PicMonkey

Anyone who's been around my blog and facebook very much, knows that photography is my favorite thing to do.  Fibro and arthritis has made it harder for me to get out and enjoy taking landscape and nature photos as much as I used to, but with an 18 month old granddaughter, a new granddaughter due to arrive in a few weeks, and still having the youngest of my four children living at home, I still have plenty of photo opportunities!  

I was a Picnik junky when it was around.  I honestly started to tear up when I found out they were closing.   I sadly gravitated over to PicMonkey, just sure that my easy yet super-cool editing was a thing of the past. I even splurged and bought a used copy of  Photoshop CS5 and sighed heavily thinking about trying to learn how to use it.  I muttered an awful lot in my head, about how my love for photo editing was going to be a thing of the past.

As I uploaded a photo on PicMonkey, and started to play around a little bit, I felt my fear and dread quickly dissipating.  I thought to myself "Huh.  Maybe this will be ok after all".  It was so incredibly easy and user friendly. The bonus?  I found new options in PicMonkey, that I didn't have with Picnik.  My very favorite effect at PicMonkey is the Film Stock effect.  My next fav is HDR!  Here's an example of a photo I did a few weeks ago using the HDR effect:

My triple berry pie is amazing, but PicMonkey helps to make it look even more amazing!  The first photo is my pie unedited.  The second picture, is my PicMonkey version. Same with the third photo (unedited) and the fourth photo (edited)?  See how I can pull more of the colors and "wetness" of my berries out using PicMonkey effects?

PicMonkey offers tons of super cool overlays and effects for not only each season, but also for each holiday!  You have to check out the super adorable items they have available for Valentine's day now!  I love them all!

Here's one for Valentine's Day that I quickly made from a photo of my youngest daughter and her boyfriend.  This photo was originally taken in front of my Christmas tree this past holiday season.  With all of the cool Valentine's day effects, you can't even tell!

Another thing that I absolutely love about PicMonkey, is that they have a blog where they also give tips and tricks to make the most out of your photos. I could easily spend an hour or two at a time reading their blog posts in one tab, and trying out their tricks on a separate tag lol. You'll find their blog by clicking HERE.

PicMonkey has a ton of super-cool effects that you can use for free, but they also have an upgrade membership called Royale and you get a lot more super cool effects with the Royale membership.  Best of all?  The Monkey doesn't want to take your banana money so it's priced at only $33 for a year long membership.  For slightly more a month, you can also just purchase a Royale membership monthly.  <---That's a great alternative if you just want an upgrade to edit photos from a special event!

PicMonkey must never, ever go away.  Because if it did?  I promise you that I truly will cry!  Oh, and that super expensive fancy Photoship CS5 software?  I've used it exactly once.  Yep, once.  PicMonkey is just so much easier to navigate and offers me just enough that I don't have to worry about using anything except for it!