Becoming a Millennial

202. Picnik

I was skeptical.  Not another photo-editing program!  Isn't Irfanview good enough?  This morning I spent about 30 minutes with Picnik (on the recommendation from one of my ETC staff) and came away a believer.  It is web-based, free, tons of effects, and a very easy interface.  In 30 minutes I pretty much tried all it's features, including the pencil drawing effect you see here.

186. Snagit

Why didn't I start using Snagit three years ago when I first became aware of the utility?  I actually purchased it but it sat unused in its box.

I'm a big user of graphics and spend a lot of time pasting screen shots into Word or PowerPoint, and then using the crop tool on every image.

When Snagit is installed the <Print Scrn> key brings up a pointer that you drag over the exact portion of the screen that you want.  When you release the mouse the image appears in the Snagit window from where you can copy & paste it into your application, save as a JPEG file, print, or email.

Over the past week as I prepared a major PowerPoint presentation this little $39.95 utility saved me a lot of time.  I highly recommend it.

151. Brain Surgery in Ecuador

One of our Taylor pre-med students is spending the semester in Cuenca, Ecuador (TU's new global parter site) and participated in a recent brain surgery. 

Warning -- the pictures are graphic -- but they are an amazing set of photos showing the operation beginning with the xrays of the large white tumor, opening the skull, removing the tumor, and then closing back up the skull. Click here to open the slide show.

This will give you an appreciation for the wonderful learning opportunities provided today's students, as well as the level of medical sophistication around the world.  Also, you'll appreciate the convenience of Flickr as a means of sharing a set of pictures.

148. Flickr and the Taylor Tech Fair

Over 400 faculty, students, and staff participated in yesterday's Tech Fair.  Click here to view a slide show hosted on Flickr.   

This was my first time to use Flickr.  I went to the flickr website, created my account, downloaded the utility to enable one to post an entire folder of pictures, posted my pictures, added a link to our wikinews article -- it all took less than 30 minutes!  Amazing capabilities here.

26. Web Graphics for Dummies

Here is the easiest way to create a graphic for a web site (e.g. note the four-picture collage I posted yesterday).

1. Go into PowerPoint (or another program with which you are familiar such as Word or Paint), and insert your photographs and text boxes.
2. Press <Print Scrn> to copy the screen image to the clipboard.
3. Open Irfanview (you've already downloaded this, right?  See entry 15).
4. Select Edit ... Paste ... to bring in the copied screen image.
5. Drag a box around just the part you want to keep, and select Edit ... Crop Selection.
6. If you need to make the graphic smaller select Image ... Resize/Resample ... and Set new size as percentage of the original ... OK.
7. Select File ... Save As ... to save the image as a jpeg file.  It is now ready for posting on your web page.

No, you don't have to be a whiz with Photoshop or some exotic photo editing program.  Just use the software you're familiar with and Irfanview!

A little disclaimer here -- the above technique works great with images that will be viewed on a computer screen.  If you are planning to print the image you may be disappointed due to the fact that the resolution is pretty low.

15. Image Editing With Irfanview

You'll notice I've been including a lot of photos with my postings.  I've been editing them (resize, crop, flip. etc.) very quickly with a great little program called Irfanview.  It's FREE and only takes a few minutes to download and install.

No, it doesn't have all the features of Photoshop, but then most of the time you don't need to do anything fancy like removing someone's head or scrubbing out your mother-in-law. (That wouldn't be me because I actually like my mother-in-law!)

Here's a clever work-around to overlay a photo with some graphics or text (note the musical notes added to my picture two postings ago):  I inserted the photo into a PowerPoint slide ... added the musical notes from clipart ... pressed <Print Scrn> to copy the screen image to the clipboard  ... opened Irfanview ... selected Paste ... and then cropped off all the unwanted area.  I saved the result as a jpeg file and posted it to my blog.