Image Generators

Just like RSS's, mashups, and wiki's, there are a lot of image generators out there in the virtual world. Unlike the other stuff, I had a hard time finding one that I liked. They all just about do the same thing, add text, other images, and effects to pictures. They all have different types of effects to add though. Some you had to scroll or browse through their options; others you could search. Some you could upload your own pictures; others you had to use their pictures. Sorry I don't have all the names with me. I wrote them down on a scrap piece of paper and then I left it my bag at home. I'll edit this post when I find it.

One site that I thought was simple to use was Jelly Muffin. They mostly cater to MySpace users; but, you really could use their graphics and generators for just about anything. Their image generator is mostly point and click. You select a picture (note: you cannot upload your own images), you type in your text, and you select as many effects as you want. This picture comes from them:

Myspace Picture Generator

I also found a smiley generator. I IM a lot and one thing my friends and I complain about is the lack of smileys that accurately reflect our moods/tone of voice/personalities. I don't know if it was just the connection that day or what, but none of the images would show up until after I selected it. You know that "x" that appears wherever an image should be? All their smiley options were like that. And then you couldn't really change the image, just add text. Here's what I did there:

Which I think will work well in any of our arguments.

But the one that I really like is called Picnik. This is a photo editing site that lets you use your own photos as well as the ones in their gallery. If you already have an online photo gallery, like a Flickr or Photobucket account, you can use Picnik to access and edit those photos online. So you don't have to be at your home computer to edit your photos. They've got a tutorial that shows you how to navigate and to edit and its all free. I used a couple of pictures from my book display files and came up with these:

I'm very impressed with Picnik. And now that I have a digital camera, I think I'm going to need it. At least until I figure out all the options all my camera. And even then there are things you can do on Picnik that you can't do on a camera. Picnik is like a poor man's Photoshop and I love it.