This is a guest post by Tiffany of I’m a Shoe Whore. If you’d like to write a guest post for Style Sample, check out the guidelines and submit your idea.

When I first started blogging I quickly found out the importance of great/fun photos. Photos are the key to your blog, they help pull viewers in and keep them entertained for the time they spend on your site. Sometimes your photos keep readers coming back to see more fun and sometimes inspiring pictures!

After being bored by my own pictures I went on the hunt for some great free online photo editing sites that would help me dress my photos up! Here are three of my favorites:

Photoshop

I use Photoshop whenever I edit my photos. Its interface is so easy that it makes editing photos incredibly simple. You do have to sign up for an account, but it’s free and your images can be stored online for family and friends to view. I love that you can preview how the image will look just by scrolling over the edit options. I also love the pop color feature on this site. Make sure you have a fast connection–it sometimes takes a while to load the photos.

DrPic

DrPic is a great site if you need to do a quick edit or crop your photos. There are some fun options you can use to add frames or a Polaroid effect to your images, and I love the grayscale feature on this site. You don’t need an account–just load a picture, edit, and then save to your computer. Simple! One minor annoyance: the Google ad bar at the top of the picture while you edit photos.

FlauntR

FlauntR has some great editing features and frames you can add. The main reason I use this site is for the text feature–I love that there are so many fonts available. I have never seen so many different fonts offered on a free editing site, and you can move and rotate the text anyway you choose. You do have to create an account to use this site-but it’s free!

Get animated

I remember the first time I saw an animated graphic. I was awe-struck, then jealous because I wanted my own! Soon I was off on an internet hunt for sites to help me create animated graphics. There are a few sites out there, but I always turn to one site to help me create my own animated images.

Gickr

Gickr is free and easy to use–no account needed. You can select up to 10 images at once, the size of the image, how fast the image will move, then hit create. That’s it! Wait for your image to load and you should see the animated image. (I often hit create a few times trying out different image speeds to get the right one.) There are many ways to save it, but I always right click on the image and click “Save Image As”.

Now, loading the image on your blog can be tricky. You first have to upload your animated image to a hosting site like tinypic.com (it’s free). Once you’ve uploaded it to the site you can select the “HTML code for Websites” or “Direct Link for Layouts” code. You’ll then have to put the code into your post via the html/edit page. I’d be happy to help if you ever have any questions!

This is a guest post by Crystal of 11:11. If you’d like to write a guest post for Style Sample, check out the guidelines and submit your idea.

Some of Crystal’s self-portraits

The easiest and most efficient way to take self-portraits would be to purchase some sort of remote for your camera. They can run fairly cheap to mid-range, and depending on the brand, they can work up to 300 ft away. I currently use a Phottix wireless remote that I bought on Ebay for about $40.

For those who don’t have remotes, there are a few tricks I’ve learned to help better my self-portraits:

1. Set up your tripod and figure out where you want to stand in the photo in relation to the framing of the camera.

2. Once you’ve picked the spot find some sort of found object such as a rock, a stick or even line up your camera to a crack in the sidewalk and focus your camera on that object.

3. This works best if you focus your camera on that spot and then switch your camera over to manual focus so the focus doesn’t change with each shot.

4. Set your self-timer and go stand next to your found object. The photo should be in focus each time.

Lighting

I tend to stick to only natural light so I don’t have to worry about lighting and shadows when I can’t really see the overall effect in self-portraits.

To create better interest and better photos, the most important factor to remember is the time of the day when you’re shooting. For even and attractive lighting to better highlight your look, I suggest shooting a little later in the evening or early morning. The mid-day sun usually provides a harsh light that does weird things to colors and is just difficult to shoot in overall.

Posing

When you have a remote I think it makes posing a little easier just because it’s easier to capture continuous motion. I tend to do small turns or movements to show off the clothing and just press the shutter button several times throughout the movement until I get that one ideal capture.

Move it, baby!
For people who use timers it’s a bit more difficult but not impossible. To avoid looking stiff I just have to emphasize the importance of moving!

It doesn’t even need to be anything drastic, even just a slight shoulder/hip shake to keep things from looking forced. I usually count down until I get to that last couple of seconds to do my movement so it doesn’t look like I’ve been holding the pose for a lengthy period of time.

• Walking across the view of the camera provides a natural pose that can often times show off the clothes nicely.

• Varying your head position can change up a pose so experiment.

• If the pose looks funny just change it up slightly and try again! Self-portraits are all about trial and error.

In the beginning to have a few poses that you can perform in just a few seconds. There are some simple things you can do to make the pose look more casual such as a lift of a leg, looking at the camera from over a shoulder etc. that don’t require much thought and from there just move around.

Shutter speed

It’s important that you keep your camera’s shutter speed on a mid-range speed to fast to capture these movements. If you have a camera where you can control the shutter I would suggest using a minimum of 1/50 speed for motion photos otherwise blurring might occur.

StyleSampleMag.com has been on hiatus for a while as we’ve been working on some exciting ideas and updates! Here’s a peek at some of the good stuff to come:

• Informative and interesting articles from your favorite bloggers, all exclusive to stylesamplemag.com. If you’re interested in contributing to the site, there’s more information here and some starter concepts here. Send an email with your idea pitch to editor@stylesamplemag.com and we’ll get started!

• Site makeover! We’ve been working on redesigning StyleSampleMag.com to include even more great content. Nothing too fancy-schmancy, just a little lipstick to liven things up. Look for the new design some time this month….(fingers crossed!)

• I have help! Notice how I keep saying “we”? Well, that’s because I found two wonderfully talented (and darn cute) editorial assistants to help with Style Sample Magazine and StyleSampleMag.com. I’ll introduce you to them later this week.

That’s not all, either! Stay tuned for info about new features coming in issue #4, behind-the-scenes updates, interesting developments, and more! Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss anything…

If you’re an aspiring fashion writer and you’d like some practice and exposure, here’s your chance! Maintaining two sites + publishing the magazine + interviews + writing for Examiner have all become a bit too much, so I’m opening up StyleSampleMag.com to include guest posts! Here’s the type of content we’re looking for:

• Tools (freeware/software) and resources for fashion bloggers
• Neat, fun, high quality blogs
• Tips and advice (design, content production, writing, design, marketing)
• Interviews with stylish trendsetters
• How-tos
• Fashion career advice
• Relevant news and tidbits

Guest posts can be up to 300 words and will include a contributor profile with a link to your site.

Interested? Got another idea? Contact me at magazine@thestylesample.com with “Site Contributor” in the title and let me know how you’d like to contribute!

Do you have news you’d like to share with the fashion blogging community? If you’ve

• Opened new shop
• Done a collaboration
• Been featured in a news article
• Launched a product or service

and you’d like some free publicity, submit your story to magazine@thestylesample.com with “News” in the title.

Please note: Each item will be reviewed for relevance and timing and may or may not be published accordingly.

One of the goals of Style Sample Magazine is to include as many different people as possible in the content creation process, allowing diverse points of view and generally spreading the love.

Have you ever seen someone doing something fantastic or read an awesome job description and thought “I know I could do that if I just had the chance”? I know I have…many times!

One of the things I really want to do with Style Sample Magazine is to create opportunities for fashion bloggers to gain experience doing what they want to do. The idea is to give as many people as possible a chance.

The question, then, is what do you want a chance to do? Do you want to be a writer? Designer? Fashion editor? Stylist? Open a boutique? Strut around a fabulous office wearing killer heels and telling people what to do all day like a cross between Carine and Kimora? (Oh wait, that’s me. Sorry!)

So, fill me in: Respond to the poll or in the comments, and we can work together to make it happen!

Jennine at Independent Fashion Bloggers has set up a wonderful service called LittleBirdie that connects bloggers with unique content from PR agencies and fashion companies. If you have a story idea, submit your info and see if there’s a company/service/product out there that fits you and your blog.

I don’t know about you, but I really appreciate that this type of service exists to help fashion bloggers. Style Sample Magazine was started in part to provide a place where fashion bloggers could gain exposure and experience doing what we love–if you’re a writer/designer/photographer/illustrator/fashion lover/shopaholic who blogs, you’re welcome to contribute–and I’m constantly trying to think of ways to do more and help more people.

I’m always open to ideas, so let me know what you’re thinking!

~Tamia