Pratik Bagaria » Day-to-day

Edit, Crop, add Effect and Text to an Image – all online

Pratik — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 12:18:32 +0000

Many a times we need to edit images. Opening up Photoshop is not possible everytime and is time consuming. There are many online image editing tools and one of them is Picnik. Using this website you can change the image size, add text, add effects and lots more. Plus you can save your image as jpeg, gif, pdf, tiff and more.
This is very useful for Students, IT Professionals, Webmasters and for people who need to regularly edit or resize images.

Here is a quick video on how to use the website for online image editing.

Websites for Inspiration

Pratik — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 17:29:25 +0000

www.behance.net

Its a network – a network for the creative professionals. As they put it “The Creative Professional Platform”. The reason I like visiting this site everyday is because of the huge amount of creative projects which are featured everyday. The fields covered is massive and covers everything related to design. I can browse Advertising, Architecture, Branding, Design, Fashion, Illustration, Package Design, Photo Manipulation and lots more. Spending time here gives me many ideas, its almost like exercise for my mind. The work submitted by artists here are top class and very creative.
The site itself is well made and maintained. There is no junk or broken links. The site fits in perfectly as a showcase platform as well as a source of inspiration.
Take the Behance Tour: http://www.behance.net/tour

www.deviantart.com

Its the worlds largest online community of artists and art lovers. One can spend hours on this site and yet never get enough. I find both amateur and
professional work. The best part about this site / community is that its open for all. Amateur designers, photographers and more can use this to showcase there work and get reviews and feedback from there peers. For professionals, this site serves as there portfolio showcase. I myself started using this site around 5 years ago. I would love if you could check & comment my deviantART profile and the work uploaded there.
The site is well built and is truly addictive.

www.coroflot.com

Coroflot works the similar lines as that of deviantART, but is not exactly the same. Here I can search for particular designer and see there portfolio, like there work and comment on it. I even have my portfolio up on coroflot. This site is particularly famous in India as compared to deviantART. I like looking at the works of fellow Indian Designers on coroflot.

www.inspiredm.com

As the name suggests – a site for pure creative inspiration. This site is great when it comes to compilation on any particular design area and tutorials. More like a blog, this site never fails to inspire with its ever updating posts. If there is any particular theme I am working on, I make it a point to search the term here and I surely get inspiration and a path to think on. Sites like these are best when one is going through a creative block and can’t understand how to initiate the thinking process. Sites like this inspire you to do more, and to do so more professionally and creatively.
Designer speak there hearts out while commenting on particular topics. If there is topic you need in-depth knowledge or research on, this is the site to search it on.

www.istockphoto.com

Well this is not a creative site or some online community. Rather this is a site for selling stock photos and vector online. The reason I check this site too often is that the work done by the contributors here is awesome. The vector is good and so are the images. It’s said that, pictures speak louder than words – this site can give you such pictures. Many a times, its only the visual that can make the ads appealing.

www.adsoftheworld.com & www.packagingoftheworld.com

Well firstly, the reason I am taking this site together is because these two work on the same lines and offers the same in there own ways. Adsoftheworld is like an online library of Print, Radio and TV ads. Also there is OOH media and other creatives being put live. Spending this on this site is like reading a never ending newspaper with all creative ads in it.
On the other hand, packagingofthworld is more like a blog, but is again the same when it comes to showcasing creatives. As in the name, this site only showcases packagings which truly stands apart. Its not only about creative packagings but also the usability factory of the packaging is highlighted.

www.google.com

Last but definitely, not the least. When nothing else works – Google does. Just key in your search and start browsing images. I do get many ideas while simply browsing pages on Google Images.

Must have Plugins for WordPress.

Pratik — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 07:08:30 +0000

WordPress by far is the best CMS for blogs and more. One of the reasons of it being soo popular is the availability of free plugins. In simpler sense plugins add specific functions to the blog or site. There is always a plugin available for any specific requirement you have.

Many a times I use WordPress for more then just blogging, I use it for for making forums, photo gallary, portals and more. Plugins helps me to add special functions as well as integration. Here are the plugins which I always install along with my WordPress installation. They are must haves as they make your blog more friendly and organized.

Akismet

This comes pre-installed with your WordPress Installation. It helps to protect your blog or site from Spam Comments. There is no need for any other plugin or function to stop spam, Akismet takes care of everything easily.

Adsense Manager

So you have decided to earn something from your blog! Adsense Manager will help you organize the ads. It will make blocks or your ad codes, which can be placed anywhere in your design to start showing ads.

Easy Contact

A contact page for your blog is very essential. We don’t want to say “This is my email id, you can mail me here”. This would not look nice and people don’t generally prefer mailing. Instead this plugin will make a simple contact form that can be placed on your site. It also provides spam protection.

All in one SEO Pack

This will have you optimize your site and blog for Search Engines. This will let you specify title, tags, keywords for each page or post individually.

Google Analytics for WordPress

Instead of pasting your Analytics code manually on each page or footer of your blog its advisable that you use this plugin and just enter your Websites tracking code, rest everything will be taken care off by this plugin.

Gravatar

Everyone likes to show some image besides there comment. Also, it looks nice to give your commenters a face. Gravatar will display your users image they have selected to reflect on your blog, whenever they comment.

Pages Comments

Now if your blog is very famous and you are getting loads of comments, its better to break them into pages rather than having a big vertical scroll on your page.

Subscribe to Comments

I always make a point that I install this plugin. It helps in updating everyone about there discussion. It also saves time of your users to manually come and check everytime to see if there is a new comment or reply posted. This is automatically send and email to the reader when a new comment is posted on topic of his interest.

This was just the tip of the iceberg. There is lots to discover in plugins. Keep searching and you will find many.

Let me know if there are some more plugins which you like and install it everytime, so that the same can be featured here as well.