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This weekly blogger tip is complements of Shutterfly:   tips about how to take great photos, of various types, no matter what sort of camera you use. Why? Why take your own pictures, when there are so many free-photo-search tools out there? Well, if you want your blog to be copyright-legal , then you need to either find free-use photos, or make your own. Creating your own post-photos is especially useful to prove that your local blog really is local (like thumbnail image . How? Great tips from the pros, here: http://www.shutterfly.com/how-to-take-the-perfect-photo/ The best bit is that this isn't just a glossy, or a snobby "fancy-cameras-only" guide.    There are tips for every combination of  camera type: DSLR Smartphone Point and shoot and photo type: Portraits Selfie Bokeh Macro Action shots Close up Wide angle Food Candid By the water Landscape Panorama PS Shutterfly said "Please share this interactive on your si...

This article introduces the Free High Quality Picture Search tool which has been added to this website . Today I've added a new feature to . The Free High Quality Image Search tool is available from the sajian bar. It is a tool to help you locate free, high-quality pictures to use in your blog posts or other website projects. It is based on a Google-custom-search engine , and a carefully selected set of websites that offer images you can use for free on your blog, even if it is "commercial" (ie you have advertising or any other way of making money from it). The difference between this and the images that you can get from a general-purpose search using the Creative Commons image and multi-media search tool is the resolution of the images that are found and/or their photographic quality. How to use the Free-image-search tool Choose it from the sajian kafe on this blog, or navigate directly to it at   http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.ie/p/free-...

This article shows how to put pictures side-by-side in Blogger (or any other website) using HTML, in a way that works for visitors using mobiles (smartphones and tables) as well as larger screens. Previously I've explained how to use a table to force photos (and other things) to all show into a line, even if the user's screen is too small to display them all at once.   And I've looked at putting text and pictures side-by-side - assuming you're only working with one picture. Tables are great if you are showing data and need rigid alignment, or if you don't mind your mobile device visitors having to either scroll, or to pinch their screen so much that they cannot read the text. But there is a way to lay out pictures so that they display side by side if there's room on the screen, or start on a new line if there's not. I've done this recently on a blog where really wanted to make a display for last / next week and last / next year on two dif...

This article gives a brief introduction to Google Photos, and how it relates to both Blogger and Google+ Photos. Google's recent announcement  of Google Photos opens the door for Blogger to make some improvements to how it works with pictures. Why? Well Google+Photos simply wasn't a way forward.   Too many Blogger users chose not to "upgrade" their Google accounts to Google+ accounts, so it wasn't possible for Blogger to force Google+ features on everyone. And that was even after they removed the rule about one G+ account per person, and allowed Google+ Pages to be turned into stand alone accounts with their own passwords. However Google Photos is basically Google+ Photos, without the need to have a "plus" account, and with some other nice features, like Free picture and video storage (any number of pictures, provided they aren't "too big"),  Image recognition and search Sorting pictures by date, but giving optio...

This article shows how to change the date associated with a picture in Google Photos. Update- August 2015 There is now a feature to change the date of individual pictures or videos in Google Photos. To use it: Navigate to the picture / video you want to set a new date for Click the "information" icon (small "i" currently near the top-right of the photo viewer screen) In the right hand panel, hover your mouse over the item in Details which has a picture of a calendar beside it. Click on the pen icon which appears while you are hovering Enter the new year, month, date and/or time (in 24-hour clock) for your photo or video. Click Save. Job Done!   You have now changed the date stored with your image or video. There are still some photos that you cannot see through Google Photos (eg ones uploaded directly through Blogger with some settings, or shared in Google Hangouts).   For these you need to use the date-editing features in Picasa-web-al...

This article describes how to get a link to one ore more photos from your Google Photos collection, using the Shareable Link controls.   It also explains how to delete shareable links that you have made in the past Google Photos is a tool for managing picture collections. It replaces Google+ Photos, and works alongside Picasa-web-albums.   You can read more about it here . Shareable Links are a new type of linking introduced in Google Photos, which let you easily share one or more pictures at the same time.   You can email them, or use them in tools like Facebook. When someone opens a shareable link, they see a display with the date, the name and picture of the person who is logged in to Google at the time, and all the pictures that are included in the same shareable link. If you want to use an image from Google Photos in a tool which cannot use shareable links, you need to find the URL for the photo, instead. How to get the shareable link for one p...

This article describes how to get the URL or internet address of a picture in Google Photos, and the difference between Google's shareable links and URLs. Google Photos is a tool that help bloggers (and everyone else) to manage their picture collections. It replaces Google+ Photos, and works alongside Picasa-web-albums.   You can read more about it here . In Google Photos, there are two different types of web-address for a photo. One is the URL , and this can be used to refer to pictures from Blogger, or from other tools that want a link that just shows the photo, eg Twitter, Google Maps.  This is the traditional style of internet-address for a photo. The other is the shareable link.   This is what Google Photos provides from the Share function.   Shareable links can be used in Facebook, and other places where the photo that is being shared is displayed within a web-display, rather than just as a picture.   (Ref:   How to make and ...

This article explains how to put a picture that is one shape (a "square peg") inside an image of another shape (a "round hole" - or star, elipse, octagon, etc) - using Microsoft PowerPoint. Original title:   How to put a square peg into a round hole - in pictures Recently, I've been using PowerPoint to make the thumbnail image  for my posts. This means that I own the copyright of the pictures, so can share them without worrying about copyright issues . One approach I've used is to find an interesting copyright-free picture that is related to the theme of the post, and then put it inside a shape that adds some visual interest or has some words along side it.  Another thing that I'm going to try is using multiple pictures in this way to make a more-interesting-than-usual collage. How to put a picture inside a shape NB PowerPoint commands are based on Office 2007 and 2010 - but the same principles most-likely apply in other versions where...

This article explains how to use Blogger's Post Editor to get the HTML code that you need to put a picture into your sidebar (or header or footer, or anywhere else a gadget can go). adding a picture to your blog's sidebar . But sometimes you want more control over the picture size or behaviour.  Eg, you may want to have two pictures very close to each other and guarantee that they're the same size. To do this, you need to get the HTML code for the picture, and then put it into your blog as an HTML-gadget.  Fortunately, Blogger's Post-editor make it very easy to do this without writing the code yourself. Using the Post Editor to generate the HTML for a picture 1  Start a new Post   (you're not ever going to publish this:  it's just a work-area) 2  Don't enter any text:   just use the Picture icon on the toolbar to add a picture .   Blogger will prompt you to upload the picture, or to choose it from a Google-album-archive or to ...