It’s funny to realize that the long and unusual name that photos always name themselves when you download them is actually a description of where the photo came from. I have always just immediately saved the image under a new name like “tree 1, tree 2..etc.) I will not be doing anymore haha. I decided to go with images of Maple tree leaves since my blog is moving toward a tree theme since our last blog post.

Pixabay haslots of images. I appreciated the search bar to get a more specific image. Unplashed also gave a search bar for specific images. I liked this cite the most just because it linked directly to the photographer’s social media. This made it very easy to see the rest of the work.  Photos for class looked the least appealing visually but I think overall might be the most helpful as a major portion of the citation is already on each photo that you download. This would be a big plus for teachers/librarians who are putting together something for the classroom.

I downloaded an image from each site and use those to upload it to the photo editing sites. Upon using Tuxpi my immediate thought was that it might give me lots of pop-ups. Surprisingly it was very easy to upload and edit my image. However, when I went to download my edit some of my “edits” did not carry over to the newly saved image. Pixlr had a free and premium version available. There was a large variety of editing tools available. When you hover over them with your mouse the function of each tool is explained which was greatly appreciated. You do need to click/drag your tool over the image several times for the effect to take place. This is good if you are trying to be very precise but slow if you are not. When using Pizap you have to create a log-in. This site also contains lots of different editing options. It also gave you the ability to add stickers, and borders, and had specific editing tools based on editing a person’s face. Big Huge labs had lots of fun photo games. I loved the “jigsaw” option. I was actually given a puzzle once that was a picture of my friends. It’s one of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten. This site does have a huge amount of ads which slows down your editing process. Foldplay would be great for a classroom use to let kids bring in their own images to create a puzzle out of. It was very simple and you have a printable puzzle in less than two minutes. You can also make origami and kaleidoscope-style activities. 

Overall, all the photosites and editing tools were simple to use and all of them give the average person a lot of room to get creative. I appreciate knowing that these sites exist and look forward to working with them in the future.