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TOOL TUESDAY: Find that Photo with TinEye Reverse Image Search

October 4, 2011 by Kerri Karvetski

Tool Tuesday features digital tools I actually use and recommend to my clients. No one pays me to say these things. I just like sharing.

A few weeks ago I was putting together a presentation and found an image on my hard drive that I really loved. Being a firm believer in obeying copy rights, I wanted to give proper credit for using the photo.

Problem was, no matter how I searched on Flickr (that’s where I find most of my photos), I couldn’t find the photo again. Then I remembered TinEye.

TinEye is a reverse image search engine. You give it a photo (via upload or URL), and it seeks out a match. TinEye finds exact and altered copies of the images that you submit, including those that have been cropped, color adjusted, resized, heavily edited or slightly rotated.

Truth is I had bookmarked TinEye a long time ago and never had an opportunity to use it. Just before my presentation I read Who Is This Man, and Why Is He Screaming? about a shy photographer named Noam Galai who discovered that people all over the world were using his scream self-portrait without attribution.

He used TinEye as his image detective to retrace his photo’s journey to advertisements, street protests, t-shirts and more in Spain, Iran, Mexico, England – about 40 countries. See Stolen Scream for his version of the story.

Noam’s story prompted me give TinEye a test run. The tool passed with flying colors, cutting my search from minutes to seconds.

In addition to the web search, TinEye has browser add-ons for Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer. It also lets you sort results and share them on Facebook, Twitter, via email and on other social networks.

WHY USE TINYEYE

I used TinEye to find out where an image came from. Other uses include:

Research or track the appearance of an image online
Find higher resolution versions of an image
Discover modified or edited versions of an image

TinEye is free and fun. Be sure to bookmark it…I bet someday you’ll need it.

Posted in General, Photos, Search | Comments

TOOL TUESDAY: Seriously Easy Videos With Animoto (and a nice nonprofit discount)

June 28, 2011 by Kerri Karvetski

Video is awesome. Video is powerful. Video can deliver amazing results.

But it ain’t easy.

Yes, smartphones and Flip video cameras have made it easy to capture video. The gobs of videos uploaded to YouTube every minute attest to that.

But many nonprofits and businesses shy away from video because they know a good video is not just about capturing video. A good video is about telling a story and having a purpose, i.e. capturing leads, raising awareness or soliciting donations. It’s also about knowing the medium and editing your footage to create a coherent and compelling message.

Making a good video entails both storytelling and technical skills. No one wants make a bad video, so a lot of us just don’t try.

Animoto Helps You Make Stunning Videos

If you’ve got photos, you can have a good video. Very few technical skills required. Really.

Animoto is a web-based service that sets your photos to music and turns them into videos. Check it out.

Animoto thinks like a director and an editor, combining your images and music with the same sophisticated post-production skills and techniques used in television and film. The technology takes into account every nuance of a song – the genre, song structure, energy, rhythm, instrumentation and vocals.

Animoto is a tool, not a magic bullet. You still need a compelling story structure, decent photos and solid copy.

Make and share an Animoto video and I guarantee someone will ask you how you did it.

Thirty-second Animoto videos are absolutely free. Pick an animation style, choose your music, add some text, upload your photos and Animoto makes it stunning.

Pull in images from Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket or SmugMug. When you are done, share your video easily via email or on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or Tumblr.

Animoto comes with about a dozen animation styles and music in a variety of genres. Paid accounts give you more options – download videos, produce videos without the Animoto branding baked in and add a link to the end of your video, a feature that’s a must if you are going to use the video to make an ask (sign up, donate, etc.).

Pro accounts with all the bells and whistles are just $249 per year, or $39/month. Click here for Animoto pricing.

Free Animoto Pro Accounts for Nonprofits & Educators

Here’s the best part – nonprofits and educators are eligible for free Animoto Pro accounts!

Here’s a video that volunteers at Amnesty International US put together recently in support of Iranian student leader and prisonor of conscience Majid Tavakoli.

To qualify, nonprofits need to submit a charity registration number and to register with a nonprofit email address, not a personal email address. The Animoto website states that it will take about 14 days to process a nonprofit application. Click here for Animoto for a Cause.

Educators must provide school, grades and subjects taught and class website/blog. Likewise, educators must submit the application using an official school email address. Click here for Animoto for Education.

I highly recommend the Animoto blog for tips and tricks, webinars and tutorials. Definitely read 5 Ways Animoto Can Help Your Cause and Animoto For A Cause 101.

If you end up using Animoto, share your video here and I’ll share it on the Company K Media Facebook page and Twitter feed.

Tool Tuesday blog posts feature products and services I’ve actually used, like and recommend to nonprofits and small businesses.

Animoto & Instagram: Perfect Together? (gigaom.com)
5 Facebook Apps for Getting More From Your Photos (mashable.com)
YouTube Good Work Helps Non-Profits Find The Video Help They Need (googlefornonprofits.blogspot.com)

photo credit: PearlsandaCardi

Posted in Creativity, Grants, Photos, Tools, Video | Comments

TOOL TUESDAY: Free, Easy, Anywhere Photo Editing With Picnik

June 7, 2011 by Kerri Karvetski

If you want to manage a website, publish an e-newsletter or participate in social media, you need to know how to prep photos. The good news is, you don’t need Photoshop and you don’t have to spend a dime on photo editing software.

The tool that I recommend to beginners is Picnik, a free online photo editing service. It’s super easy and browser-based, which means you don’t need to download software. You can edit photos from any computer connected to the Internet.

Picnik is the official photo editing tool for Flickr and Picasa (photo sharing sites) and MailChimp (email service provider), among others. Google thought it was so nifty it purchased Picnik in March 2010.

Before going into Picnik as a tool, we need to cover a few techniques.

Make Your Photos Light

Photos taken from digital cameras are usually too fat to be used online. If you see “mb” (megabytes) as the file size, it’s way too big. You want “kb” (kilobytes), preferably something under 100kb. The fatter the file, the slower your web page or newsletter will load. A lot of readers will just move on.

Save Your Photos Right

Save your photos as .jpg or .png, and for graphics with limited colors, such as logos, use a .gif.

Get To Know Pixels

Pixels are the smallest unit of a picture on a screen. You measure height and width of digital photos in pixels.

For websites and email, you will need to resize photos so they fit properly on the page or in the column. This column is about 580px wide, so I need to make my photos no wider than that or it’ll make this webpage look funny.

Here’s a photo saved in three different pixel sizes (isn’t she cute):

DIMENSIONS: 580px wide x 440px high

DIMENSIONS: 300px wide x 227px high

DIMENSIONS: 150px wide x 114px high

Social media sites such as Facebook will resize photos for you.

Get Cropping

Learn how to crop properly and a whole world of opportunity will open for you:

Focus on the most visually interesting sections of a photo
Get rid of unnecessary or undesirable parts of the photo
Make thumbnails for previews and excerpts
Prepare photos for defined spaces, like a homepage slide show (like on my homepage)

For example, I took these photos of a daycare center mural, and really just wanted to zoom in on the boy on the tire swing for the center’s web page:

Tire swing before cropping

Tire swing after cropping

Now Go Picnik!

I highly recommend Getting Started With Picnik, a quick guide designed to get you started on the path to photo-editing awesomeness.

Practice those crops, and then move on to red-eye, filters and overlaying text. Have fun! And, be productive without being frustrated.

Posted in Photos, Tools | Comments