 8x10, and select cell phone wallpaper sizes.

I cannot even begin to say whether I think this photo editor is easy to use or not, but I do think having the words spelled out in the menu options rather than the icons made it easier than most. All in all its not a bad editor for a free photo editor.

Pros:
Easy to navigate tool palette menus, history stored in the undo button, sliders in tool palettes for fine tuning along with paint brush options, LOTS of editing tools available for free along with a nice selection of effects. frames and goodies.

Cons:
Does not allow option to change dpi (dots per inch) settings, no color selector or dropper to select colors directly from the image (or match to the image), no healing tool, clone brush is tricky to use and does not match closely enough to area selected to clone, no selector, magic lasso, smudge, dodge, or burn tools, does not do layers.

Twitter - The New Web 2.0 Chatroom

As I was sitting here hanging out in Twitter, one of my favorite spots on the web, it occurred to me that Twitter has become the new chatroom. But, what I also realized was how much better than a chatroom Twitter has become. In the old days of chat (5-10 years ago, after the realization that AOL members rooms and AOL was not for me) I used to frequent a Yahoo chatroom about and for web designers and offer help and advice to those that wandered in. There were other regulars (regs) that would hang out there that we would chat with and get to know, some on a more personal level than others. For me, it was a chance to develop my personal learning network (pln), learn more about web design and graphic design, show off some of my skills, teach others what I know, and to relax and unwind while still maintaining some intellect. For others, it was a place to spam their wares or business, have things done for them, or to look for companionship. We would have the spammers and the porn bots that would come in and invade our chats, but there were ways of dealing with them - usually either through our chat client or by placing them on ignore (into the iggybin).

I liked the fact that it was topic based and that unless you were into web design or graphic design, unless you were a bot or a spammer, the topic stayed around the interest of web design. Occasionally, when I had questions I could not answer about my Macs, I would venture into the MacIntosh room, and always found the regs in the room very helpful. But looking back, it was room hopping and just didn't feel very much like "home".

With Twitter, I can choose who to follow under a multitude of interests and topics, I can follow different (hashtag) conversations, share tweets I find of interest with others that follow my feeds (through retweets), join regularly scheduled weekly chats of my interests, and have the luxury of not having spammers or bot posts show up in my time line feeds. Instead, the spam feeds are kept private to mentions and I can click a button to delete their post, block the sender, and report them as a spammer all in one click of the mouse. My followers never need know of their post unless I choose to share it with them. And with 140 characters to a post, it forces people to think more intelligibly before they post, and we don't end up with those just wandering in saying, "Hai frnd". I really like how I am not limited to a single topic in Twitter, and do not feel like I am wandering from room to room if I want to follow another topic of interest other than web design or STEM teachers. I also don't have to worry about others coming into the chatroom with the obnoxiously large red font crying for help or the "perdy" rainbow font wanting to be your "frnd" as they used to in the old days of Yahoo chatrooms.

I am still able to learn from others, and share my knowledge with others, as I was able to in a regular chatroom, still able to offer help and advice, and able to do all the things I loved about being a reg in a chatroom, only now I can follow the feeds long after I have gone to bed or while I'm busy in school during the day. If anything, I've found that I have learned more in the short time that I have been active on Twitter than the years I have spent hanging out in chatrooms. My PLN has grown by leaps and bounds ever so much more than it has in the chatrooms, and I am finally accepted as an intelligent, funny, interesting, talented woman rather than some geeky chic, Kinetic's girlfriend, or the room's FM (freak magnet).

Twitter for Teachers

My resident tech/web guru suggested Twitter to me as a way of boosting and advertising my website. So, I signed up for an account and thought I would check it out and see what it could do for me. I've had a Twitter account for a little over 2 years and it wasn't until this summer that I have really started using Twitter and making it work for me. Now, I'm not at all sure what its done to drive traffic to my website. And frankly, the site itself is in such a desperate need for a make over and update that I would be embarrassed by the shear numbers that were to visit my site from Twitter. But, what Twitter has done for me is something I never considered at the time I signed up for it - Professional Development!

For those new to Twitter, Twitter is more than checking in when you visit your favorite taco stand. Some of the brightest, funniest, most intelligent and most interesting people I know use Twitter to connect, network, collaborate, and as a means of professional development. Twitter is microblogging, that is, sending out "tweets" in 140 characters at a time. Now, some of you may think this isn't a lot to say what you need to say; but, if you think about it, 140 characters is enough to say what you need to say, and cut out all the extra BS. (I know, I'm in trouble, right?!) Most people have to keep their posted thoughts in under 160 characters anyway for text messages, Twitter is just a way of making sure you get to the point, and quickly.

Since I began regularly using Twitter this past summer, I have been able to network with other teachers from around the world, learn about webinars that were available to me (for free!), join learning networks, and learn from other teacher's blogs without having to Google for the information that I was looking for. I've learned about free tech conferences that were available in my area that I would not have otherwise heard about, and have been able to help colleagues with information I have found in my feed. With Twitter, I feel like I am always in school learning, but I get to control when and where I go to class. There are hashtags that allow you to follow search for and follow particular trends (like #STEMed that allows me to read up on posted tweets about STEM education without having to follow most of the users) or chats. And at 140 characters, its so much easier than doing a book study!

Have an extra few minutes while you are standing in line at Walmart? Take Twitter with you. I guarantee you will get more out of it than reading the headlines on the tabloids. Most of the handheld electronic devices, and smart phones have Twitter apps, such as Twitbird, Tweet Deck, and Peep, to name a few. Most of them are free downloads. And, if you follow a celeb or two, you may even learn some things that they don't post in the tabloids.

Give Twitter a try, but don't be a lurker hiding in the background. Its more fun when you participate in the conversations and feeds. Its easy to get started, just type in a keyword of something you would like to read about, and see some of the posts. If you find a post you like, you can read more about the person in their profile and blog. Use the "Follow" button to follow them. Twitter will suggest other people with similar profiles you may want to follow. But, you can check them out by looking at the tweets (posts) before following them. If nothing else, your students will think you are cool for being on Twitter, and may pay more attention to you.