Ideas:
What to do with all those Blurry Photos Go
to page contents
Valerie Coskrey's Classroom Tools and Ideas
Site Links // Home // Contact Us.
Essay
What to do with all those Blurry Photos
This essay is listed with isnare.com and is available for reprint on your website or in blogs.
Using Examples in Science ..go
Using Microsoft Notepad ...for copying code..go ...for fixing webpages..go...for use with Dreamweaver..go
Site ContentsFind these items on the linked page.
Free Presentation Design Samples
Virus Map, Scanner and Top 10 Threats
Featured items on this site... Go to design previews Find Teacher Templates, Documents, Databases, and Presentations.written using Microsoft® Office® with instruction booklets; some Free--Go now. also find Informative Links to Teacher Websites--Go now. Student Research Internet Links--Go now. Virus information from TrendMicro--Go now. Booklists--Go now for general list; Go now for SciFi.
What
to Do about all those Blurry Photos
Cameras are so ubiquitous now that our PreK-6 grade children are surely all trying their hands at photography. If not yet, I encourage you to let them ASAP.
Clicking on the image Tyler Ponders will link you to the page with some of the images of Template Design Sets and Backgrounds that were produced by children in ways described here. Each image links to another page concerning this art.
But, what to do? What to do? Your child’s first foray into photography produced blurred and poorly exposed photos that you are considering trashing. STOP! These pictures are still usable. Even the pictures of the ground at your child’s feet are usable. Let me explain how.
Make graphics for digital memos, cards, documents, presentations,
and emails with otherwise unusable pictures. Those really great pictures
work well for this activity, too.
Obtain a digital image of the poor photo. Let your child edit it with your photo editing software. NO, the object is not to fix it, but to use it. Have your child experiment with the various photo effects in the software. My grandson’s favorite effects are the Sheet Metal Effect and the Expansion Effect in ACDSee Photo Editor.
Allow time for lots of experimentation. Whenever a particular effect
produces interesting results, save that file. We use a series of names
like “leaf on ground 1.jpeg” and “leaf on ground
1 metal effect.jpeg.” Using similar names in a numbered series
keeps all trials in one spot in the pictures folder. Try applying
an effect, saving that image, and applying another effect or three
on that image. In a chain of effects, the distortions become tremendous.
Some will be grotesquely funny; some will be downright ugly; but some
will be awesome. Siblings will compete to make changes.
Grass is blurred in this image. Do you see the photographer's shoe?
This photo does not link out.
But this activity is not just fun and games. There is a usable product in the works.
Locate the best image, or just the best part of an image. Crop to get the best part. Save the smaller image. Now use the awesome image.
Of what use is it? Try using it to decorate emails, documents, presentation slides, memos, and greeting cards. Here’s how.
Use the image as you would a clip art or background. If entered into
your email stationery as a border or background, it will become a
part of any email sent on that stationery. If placed in a memo or
document template, it becomes part of any message sent using that
template. Your child can have his own stationery for emails and memos
and letters to Grandma.
Another trick is to use the image as a background. You do this by formatting backgrounds with the choices Fill Effects>>Picture>>Select Picture>>Browse (to the image file)..select>>insert>>OK. Background formatting works for documents and presentations.
Try this method for making borders on colored stationery. You can
make a border by placing the image on a blank presentation slide.
Stretch the image to cover an entire side of the slide, but be narrow—or
just line up lots of copies of one or more images along one edge of
a slide. Format the background of the slide with the color or Fill
Effects that go well with the border. Save the slide as a jpeg file,
choosing to save just the selected slide. Now you have an image on
a colored (or white, if no fills were used) background. This 
bordered
image can then be used as a background for a stationery, document,
email, memo, or presentation slide. Use it to format the background
for a template, save it in your child’s name. He will now have
his own templates for his own writing.
Let him write to everyone he knows.
This image began as the grass in the blurred photo above. Copy it--it's free. It is also much prettier in its original size. It is reduced by 3x here.
Here’s another trick. Take that blurred image of your child’s self portrait, crop it to get a surrealistic image, darken it if necessary, and turn it into a presentation slide background. Use the same process as above, except save the image on a slide master. To do this Go to View>>Master>>Slide Master. Adjust the sizes of the text boxes and the color and font of the type. Save this file as a template file, .pot.
Finally, let your child take a disk or cd-rom of his work to school. Most schools can show a presentation on the classroom computer, so collect the work into a presentation for your child to show to his classmates. Make a presentation of the photos that turned out well. Include this file in the disk/cd-rom. Watch your child strut off to class proudly.
You will have transformed a potentially frustrating failure as a photographer into a successful graphics artist. Pat yourself on the back, too, for you will have taught your child to make lemonade from lemons.
Copyright 2006 by Valerie Coskrey. All rights reserved.
Need a camera? Need a computer?
Hundreds of sites with lessons and activities for the classroom 
A site for freelance writers with forum and market directory
// Home // All Stores // All Essays // Product Catalog // Shopping Cart // Privacy // Contact //
Site Map and Pages Sorted by Subject Matter with a list of All Valerie's Sites
Copyright 2005-2006 by Valerie Coskrey All rights reserved.