Now that you have taken pictures, created your own images using Photoshop or other image editing application, or captured screenshots, you may need to resize these images to fit in your blog’s sidebar (180px width recommended) or posting area (400px width recommended). I know not everyone owns Photoshop, so I have used and can recommend a free program for PCs called FastStone.
For the Mac, you can use iWatermark. FastStone is primarily used to resize images; however, you can also use it to add a watermark (if it is your creation), and it has some other light photo-editing tools as well. (Don’t add your watermark to an image that is not yours, such as a snapshot of another web site.)
Go to the FastStone web site (www.faststone.org), click on Download, then download FastStone Photo Resizer 3.0 (the .exe file). Run the setup and go through the installation process. Mac users can download iWatermark from http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/imaging_3d/iwatermark.html. Then drag iWatermark.dmg to the Applications folder and install. In the next exercise we’ll resize an image and apply a watermark. A watermark is typically a partially transparent image (normally a PNG or GIF file) that is placed somewhere on your artwork to designate ownership and keep others from copying and profiting from your work. Figure 4–10 shows a watermark applied to a solid background, while Figure 4–11 shows a watermark applied to an actual piece of artwork (photo taken with my camera). Below are a few tutorials to help you create a watermark (or you can have one professionally made):
• Photoshop Elements: http://kurtisamundson.com/resources/watermark
• GIMP: www.websbyamy.com/wptutorials/WatermarkGimp.html
• iWatermark: www.laycockdesigns.com/watermarks/iwatermark-tutorial/
About Jhon Jabir
