The Monkey

Editor’s note: What follows is the Monkey’s 2013 commencement speech, which he was prepared to deliver at Frankenvort Bialys University. He had to step down when The Situation became available for the gig, but we give it to you for your enjoyment because he asked us to. Sorry.

Before I begin, let me predict that this will be one of those speeches that goes viral. It’ll get made into a cool video, with graphics and arrows, that gets appreciative comments from Deepak Chopra and Kim Jung Un and five million likes and upvotes. So please refer to the illustrations in the handout under your seat if you want to get the same experience that the viral video will have later.

Thanks so much for coming to my commencement speech, peoples.  I see so many parents and college grads who have come to hear me speak and I’m incredibly humbled.  Please stop applauding, it’s too much!

The world is a difficult place to make your way in, graduates. You know this from your Philosophy of Ontology classes. But do you really know how difficult it is? Are you saying you do, but you’re answering a totally different question, like “Do you like gnocchi?” Are you saying you do, but you’re just singing along to a Young Jeezy song?

I want to impart to you the five most essential tips on how to get ahead in life. I’ve developed them over minutes of contemplation and some copy and paste, but I’m pretty sure they will change your life and I can’t wait to try them myself:

1. Celebrate the ordinary things in life, like punctuation and sand paper. Then when extraordinary things don’t happen, like being forgiven for scratching a very special white Camaro that certain people happen to love a lot, you can always count on the ordinary things.
2. Develop a unique, personal style by wearing clothes with fun names, like “romper” or “skivvies.”  I have no idea what skivvies are, but when I find one, you can bet I’ll be wearing it to work with a bowler hat and cane or something.
3. Consider a difficult problem in the world and try to come up with a simple, easy, human-powered solution. Store it in a secret place so nobody steals it.
4. Don’t do things that everyone expects you to do. Aardvarks. (See how that works?)
5. Patience is a virtue. Unless we’re talking about Patience the roller derby chick that hip-checked my robot at Maker Faire. She’s all about vice, by the look of her tattoos.

So in parting, college grads, you never know what you’re headed for in this crazy life. If you fall down or lose your way, stay there for a while, or forever if necessary. Because sideways is the direction of the future! Sideways, young grads!

1. Open Photo

Open your photo by dragging it to the “Edit a photo” launch box on the home page. You can also open a photo by clicking “Open” once you’re in the Editor.

2. Choose Clone Tool

Click the Effects tab and scroll to the bottom to find the Clone tool. You can also find the Clone tool in the Touch Up tab.

3.  Select Clone Source

When you move your cursor over your image you’ll see a dotted circle, which identifies the clone source (the area you will copy). Before you start, adjust the “Brush size” slider to fit the area you’re cloning and the “Brush hardness” slider to set the fuzziness of your edges.

Once you have your brush ready, click on the area you want to copy. In our example, we’re going to copy the clouds over the thumb.

4. Paint over the unwanted object

Move your mouse over to the area that you want to paint over (your target area). You’ll see that you have a circular cursor. Click and drag your mouse to paint. You can see that the dotted “source” target moves along to show you what you are copying.

You may need to click to choose a new source target during this process to keep finding the right patch to paint over.

Tip: Use the Zoom Control by clicking the percentage number in the lower right corner to zoom in; this helps if you’re cloning small details. Switch to the eraser to paint any original parts back in.

5. Save

Click “Save” on the top toolbar when you’re satisfied with your work, and you’re done!

PicMonkey staffers submitted their own portrait shots to Design Sifu Jen Shetterly for tips on retouching. Here’s her work and her comments on how she did it.

First of all, I want to point out that photo retouching isn’t about making anyone perfect. It’s more about bringing out the best of what’s already there by getting rid of inconvenient truths like harsh light, stray hairs, or a brow that your subject didn’t intend to furrow.

JENN

Jenn is a ray of sunshine with great taste in music and an easy laugh. She manages our community efforts and figures out solutions for folks whose browsers are behaving badly.

Clone

Jenn was a good sport to demonstrate that embarrassing food-in-the-teeth scenario. If someone didn’t do you the favor of telling you “Uh, you got something in your teeth,” well, Clone is your new best friend.

When using Clone for a face, choose a small brush size to fit the area you’re cloning and zoom in to see the detail. For Jenn’s teeth I used a size 4 brush. Teeth have subtle shading and color so I sourced different areas of clean teeth to clone. To get a nice smooth tooth surface I did a second application of Clone with the “Fade” slider set to around 30%. Check out our Clone tutorial Use Clone to Remove That Stray Thumb  if you want to become a Clone Master.

Teeth Whiten

When whitening teeth, use a small brush and adjust the fade for a natural smile— you don’t want that glow-in-the-dark look. If you get some on the gums, click the “Undo” button in the top toolbar or click the Teeth Whiten “Eraser” button to remove any stray marks.

Lip Tint

I brushed Lip Tint on with the default brush size and then switched to the eraser to clean up around the edges, using a smaller brush size for the mouth corners. I used the “Intensity” slider to adjust the brightness of the color and the “Tone” slider to adjust the contrast. For Jenn, I wanted a natural look so I kept the color a shade darker than her natural lip color.

Airbrush

A little goes a long way with Airbrush. Jenn has beautiful skin, so I used the “Natural” setting with some fade to smooth out her complexion, just like putting on face powder.

Final polish

Clone helped get rid of some stray hairs around the face and head. A bit of Eye Brighten made the eyes pop. And lastly, I applied Film Stock (in the Effects tab) using the “Velvia” filter to add some warmth and rich color.

CHARLIE

Charlie’s our awesome chaos wrangler; he keeps the trains running on time, and chases down bugs and engineers. He’s mad for Cross Fit these days, and we always know when he’s had a great workout because he comes to work exhilarausted (exhausted and exhilarated at the same time).

Wrinkle Remover

Don’t go too far with Wrinkle Remover or you’ll end up looking like Joan Rivers or Bruce Jenner. Charlie was squinting a bit, so I applied a little bit between his eyebrows and around his eyes using a size 3 brush so I didn’t blur out the great freckles on his face. Then I did a second application using a size 20 brush to soften the lines cast by the sun, under his eyes.

Eye Tint

Charlie has hazel eyes but they needed to stand out more so I brushed on some teal eye tint, adjusting the fade to 80%.

Final polish

I went minimal with Charlie. I brushed on Teeth Whiten to polish up his smile and then Cross Process (in the Effects tab) using the green filter to complement his eyes.

LISA

Lisa’s a human cyclone. She directs marketing and connects with PicMonkeyers at conferences and in social media. She can work on five things at once, and riffs killer headlines, puns, and word associations like other people breathe.

Basic Edits

Lisa’s original photo was a bit dark so I used “Auto adjust” in Exposure (Basic Edits tab) to lighten it up.

Eye Brighten

Lisa has beautiful eyes but the photo wasn’t showing them off. I used Eye Brighten with a small brush and then adjusted the “Lighten” slider to make those baby blues really sparkle. You can also apply this effect to the whites of your eyes if they’re looking dull.

Mascara

Mascara is the Wonder Woman of our Touch Up effects. Apply it over the eyelashes, use it as an eyeliner, or as a quick eyebrow pencil to darken light eyebrows. I used it on the eyelashes and eyebrows in this portrait.

Final polish

To smooth out the skin around Lisa’s eyes, forehead, and chin without making her look Barbie-plastic-y, I used Wrinkle Remover with the fade set to around 30%. Then a quick application of Lip Tint, Teeth Whiten and Clone to remove a couple stray hairs. To give Lisa’s photo that finished look I applied Intrepid (in the Effects tab) with the fade set to 60%.

JEN

And here’s me: designer chick. Sometimes people think that all designers live this Martha Stewart life with everything perfect and coiff-y. I’m more casual, and I like to keep things real. So I don’t always try to make my shoes match my purse, especially while I’m slaying Orcs in Lego Lord of the Rings.

Blemish Fix

This is the easiest Touch Up effect of the bunch; with a mouse click you can cover a zit, a mole or whatever you want to hide.

I applied a bit of Wrinkle Remover around the eyes and forehead. I also like to use this as an alternative to Airbrush. A quick dash of Eye Brighten, Lip Tint and Mascara were faster than putting on real makeup. And then I disciplined some bad boy hair strands with Clone.

Spray Tan

For my fair skin (hello, I’m Irish!), Spray Tan gave me a little sun glow without the sunburn or spray fumes. To avoid streaks, turn up the “Darken” slider all the way so you can see where you’re applying your color. Then play with the “Intensity” and “Darken” sliders to set your color.

Polish

And to finish up my pic, I applied Tranquil (in the Effects tab) at about 40% fade which gave a soft look with a bit of blue tone. Try different effects to see what looks good with the photo’s colors and lighting and how it enhances the personality or mood of your portrait.

And there you have it: a Fab Four of photo touch up jobs to inspire and inform your own portrait editing. Go forth in subtlety, friends.

 1. Love’s labours found

The ole coupon book usually yields a smile and a chuckle; who cares if she never gets around to cashing them in! Coupons can focus on heave-ho work like taking out the garbage and washing the dishes. Or they can offer simple moments such as foot rubs and breakfast in bed. Or togetherness activities like picnics, bike rides and —heck yeah — laser rock shows!

PicMonkey tip: Create your coupon book in Collage, and each cell can be a page in your booklet. Use the Square Deal layout, unlock the dimensions (padlock icon in the white bar under your layout) and set it to 1700 x 2200 pixels; that’ll print out on 8½ x 11 inch paper nicely. Fill the cells with background colors from the Swatches tab. Increase the spacing in the Backgrounds tab, if you need fatter margins for your printer. Save your collage, and open it in the Editor to add text and overlays. Print it and cut individual pages along the cell lines.

2. Ring in the affection

The Creative Place designed this ringbook full of prose appreciating a fine lady.

PicMonkey tip: use Collage to create all your pages in one layout (see tips above), and drop in some sweet images of mom. Maybe ya wanna fancy it up with some nice ribbon when you’re done.

3. Canned laughter

This cool project was created by Our Best Bites. We love the colorful design of the can labels, and the clever hack for presenting a seemingly unopened pull tab can. You can go big, too. Hardware stores and paint stores sell silver empty paint cans for about three bucks. Make a “Time Out for Mom” kit for the harried mother who just needs a break in the middle of a crazy day. Toss in a votive candle and matches, a tuft of dried flowers wrapped in raffia, a tiny book of poems or proverbs, and some luscious chocolate.

PicMonkey tip: Use PicMonkey to make a “Back in 10 Minutes” sign to hang from the door knob of her time-out/escape room. Make your label in Collage, if you like, with some of the cute patterns in the Swatches tab. (Remember: to add text to a collage, save it and reopen it in the Editor.)

4. Pillow talk

Yellow Brick Home reminds us that so many mothers we know are pet moms! You can make a photo pillow with Yellow Brick’s instructions, or check out alternate materials and methods below:

• Pillow mob will make the entire pillow from a photo you send online
• Fiskars’ pillow project uses special photo fabric for printers
• A Beautiful Mess shows how to use gel medium to transfer photos
• Infarrantly Creative has a recipe for a DIY transfer medium made of alum and washing soda

5. Serve up the heritage

Isn’t this adorbs?! Heritage photos “framed” by vintage serving dishes: so genius. Better Homes and Gardens instructs you to adhere photos to the dishes with double stick archival tape. But we wonder if a little Modge Podge might be in rorder, slathered across the top as a transparent seal.

PicMonkey tip: After you scan the original vintage photo, open it in PicMonkey to clean up old scratches (with Clone) and adjust the exposure. Old sepia tone photos have a variety of tints, so if you’re putting together a series, it’s good to make them consistent. Use the Daguerreotype effect, and select one of the three tones (Brady, Shiro, or Plumbe) for all your photos.

6. Mama likes to brag

Randi, from Swoon designed this sweet, minimalist lil’ brag book that’s great for mothers and grandmothers too.

PicMonkey tip: This project puts beautiful photos front and center, and you can show off your photo editing prowess with some great effect choices. Black and White is a surefire classic, and a Daguerreotype is very flattering for portrait subjects. Consider effects that convey a mood or emotion: one-click effects like Orton, Dusk, or Tranquil vibe it up.

7. Profiles in Cuteness

Another oldie-but-goodie from The SITS Girls. It’s all about the details: we love the way the designer captured the little sprig of hair in the back of this boy’s head!

PicMonkey tip: You can go digital with this one, by executing the entire project in PicMonkey. Click Draw (near the bottom of the Effects menu) and paint white over the background with a fat brush. Use a medium-sized brush to outline the profile of the child in black, and then zoom in (the percent number in the lower right corner) to perfect your silhouette lines with a very small black brush.

8. Simple and classic

“Oh, you pretty things, don’t you know you’re driving your mamas and papas insane?” Insane with love! David Bowie had it right, and a nice framed photo of mom’s (or grandma’s) beautiful darlings will surely bring it home.

PicMonkey tip: We used Daguerreotype/Shiro on this baby and big sib photo. Get the right pixel dimensions for printing in our Help article.

• Creating a straight line using the Draw tool: Hold down the shift key while you drag the pointer.

• Aligning a horizon on a landscape shot: For a fun alternative to the “Straighten” slider in Rotate, drag the pointer across your image along the axis you want to straighten. PicMonkey magically straightens the whole shebang. This trick just might help you parallel park better, too, although we’re not sure how.

• Changing the dimensions of an overlay or text: If you want to, say, stretch a speech bubble to make it wider, hold down the shift key while dragging the corner handle of the overlay. This will let you both resize it and change its shape. If you don’t like your changes, right-click and select “Original aspect ratio.”

• Straightening an overlay or text: If you’ve added an overlay or text object and rotated it, you can straighten it by right-clicking on the object and choosing “straighten.”

• Duplicating an overlay or text: Right-click and choose “duplicate.” This is useful if you’ve already customized your object (size, color, etc.) and want to make a copy of it.

• Letting the Editor deduce all your editing choices:  The Monkey wants you to be able to do this by pressing your forehead against the screen but this one’s not ready for prime time yet. (And, ah … don’t hold your breath!)

• Changing the background in PicMonkey: Click the “Presto-Change-o” button on the home page to get a background that’s wood panel, madras, linen, or 50’s-ish patterns. Who sez your photo editor can’t match your clothes, dolling?

• Working with multiple overlays or text objects: You can control the layer order of an overlay or text object by right-clicking it and choosing “send to back,” “send backward,” “bring forward,” or “bring to front.” Sending to the back puts that layer in the bottommost position, whereas sending backward just shoves it back one more layer. Bringing to front puts the layer in the topmost position, whereas bringing it forward will pop it just one layer forward.

• Proving your dope knowledge of kitsch: If you know where, in this article, the 70’s TV show “The Six Million Dollar Man” was referenced, give us a shout on Twitter @picmonkeyapp. Anyone…? Bueller… anyone?

• Making shadow text: Right-click on your text, and select “duplicate text.” Position the second layer close to the first, but offset a bit, and fade it back to about 70%.

• Applying a texture or effect to all the layers of your photo: Click the merge button on the top toolbar before clicking on the effect or texture. The merge icon looks like a stack of papers with an arrow pointing down.

• Using Mascara to do cool stuff having nothing to do with eyelashes: We’re stumped, but someone alluded to it once in Facebook. Please comment below if you know!

• Part of a photo or text against an invisible background:  Open Collage, and create your own single cell layout. Click “Transparent background” and save it as a .png. Open this invisible image in the Editor, and add your text. To cut out part of a photo, click Overlays, and open the photo with the “Your Own” button on top of the menu, and click “Eraser” tab in the Overlay palette to erase away the parts you don’t want. Save your cut-out image or text as a .png file to preserve the transparency. Also see our watermark tutorial, “Claim Your Artistry.”

• Positioning text over a watermark or subway art square: If you want to center or justify text left or right on top of a circumscribed area — say, an overlay, or one section of your overall image — make sure that the text box is stretched fully over that area so it knows the true borders to position within.

We are constantly amazed at all the tricksy ways PicMonkeyers are using our effects and tools in ways we hadn’t imagined, so please do let us know if you’ve got a good one.  Release the comments!

See the product demo at www.picmonkey.com/glass

PicMonkey Glass uses 3D movie technology to make photo editing effects available to the naked eye. As light rays pass through the red and blue lenses of the glasses, a detailed point cloud of the world is uploaded to an armada of servers, where sophisticated object recognition algorithms break apart light fields into diffuse parametric isolations. Finally, a dedicated Higgs boson emitter attached to the eyepiece re-combines an ultra high resolution retinal projection, at a rate of 1,000 Hz, and neutered nanobots squeegee off residual ionic schvitz.

In this tutorial, we’re going to show you how to make everyone drool over your profile pic with our new, electrifying, light-tastic textures.

1. Crop your image

Open your photo in the Editor, click on the Basic Edits tab and then click Crop. Choose “Square” for your profile picture. Drag the resize corners and move the square to set the area of the image you want to keep. Profile photos can be as big as you want, because most sites will automatically resize your profile pic smaller.

2. Open the Textures tab

Click on the Textures tab and choose a set of textures you like. When you open any set, you’ll see there are now two buttons below your texture images: “Effect” and “Move.” When “Effect” is selected, controls for changing the appearance of your texture appear below. When “Move” is selected, controls for changing the position and size of your texture appear below.

3. Size and move textures

First, let’s resize the texture we’ve selected. Click the “Move” button and you’ll see a white outline around your image which lets you know you can move the texture. Click on the texture and drag to move it.

Use the “Size” slider to increase the size of the texture. This gives you more room to move the texture and control its position on your image. You can also try flipping and rotating the texture too.

Note: You need to increase the size before you can move Metal, Smudge, and Papyrus textures.

4. Erase areas you don’t want

It’s lookin’ good, but a texture over your face is so 1983 — you need to erase! Go back to the effect mode by clicking the “Effect” button and open the paint palette (if it isn’t already open) by clicking the paintbrush button. Be sure the “Original” setting is selected in the paint palette. Click and drag to erase the texture where you don’t want it to appear.

Tip: If you have perfectionist issues like some of us (ahem!) you might want to try a smaller brush size or change the brush hardness to clean up those pesky edges. Don’t forget you can zoom in.

Extra Tip: If you’re a bit messy in your erasing, click on the “Undo” button in the toolbar above your image or click on the “Effect” button in the paint palette and start painting back the texture where you want it.

5. Play more using the same erasures

Did you know that when you erase, PicMonkey remembers where you’ve erased? Really, it’s true — it’s like a mask! Say you decide you want to move that texture around just a bit more, make it bigger or even try another image in that texture set; you can easily do that without having to erase again.

6. Adjust saturation

Oh, but there’s more! To give you even more flexibility, you can now increase or decrease the saturation of your texture using the “Saturation” slider under the “Effect” button.

7.  Layer on more textures

Have fun layering textures on top of each other. Don’t be shy about experimenting. Play with fading, erasing, and if you really want to dive in, change your blend mode.

Tip: Many textures like Space and Edifice offer a great way to change the background behind you. Apply your texture and erase the texture over your face. Then change the blend mode to “Normal” and set the fade to 0.

8. Save and update your profile pic

Voila! Welcome to Radville. Population: you.

1. Photo walks are supa cool! We looked at all our photos together and were amazed to note how completely differently each person saw things in the same environs.
2. Photo walks let us get away with chatting, walking, and eating pie in the name of work.

Here are our photos, with captions detailing how we PicMonkeyed them.

P.S. For the math-minded among us, major kudos for the fist person to comment and explain why we thought it would be important to post this on March 14th?

The Monkey got his shorts stuck in the paper shredder in a failed attempt to make confetti blast out of your USB port. Alas, our one year anniversary hijinks had to be canceled. But please do take this moment to feel the huge-o, mondo hug of appreciation we extend to you, dear PicMonkey pals, for a year of photo editing fabulousness.

March 9th, 2012 was the day PicMonkey.com opened our doors and took a stab at laying out a sweet offering in the photo editing space. We’ve grown by leaps and bounds and had the good fortune to get to meet so many of you. We’ve seen your glorious creations and used what we saw to improve PicMonkey. We want to continue this tight loop of inspiration and innovation for many months and years to come, so stay with us.

For reals, people: thanks from the bottom of our hearts.

 GET YOUR PHOTO INTO THE EDITOR

You can open your photo two ways. Click “Edit a Photo” and then select it from your computer files. Alternatively, some browsers (Chrome, Firefox, and Safari) will allow you to dra-a-a-g your photo from your file directory to the “Edit a Photo” button to open it.

 If you’re not quite sure what you want to do, you can start with one of the effects you see promoted on the home page. Click on the square that describes it and PicMonkey will take you to that effect or tool, with a sample photo to work with.

 From this point the world’s your oyster—explore, you Magellan!  Or you can keep following our docent tour, here…

KICK OFF WITH THE BASICS

If you opened your own photo to edit, PicMonkey launches the Editor with the Basic Edits tab open. If you launched the Editor by clicking somewhere else on the home page, click the Basic Edits tab (the topmost icon in the far left column). Click the “Auto Adjust” button to see what PicMonkey thinks is your photo’s best exposure, color, and clarity. Sometimes the Monkey’s right, sometimes not.

Click “Crop.”  If you want your photo to maintain its aspect ratio (proportions), click “Scale photo.” Resize by clicking and dragging the corner circles.

MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE TOP TOOLBAR

Notice the toolbar that floats directly above your photo.  Your best friend is going to be the Undo button, the curvy arrow icon that points to the left. This is how you undo any action or any effect once it’s been applied. For example, if you didn’t like what “Auto Adjust” did to your photo, click Undo.

MAKE YOUR PEOPLE POP

If there’s a person in your photo, you can experiment with our Touch Up tools to bring out the best in his or her facial features. Click the Touch Up tab. Some all-time favorite free ones are “Blemish Fix,” “Blush Boost,” and “Weight Loss.” You can experiment with the Royale Touch Up effects even if you’re not a Royale member; you just can’t fully apply them to the photo. Favorite Royale Touch Up effects are “Wrinkle Remover,” “Mascara,” “Eye Brighten,” and “Air Brush.” Our subject got Barbie-perfect skin today, with “Wrinkle Remover.”

We put some great samples of photos that we used Touch Up on, in our Touch Up board on Pinterest!

MOD-UP THE MOOD

Click the Effects tab (the flask icon in the far left column). These effects are made of awesome, and they can dramatically change the mood of your photo in one click. The efffects group called Tried and True are huge among PicMonkeyers. We used “Dusk” to create a warm vignette around our wistful lady.

Go to our Pinterest Effects board for a quick look at before-and-after pics of many of our effects.

GET GRAPHICS-Y

Time to have some fun with overlays. Click the Overlays tab (the sticker icons in the far left column). Scroll down to the “People Toppers” effects group. Click “Facial Hair” and observe the instant manliness. We’ve decided Mrs. Wistful needs a mustache.

The corner circles help you size the overlay, and the top circle helps rotate the image to just the right angle.

WRAP IT UP

Now it’s time to frame zis verk of art. Click the Frame tab (the square icon in the far left column). The first four frames are the easiest to work with because they maintain your photo’s original aspect ratio. Try “Polaroid Frame.” Notice that it may crop your photo to a square. Click “Transparent Background,” which makes the frame look super realistic.

FINITO!

Save your photo using the “Save” button in the top toolbar.  You can click “Share” in the same toolbar to share it on your own PicMonkey share page in Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest or Email.

Next time you set out for adventure, you can explore the Themes tab (the bottom icon in the far left column). The Halloween themes—Vampires, Zombies, Day of the Dead, and Witches—have tons of Quick Tips laid right into the editing experience. It’s like going to the PicMonkey Graduate School of Photo Crazification.

A watermark is your first line of defense when it comes to unauthorized use of the photo by someone who discovers it on the web. It also offers a way to market your organization: the more times a viewer comes across your logo over a great photo, the more it will positively reflect and build your brand.

Following are three ways to create and place watermarks on your photos.

PLACING AN EXISTING LOGO ONTO YOUR PHOTO

If you already have a logo, here’s how to go about plopping it onto your photos in PicMonkey.

Step 1. Open your photo and logo in the Editor 

Open your photo in the editor. Click the Overlays tab (the icon showing a heart, comic bubble, and starburst in the far left column).

Click “Your Own” at the top of the panel and select your logo image from the files on your computer to open it.

Step 2. Fade and place

In the Overlay palette, adjust the “Fade” slider to 30 – 60%, then close the palette.

Click and drag the image to where you want it on the photo. You can adjust the size once the image is placed, by clicking a corner circle and dragging it inward or outward.

PLACING A TEXT-ONLY LOGOTYPE ONTO A PHOTO

If you need a quick-and-dirty way to get a company name or URL over your photo and you won’t need to do it again soon, this is a good method.

Open your photo in the editor. Click the Text tab (the “P” icon in the far left column) and click inside the box to start typing your text. Choose your color by using the color picker in the Text palette. Or you can type in a color’s the hex value (the six digits/letters in the upper right corner). White is “FFFFFF.”

Adjust the “Fade” slider to 30 – 60%, then close the palette. Click and drag the image to where you want it on the photo. Adjust the size once the image is placed by clicking a corner circle and dragging it inward or outward.

Tip:  If you find a color you like using the color picker, write down the hex value so you can match it later, if you want.

MAKING A TRANSPARENT IMAGE TO WATERMARK MANY PHOTOS

If you know you’ll be watermarking a bunch of photos, create a transparent image that you’ll be able to use for all of them. Your watermarking will be more consistent, and you’ll have less digit fatigue!

Step 1. Make a single-cell Collage

Open Collage and click the Layouts tab (the grid icon in the far left column).  Click “Create your own” at the top of the panel, and a single 1024 x 1024 cell will appear.  Don’t worry about the size for now.

Step 2.  Make it transparent and save

Click the Background tab.  Click the box next to “Transparent background.”  Don’t freak out: it’s still there!  The dotted lines show the perimeter of your transparent background.

 Click “Save” on the top toolbar, give your background a name, and save it as a “.png” file.  Close out of Collage (the “x” button in the upper right corner).

Step 3.  Create logo in Editor

Open your transparent background file in the Editor (click “Edit a photo” on the home page and select the file from wherever you saved it on your computer).  Don’t freak out: it will appear invisible at this point, but it’s there!  Click the Text tab and then the “Add Text” button on the top of the menu.  Keep the text tool in the middle of your (invisible!) background while you work on it.

Try different typefaces to see which one works best for the letters in your name. Some typefaces have particular letters that (like g’s) that are tricky. You want one that’s legible and reflects the personality of your brand.

Our Help center has a short article on using the Text tool.

Choose a color for it (see notes above). Pick a size that’s fairly large—72 point is good—you can reduce it when it’s placed on your image later. Check out our newly expanded menu of overlays and see if one of them would be right for your logo; if so add it!

Step 4.   Crop it

Go to the Basics tab, and click “Crop.”  Crop your image tightly around the periphery of the logo.

 Step 5. Save it

Be sure to save it as a “.png” file; this file format retains its transparency.  When you place it onto images, try to be consistent about where you put it each time.

Wah-lah!  You did it, Fancy Pants!  Who ever said you weren’t a slick professional, totally on top of your game?

Here are all the goodies you’ll find in the Editor:

Effects:  Bokeh Hearts, Hand Tint, Ombre Amour, Desire, Rapture

Frames: Heart Cutouts

Sweet Nothings fonts: Animatic Small Caps, Sacramento, Unkempt,  Scripting Pro

Overlays: Hearts, Doodly Hearts, Doily Hearts, Banners, Ribbons, Labels, Vintage Blossoms, Roses, Cupidity, Lips (We have a tutorial on using the two-color ones.)

And if you walk on over to Collage, you’ll notice that the old textures icon has been replaced with an icon for swatches.  We’ve re-named that tab “Swatches” and it behaves exactly as it did before. It offers up a bunch of patterned and solid colors which you can use to fill cells, and then drop text and overlays on top (in the Editor, after you save the collage).  There are nine pinky-red swatches to make your Valentine’s images swoon.

What are you waiting for, Sweetness?  Get editing!

Our two-color overlays in the Sweethearts theme are kinda like Tribbles: they’re uber-cute and can multiply in all kinds of combinations.  Here’s how to get the most out of them.

When you place an overlay onto your image, a palette shows up next to the overlay.  If the palette shows “Color 1″ and “Color 2,” you’ve got yourself a two-color overlay. Click inside the colored box next to either color, and a color picker will appear. Here’s where the fun comes in. Change the default colors if you like, either by selecting one from the grid, or by using the eye dropper tool to match a color in the image you’re overlaying onto.

The heart on the left, above, uses the two-color default of  the heart overlay. To create the middle heart, use the eyedropper tool to match Color 2 to Color 1: your overlay becomes a silhouette of the outer edge of the design. To show only Color 1 of the overlay, click the “Transparent” box for Color 2, and you’ll get the heart on the right.

Sweethearts’ ribbons are all two-color, and just like the heart overlays, you can choose whether you’ll use both colors, Color 1, or Color 2.  Three totally different looks for the same overlay.  All the Royale Labels are two-color; all Doodly Hearts, Doily Hearts, and some Cupidity cupids and arrows are too.

And, as the Tribbles would attest, there’s nothing wrong with doubling up!  You can have fun with layering two overlays on top of each other.  Look for more heartfelt examples to inspire you on our Pinterest Sweethearts board.

Filed under: How To, Inspiration, PicMonkey News Tagged: Tutorials, Valentine's Day ]]> http://blog.picmonkey.com/2013/01/21/sweethearts-two-color-overlays-are-like-tribbles/feed/ 60 picmonkey_twocolor_cover picmonkeyblog screen shot of overlay palette collage made with the same heart overlay, three ways (both colors, just color 1, and just color 2) A Sweethearts ribbon three ways: both colors, just color 1 and just color 2 collage with three double layered heart overlays picmonkey_doilyhearts picmonkey_sweethearts_card04 http://blog.picmonkey.com/2013/01/15/the-royale-yearly-plan-hits-the-streets/ http://blog.picmonkey.com/2013/01/15/the-royale-yearly-plan-hits-the-streets/#comments Tue, 15 Jan 2013 21:18:28 +0000 PicMonkey http://blog.picmonkey.com/?p=895 Read More →]]> We’ve been tweaking Royale, and today we’re rolling out our new yearly plan. It’s $33 a year, which works out to be $2.75 a month. Pretty sweet.

“It’s a great price point—45% off,” says marketing maestro Lisa Conquergood, “and we wanted to provide another option so folks can choose what works for them.”  We’re also super jazzed that 60% of our effects are free for the taking, and a few Royale effects like Tranquil and Add Your Own Textures and Overlays are now free.

For more details about how to choose or change your plan, see the Frequently Asked Questions in our Help center.

There’s something for everyone, so let’s keep putting more goodness into the photoverse, friends!

First of all, you need to—as in must—check out our Pinterest board to see images that designer Jen Shetterly has pinned from her cruises around the design community. If you’re like most of us, the drool commences by pin #4. PicMonkey’s Sweethearts theme queues off many of the antique-y looks you’ll see on the board. “I want to call up the nostalgia we all have for the valentines we made as kids, so I’m putting a lot of cool vintage stuff in the app. Doilies, antique-y flowers, engraved cupids: great old-school charm” says Jen.

On the modern side, there’ll be a gorgeous one-click effect that dramatically colorizes your photo in a very au courant look (hint: people do it to their hair and it begins with an “o”), and several more moody ones. And bokeh heart lovers, you’ve been heard. We’ll have bokeh hearts! You can also look forward to some fancy new labels; the two-color kind that give you lots of options for graphical treatment (we’ll do a tutorial to show you how). There’ll be tons more, too—including thirty new heart shapes!—so be sure to come back home to find your Sweethearts soon.

In the Editor panel and the Collage panel, all the effects and tools are listed on the left side.  The ones that are Royale show a little crown right under the name.  Subtle, yes, but you didn’t want to be the kind of  flashy, tawdry royalty that shows up in the tabloids, did you?

And look for more Royale features in 2013.  We will continue to add new features and new content to both PicMonkey free and PicMonkey Royale.