A few awesome iPhone apps for fun family pictures!

by Karen Lara mentioned a while back that her DSLR camera is broken (and I am really sad about that for her!) but all is not lost. As she mentioned, her iPhone has a pretty awesome camera - and it's true; she and I have the same phone. But, in addition to the great camera, there are some pretty awesome apps that can enhance your pictures and make fun collages right on your phone. Easy peasy! (Though I use an iPhone, some of these may also be available on other phones also.)

I have recently aquired a number of said apps that go far beyond the filters of Instagram. (Not that Instagram isn't a great app, but its uses are definitely limited.) Some are free. Some are paid. All of them combined will not cost you as much as a new point and shoot, let alone a new DSLR.

Before we start, though, a quick phoneography pro tip for you: Take your shots and save them to your photo library unfiltered and uncropped first. Use either the native camera app or something like Camera+ (which I honestly haven't gotten into like some, but I hear people rave about it) that allows you to go unfiltered. That will give you lots of opportunities to play with your pictures and you'll have one image that isn't going to be dated by a filter too.

I think most people know about Instagram, but just in case you don't yet, it's like a mini social network. You can connect with Facebook friends and  share photos to Twitter and Facebook. Followers can like or comment on your photos and you on theirs. It's great for quick sharing.

If you want more pizazz in your photos, here are a few other apps I'd suggest:

Snapseed - I've heard it called the Photoshop of the iPhone. It's pretty good. Nice filters and control with how intense you make them, as well as a few basic editing options. You can give your photos a nice little touch up on the fly without downloading to your photo editing software on your computer.

100 Cameras - This one was built by Trey Ratcliff, a photographer I've followed for a while now. It's my fun app to play with. There are so many filters and they're quite unique to anything else you'll find in other apps and it gives you full control over the intensity. You can even apply some funky textures to photos. It's not always ideal for photos of people, but you can have a lot of fun with objects and landscape photos.

Once you've edited and applied any filters your photo(s), you may want to have more fun with it! There are some great apps to create collages and add text to your photos right on your phone.

Diptic - This is a basic collage app with all square/rectangular layouts. You can manipulate the layouts to an extent and you can reposition pictures so that it the portion of the image showing is what you want.

Over - Have you ever wanted to add some text to a photo rather than just providing context in a status update with it? Over is fun for adding in text. There are a multitude of fun and funky fonts to choose from, as well as lots of colours and control over size. You can adjust the tint of the photo so your text pops more or to achieve a certain effect, but it's best to pull in the photo as you want it. Over is not an editing tool.

FuzelPro - This is my current favorite collage/text overlay tool. The collage layouts are super funky. You get a lot more than Diptic provides, but it can be a bigger time suck to use, so it really depends on what you want to do. FuzelPro also provides some frames and some text options (not as many as Over, though). It's like a combination of the two tools in one!

All of these apps will allow you to share to various social networks once you've finished editing.

Do you use your smartphone to take photos as you go through each day? What are some of your favourite apps?

Happy phoneography!

*****

Karen Wilson is a wife to Matt and mom to Brandon (4), who blogs about her life at Karen’s Chronicles. She can be found at Wellman Wilson, helping businesses use social media more effectively. Karen is also committed to doing her part to keep the coffee industry alive, because who needs sleep?

It's summertime! Let's all stay safe when swimming

Over Victoria Day weekend, my family had an impromptu invite to go to a friend's cottage by the lake. So, I packed up the car, threw Brandon in and we escaped! (Kidding...we gave my dear husband a chance to get caught up on tons of stuff he wanted to do.)

Today, my friend texted me this picture that was taken on our trip to the cottage and I uploaded it to Instagram because Brandon was so cute concentrating on swimming. It prompted the following conversation:

@alisonjette He needs to learn to swim *very well* before I'll let him near the water without his life jacket.

— Karen Wilson (@Karen_C_Wilson) June 12, 2012

My little chat with Alison got me thinking, though. Swim safety is so important to prevent anyone from having an incident in the water, but it's particularly important for children who are naturally the most vulnerable. According to the Lifesaving Society's 2011 report [PDF, 1.9MB], approximately 500 people die each year in Canada from drowning, and most are swimming when they get into trouble.

Get the proper equipment for water activities, starting with a good lifejacket for weak or non-swimmers and any child under 5.

Having a cute swimsuit is fun, but a functional life-saving device, a.k.a, lifejacket, is more important. Anytime he was by the lake, Brandon had to be wearing his life jacket. He floated out beyond where his feet could touch the bottom numerous times, thinking it was a fun game when our host pushed him back to shore with the dinghy. If he hadn't been wearing a good lifejacket, that "game" wouldn't have been fun at all.

I also consulted the Lifesaving Society's drowning and water safety guidelines and here's what they had to say for children:

• Restrict and control access to the water. Enclose backyard pools on all four sides with a fence and a self-latching, self-closing gate; drain bathtubs when not in use; empty unattended wading pools and buckets.

• Wear a lifejacket when boating. Toddlers should wear a lifejacket anytime they are near water.

• Stay within arms’ reach of young children when they are near water – in the backyard, the beach and in the bathroom.

• Go to lifeguard-supervised beaches and pools.

• Learn to swim. Enroll children in swimming lessons and in a swimming survival program such as the Lifesaving Society’s Swim to Survive.

• In the winter, check ice before going out on it – clear, hard, new ice is the safest for travel. Avoid slushy or moving ice and ice that has thawed and refrozen.

HA! That last one just amuses me at this time of year, but it's serious business in the spring and fall.

BONUS! Don't forget to pack the sunscreen and drink lots of water.

I do not tan - never have, never will - and my son has inherited my pale genes, but even if you do tan, it's not safe to stay in the sun for prolonged periods without some protection. Trust me - after a sunburn that blistered (badly) when I was twelve and forgot my sunscreen for a canoe trip, I do everything I can to avoid getting burnt.

These recent hot, hot, hot days are great if you like the heat, but don't bask in it too long without staying hydrated.

What other rules do you have for water safety in your family?

*****

Karen Wilson is a wife to Matt and mom to Brandon (4), who blogs about her life at Karen’s Chronicles. She can be found at Wellman Wilson, helping business use social media more effectively. Lately, she’s also busy planning a little conference and doing her part to keep the coffee industry alive.

Social Media Monday : Instagram

by Lara I have a big digital camera but it's not convenient to bring with me everywhere I go. For a while I considered carrying around a small point and shoot for the unexpected fun moments but having an iPhone in my pocket meant I essentially did have that. Sweet!

In the world of social media, the fun comes from sharing. I have hundreds of photos on my phone. Sometimes I chose to email them to services that could automatically put them on twitter for me, but most of the time I didn't.

Enter Instagram.

It is a fun and easy to use iPhone app (unfortunately only iPhone at the moment with no plans to launch android or blackberry options any time soon) that:

- takes photos - allows you to apply fun filters to them - with a simple click share to twitter, facebook or flickr - have a friends feed right within the application

Instagram Filters

What instagram has done is offer 16 filters you can apply to your photos. They can take a photo that might not have been that interesting and make it a lot more fun.

You can also zoom in and crop your photo.

Then play with the filters!

Share

You can hook your account up to your Facebook, Twitter and and Flickr and have them automatically update to those sites (you select where each individual photo is sent, it isn't automatic). You can also choose to make your photos private and just keep them for yourself - they don't have to have a social media component.

You can also follow friends right on Instagram and like and comment on friend's photos right there.

You can also see generally popular photos on the whole of Instagram.

And there's a news feed

It's a really fun app and I now take all of my photos with my phone using it. If you use it too - look for me and add me, I'm glidinglara.

Happy snapping!

Lara Wellman is mom to 4 year old Kiernan and 2 year old twins Quinn and Juliette. You can read her personal blog at Gliding Through Motherhood, about her weight loss journey at Losing it in Ottawa, and her social media blog at Larawellman.com