What to Wear | December

What to Wear | December

What to Wear | December

What to Wear will feature different palettes providing ideas when you plan the wardrobe for individual pictures or your family images during the holiday gatherings.

What to Wear | December features ideas for all family members: mom; dad; big brother; big sister and little brother and little sister. Have fun preparing your stylish look for family pictures!

It is not necessary to purchase new clothing for better images. When planning the wardrobe, do wash and dry the clothing. Immediately after drying, hang the clothes on a hanger. Or iron, if you like. The main goal is wrinkle free clothing.

Shoes do not need to be new either. New shoe laces is an inexpensive purchase to spruce up the look. Polishing leather or washing canvas shoes is another solution to brighten their appearance.

Have the socks match either the pants or shoes. This is important for anyone who may be sitting or squatting in the group. Imagine if the pants are navy blue, shoes white and you see bright green socks. Very distracting. Your eyes will go straight to the green socks and not the person’s face! However, if the socks were either white (matching shoes) or navy blue (matching pants), your eyes will flow over the person and land on the face/eyes of the person in the picture.

Take Care. Best wishes, Debra
Gma’s photo

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Taking Better Phone Pictures | Typical Edits

Taking Better Phone Pictures | Typical Edits

Taking Better Phone Pictures | Typical Edits

Hi, Many people when starting photography get very lost when it comes to editing. When looking at a picture you just took on a nice camera, it’s really easy to look at it and think “wow, that looks great! what is there to fix?” Or maybe “I’ve got a nice camera that I figured out how to use, but I can NOT get my pictures to look like everybody else’s!” Well don’t stress it, because I’ve got some good ways to help you get started.

The 2 main things that photographers look at with each image is the tone and the exposure.  Many cameras shoot pictures where the skin tone ends up looking too orange, too red or even too blue. Fixing the image so that the skin tones look natural and like the color of the actual skin can make a dramatic difference. The other major fix is the exposure.  Is the picture too light?  Is the picture too dark?  Even with professional cameras, pictures can come out with the exposure off.  The best way to judge if the exposure is correct is to look at the skin again.  It’s very important to adjust the image until the exposure is correct. Even if it means making the sky extra bright, it’s more important to have the skin be the correct amount of exposure over everything else in the image.

The example photo I am using was taken just this weekend, not of people rather of the Autumn leaves. My preferred editing app for phone photography images is PicTapGo.

taking better phone pictures | typical edits
Picture of the autumn leaves straight from the phone.
The leaves on the drive caught my eye. I just really liked them. This is a good picture. Some would find it nice, color and all. However, I adjusted the exposure and tone. Here is my edited version.

autumn leaves
Exposure and tone adjustments.

What I like about the PicTapGo, it’s simple and has many filters available that is included with the app. After picking an image to edit, click filters and apply the desired one. I chose the Warm It Up and Lights On.

basic edits
Working in PicTapGo

Each filter has a slider to adjust the strength to the amount you prefer.

adjusting edits
Adjusting the amount applied
before and after edits
Before and After

PicTapGo is available for iPhone. There are many different apps for editing as well. Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom and Snapseed can be used with either iOS or Android. I have personally used all of these and found PicTapGo to be the most user-friendly.

WW Update:
Since Start Date; -24.8lbs

Take Care. Best wishes, Debra
Gma’s photo

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What to Wear | November

what to wear November 23

What to Wear | November

What to Wear will feature different palettes providing ideas when you plan the wardrobe for individual pictures or your family images during the holiday gatherings.

What to Wear | November features ideas for all family members: mom; dad; big brother; big sister and little brother and little sister. Have fun preparing your stylish look for family pictures!

It is not necessary to purchase new clothing for better images. When planning the wardrobe, do wash and dry the clothing. Immediately after drying, hang the clothes on a hanger. Or iron, if you like. The main goal is wrinkle free clothing.

Shoes do not need to be new either. New shoe laces is an inexpensive purchase to spruce up the look. Polishing leather or washing canvas shoes is another solution to brighten their appearance.

Have the socks match either the pants or shoes. This is important for anyone who may be sitting or squatting in the group. Imagine if the pants are navy blue, shoes white and you see bright green socks. Very distracting. Your eyes will go straight to the green socks and not the person’s face! However, if the socks were either white (matching shoes) or navy blue (matching pants), your eyes will flow over the person and land on the face/eyes of the person in the picture.

Take Care. Best wishes, Debra
Gma’s photo

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What to Wear | October

October | wow

What to Wear | October

What to Wear will feature different palettes providing ideas when you plan the wardrobe for individual pictures or your family images during the holiday gatherings.

What to Wear | October features ideas for all family members: mom; dad; big brother; big sister and little brother and little sister. Have fun preparing your stylish look for family pictures!

It is not necessary to purchase new clothing for better images. When planning the wardrobe, do wash and dry the clothing. Immediately after drying, hang the clothes on a hanger. Or iron, if you like. The main goal is wrinkle free clothing.

Shoes do not need to be new either. New shoe laces is an inexpensive purchase to spruce up the look. Polishing leather or washing canvas shoes is another solution to brighten their appearance.

Have the socks match either the pants or shoes. This is important for anyone who may be sitting or squatting in the group. Imagine if the pants are navy blue, shoes white and you see bright green socks. Very distracting. Your eyes will go straight to the green socks and not the person’s face! However, if the socks were either white (matching shoes) or navy blue (matching pants), your eyes will flow over the person and land on the face/eyes of the person in the picture.

Take Care. Best wishes, Debra
Gma’s photo

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Things to Consider When Designing & Working with Your Blog

things to consider when designing & working with your blog

Things to Consider When Designing and Working with Your Blog

Hi, have you ever heard, ‘simple is more’ or ‘keep it simple’? These are my golden rules I try to live by and work.

Link Up Parties has provided me the opportunity to visit other blogs. Not every blog is the same. Although there are similarities. The following are my observations and experiences while visiting other sites. Although I am just one person/visitor, others may have the same experiences. A perspective a blog owner should consider.

The blogs I enjoyed the most were simple and minimal. Those attracted me and the content kept my attention. I personally can be easily distracted. Pop up’s and advertisements right in the middle of a blog post was a huge distraction. My tendency would be to skip thru the article, just to get to the comment section to say hi and add my name and website address. Some of the comment sections required me to log into WordPress.com or Blogger or even into Google to add my comment. I don’t use either of those services. The blogs that had this requirement, I did not leave a comment.

Bigger, darker text is easier to read. Simple menus make navigating through the blog a better experience.

Part of having my blog is to meet other bloggers. One of the pages I enjoy going to is the about page. I like to know who I am visiting. For safety reasons, I understand why one would not like to give out too much information. However, a first name would be nice. Have a ‘blog’ name. Please be realistic. For example, my name is, Debra. I could have used Diane. For children, a name other than the real name, but please, don’t use x, y or z child!

Having a contact page is important. The blogs that required a sign in to comment, I would instead reach out to the blog owner using their contact page letting them know I enjoyed their site. I did not want to be one who link up and not thank the hostess.

A home or blog page for posts in chronological order is very user friendly. When I visit the links on a link up party, I will go to look at the about page. After reading about the owner, I like to go back to the linkup party. Without a simple navigation menu with a home or blog page, some sites posed a real challenge to return to the party.

Nice images are important to have. No need to buy a fancy camera. Phone camera’s can take beautiful pictures. However, pay attention to lighting, composition, sharpness. Quality images will add a professional element to your website.

I understand some blogs are an income source and need to generate revenue. The sites I appreciate are the ones who used the footer and/or side bar to place the advertisements. Pop ups are very distracting. Consider placing the Subscribe Form in the side bar or at the bottom of the page.

Good customer service and common courtesy. Should a post engage with visitors visiting and commenting, return the favor and click the link in your admin section to their page and leave a kind word!

Things to Consider When Designing & Working with Your Blog post is about observations that I have made while visiting other blog sites. When you have visited other sites, including this site, what are some of the good things you experienced and what are the least liked?

WW Update:
Since Start Date; -20.8lbs

Take Care. Best wishes, Debra
Gma’s photo

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What to Wear | September

what to wear September

What to Wear | September

Hi, we have some holidays soon approaching and this means family time! With family time there will be many photo opportunities. Remember, taking the shot is the first step in getting a good picture. And that is the most important step. However, you may be wondering how to make the picture a better picture. This is the inspiration for the What to Wear posts!

It is not necessary to purchase new clothing for better images. When planning the wardrobe, do wash and dry the clothing. Immediately after drying, hang the clothes on a hanger. Or iron, if you like. The main goal is wrinkle free clothing.

Shoes do not need to be new either. New shoe laces is an inexpensive purchase to spruce up the look. Polishing leather or washing canvas shoes is another solution to brighten their appearance.

Have the socks match either the pants or shoes. This is important for anyone who may be sitting or squatting in the group. Imagine if the pants are navy blue, shoes white and you see bright green socks. Very distracting. Your eyes will go straight to the green socks and not the person’s face! However, if the socks were either white (matching shoes) or navy blue (matching pants), your eyes will flow over the person and land on the face/eyes of the person in the picture.

what to wear September

What to Wear will feature different palettes providing ideas when you plan the wardrobe for individual pictures or your family images during the holiday gatherings.

What to Wear | September features ideas for all family members: mom; dad; big brother; big sister and little brother and little sister. Have fun preparing your stylish look for family pictures!

Take Care. Best wishes, Debra
Gma’s photo

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