Using Microsoft Word to take a so-so picture and make it a great picture

Using Microsoft Word to take a
so-so picture and make it a great picture

Hopefully you saw Kristine Ginsberg's featured post about taking a so-so picture and turning it into a great picture. She was using Picnik, which is anywhere from free to about $30 a year or so.

Before going to the Internet for this and that, check your own computer and your digital camera software to see if you already have software that you can use to create visually stunning pictures.

My computer came with a 90-day trial version of Microsoft Office and when I upgraded from the trial version, I got both Microsoft Word and Microsoft Photodraw.

I've been playing around lately with Word and there actually are some very interesting things that it can do for you. Surprisingly it's a very easy and very powerful program. See my previous two posts: An easy way to create interesting photos and My Top 10 tips for taking great pictures - Tip #7.

Since everyone has Word, insert a picture and then explore all those commands that can make your so-so picture into a great picture:

• brightness
• contrast
• recolor
• compress
• picture styles
• picture shape
• picture border
• picture effects
• text and text wrapping
• rotation

Once you insert a picture, the Picture Tools Format menu bar appears at the top of your window:

 

If you're menu doesn't show up for some reason, simply click on your picture and it will.

Here is a placemat that I created in about 15 seconds:

Here is one with a different border and some text. This one took about 30 seconds to do:

 

I won't go into another tutorial here because the take a lot of time, and I have a lot of other work that the boss wants me to do, but see what you can do with Word, and if you have any specific questions, come back here and leave your questions in a comment.

P.S. Don't expect me to be up this late all the time. I'm neither an early morning person nor a late night person. 9:00 a.m. to about 10:00 p.m. is what you're normally get from me. lol

 

 

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2. My Top 10 tips for taking great pictures — Tip #7
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7. My Top 10 tips for taking great pictures — Tip #6
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9. My Top 10 tips for taking great pictures — Tip #5
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11. My Top 10 tips for taking great pictures — Tip #4
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19. My Top 10 tips for taking great pictures — Tip #2
20. My Top 10 tips for taking great pictures — Tip #1

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All pictures are copyright