Tilt-shift Maker will turn all of your photos into miniatures - An amazing effect

Tilt-shift miniature style photos are pictures of real-life scenes that are manipulated to look like model photographs.

Now you can easily transform your existing digital camera photos into tilt-shift style miniatures using tiltshiftmaker.com. Our online photo editing tool is fun and requires no registration or signup. 

It is a really cool effect that will give your photos a distinct look and your students will love it.  Try out Tilt Shift Maker here.

Is your face symmetrical? Great Maths Lesson

This week we have been looking at Geometry, Symmetry and tessellation and as a part of this we got our kids to use their school photograph and see if their face actually was symmetrical.  Surprisingly to  nearly all of them realised that their face was far from symmetrical but had great fun doing this activity and learnt a great deal from it.

In doing this our student learnt about lines of symmetry and mirror imaging  We just used Microsoft Paint but any number of free programs such as Paint.net will achieve the same results.  Follow these simple steps to complete the task.

1: Load a photo of yourself in Paint ( we just used our school photos because they were a great portrait picture.  If you have none of these you may have to take some pics of your kids first.

2:  Click the select tool and select half the face the nose as this will be your line of symmetry.  You need to make a copy of your selection.

3:  Paste the copied selection back on top of the original photo.

4:  Click on the rotate button and select flip horizontal.

5:  Move the selected flip so that it aligns as best with the rest of the photo.  then ask yourself is your face really symmetrical.

As an extension task you might like to get you kids to use google images and find the lines of symmerty in objects such as flowers, fruit and shapes.  Discuss the lines of human symmetry and it would also be worth looking at the famous Da Vinci Picture - the art of man

Aviary all in one Educational Suite - Cool tools for school in the browser.

Aviary would have to be one of the most innovative software companies going around at them moment.  They have created free versions of Garageband, Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator that are rich in features and run straight from the browser.  Myna - Aviary's version of Garageband is still one the most impressive pieces of web programming I have ever seen and it really gives you an insight as to what can be achieved in the browser.

They have just released an educational suite including their image editor (Photoshop wannabe, vector editor (Illustrator wannabe), Audio Recorder (Garage band Equivalent) and music creator for students as part of a specific suite.  The benefit students gain from accessing this over the traditional net is that all images as are kid friendly and you can access work they are doing.

Sign up for it here. Might be just what the creative / artistic teacher is seeking.

Great basic Photoshop alternative for Students in Splashup.com

Splashup is a great little photo / image editor that works straight from the browser.  It is really user friendly and will easily be handled by students and novices alike but it also has some depth to it.  For example photoshop users will be impressed to see that you can use layers which puts it above many basic / free image editors that are available out there.

It links into all the major web based photo sharing services such as Picasa, Flickr Etc and has a range of dynamic brushes and filters.

All in all this is definitely one of the best free Photoshop alternatives for beginners I have seen and would definitely solve most beginners problems easily right from the browser. This program would be great for students earning their graphic design degree online too. Check it out here.

Pixlr - Photoshop Elements in a Web Browser - Almost

What is it?  Pixlr is an online image editor that runs within the web browser that offers some amazing filters, tools and features that will get the casual blogger, amateur photographer or designer out of most spots if they do not have a full featured image editing application such as Photoshop at their fingertips.  It is simple to use looks great and will meet the needs of the majority of users who just want to enhance or alter an image with little to no fuss in little to no time.

Some features are:

• A fully customizable user interface with movable and scalable windows
• Navigation-free drop-down menus featuring all filters, adjustment and layering options
• Intuitive design and paint features with a dedicated history window for reference and quick undo/redo
• A “Photo Express” portal for quick, simple changes to images and photographs
• Upload and download photos in seconds and begin editing without any signup hassles or cost.

How Can I use this in the classroom?  Secondary up for Starters mainly due to the extensive options that are on offer.  Students could create or alter an advertising campaign image relevant to a current classroom issue or simply create a collage of high quality images relating to something important to them.  I for your students have a blog you might recommend Pixlr as an easily accessible tool to enhance images for posts, banners and so on.

I have included a video below that Explains Pixlr further or you can jump straight in here.