my new toy

We splashed out on Photoshop Elements for Christmas. It's a steep learning curve! I'm trying very hard to take it one step at a time, and not try to learn it all in one go - but my favourite tool right now is the magic extractor, which gets rid of mucky backgrounds.

Here's before:



and here's after:



What I need to do next is make sure I've removed all stray whisps of filling before taking the photo!

I made myself a new Etsy banner though, which I'm pretty proud of.



Onwards and upwards!

PICASA rules! Photo editing freebie

I'm gradually getting to grips with my light tent, but now find I need to edit differently. I've been using Irfanview for years and had therefore ignored various people's advice to try Picasa until recently.

Thank you LushandLovely!

Picasa is very user-friendly, and joy of joys it lets you crop to a square! That's one of the many things that has been such a trial for Folksy and Etsy - I 've cropped to what I feel sure is a square, only to then have somebody's head chopped off in the thumbnails.

No longer!