Once again, it’s time to settle down and write a new blog post. I spend a lot of time putting together a new post not only in terms of the words but equally important are the pictures. I use a lot of images in my blogs and social media. According to a search I did on Google, social media posts with images get a whopping 94% more views than posts without images. That is a huge statistic and the reason why most internet authors need images. There are plenty of image sites on the internet where bloggers and content creators can source stock pictures but I always tend to try and use my own pictures where I can.
I create a graphic for my blogs every week using various image or graphic sites. The easiest one to use is probably Quotescover.com. It’s a very simple site that combines text and images or just text if you prefer. In Quotescover, you can very simply add your quote or in my case, blog title, add a name or the name of your website and click create. You can choose what type of image you want, for instance for a social media post, for Pinterest, or for a Facebook cover or whatever, then you have a choice of image shape; portrait, landscape or square. After that keep clicking ‘next fonts’ until you get the font that you like.
If I’m feeling a little more creative, I might use Canva which is once again a free site as long as you are making some basic images. At Canva the user can choose from a range of templates and there are various ones available for free but then to use the better ones you have to upgrade to the paid version. You can save your image in various ways, as a simple jpg, or if better quality is required, a png. You can also animate an image or graphic and save it as either a gif, just like the one seen here, which is just an animated picture, or as a short video. By saving your graphic as a video, the user can add music or sound effects, both are available from Canva but of course then you have to update to the paid version.
Most of the animated images I create are used in my blogs or on Twitter as gifs although sometimes I get really creative and add music or sound effects. scroll down to see an example below.
I’ve got a CD of sound effects at home that Liz got me for Christmas ages ago but sometimes I download them from sites like Zapsplat which has a huge library of free sounds.
Another interesting development in imaging is artificial intelligence, more commonly known as AI. We hear a lot about AI in the media lately. Things like what will it mean for all of us. I’m not sure it will mean a great deal unless you use a computer but then again these days, everyone uses a computer, even if it’s only the one in your mobile phone.
A collection of AI pictures of me made using my iPad.
One thing I’ve found interesting about AI is its use in imaging and as I have already said, imaging is vitally important in my blogs and videos. Aside from that I’m interested in images anyway. One of the great things about digital photography is the way images can be altered by editing. Years ago, I’d get a roll of film and have it developed and if there was a dud shot, there wasn’t much I could do about it. I’ve sometimes had almost an entire roll of film turn out to be pretty poor and still had to pay for the developing and printing but fast forward to the 21st century and things are different.
Pictures can be cropped and rotated. Dark pictures can be lightened and bright ones darkened. OK, some people could actually do those things in the past as long as they had access to a great deal of equipment but the great thing today is that anyone with a computer or a tablet can now change the images they produce. Add AI into the mix and pictures can be further transformed. Blurred pictures can be made sharp, backgrounds can be changed and even new images can be created by artificial intelligence.
Take a look at this next photo. You might think for a moment that it’s me, using an old-fashioned typewriter to knock out my next blog post. Come to think of it, that looks like a pretty perfect location to be writing a blog post and I can just imagine myself there, tapping away on a typewriter, which were my exact thoughts when I created it. I didn’t pose for the camera. I used a site called Nightcafe to produce the image. First, I had to create a ‘model’ of myself and to do so I had to upload a lot of photos of me with a minimum of 16 being required. After digesting this visual information Nightcafe created a visual model that I can use in my images.
The images themselves come from a text suggestion. After selecting my model my text went something like this: author typing away on a typewriter with an exciting landscape seen through the French windows.
There are other choices to be made too, choices of style and lighting and so on. I chose a photorealistic style but I could have chosen anime, hyperreal, impressionist, fantasy and many others.
Some of the images I’ve made look like me and some do not. Here’s my favourite which is a pretty good replica of my face.
Some time ago I used an app for my iPad. I eventually deleted it as it seemed to stop working but for £2.99, I was able to create 50 images of myself. Once again, I had to upload a number of photos of me. The results ranged from nothing like me at all to some that actually made me better looking than I really am.
I’ve noticed also that on many of the graphics apps and programs that I use there are options for AI to assist with the text or the backgrounds. These are always extra options and as I always tend to use the free versions of apps like this, I’ve not be able to use them.
Another great image and graphics editor is Adobe Express. Once again, I use the free version but even so, on the free version I’ve made a number of what I think are pretty impressive animated graphics, some of which I always tag onto the end of my YouTube videos.
Here’s another one, also made on adobe with a soundtrack downloaded from Zapsplat. It was mainly used on Twitter (X as they call it now). It was animated from a graphic I used on a blog post called Don’t Make Me Laugh.
Deepfake videos are ones in which the image of someone famous is inserted into another video. According to the internet, recent deepfake videos have been made of people like Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Taylor Swift. What is a deepfake video? Well, it’s a video powered by AI in which images of well-known people are digitally merged into video footage to create something wholly new and fake. Fake sexually explicit images of Taylor Swift were recently distributed on the internet and had many views before they were taken down. X which used be Twitter said recently it was actively removing all identified images and is taking action against the accounts responsible.
AI certainly has great implications for the future, even more realistic images for use on the internet and in the cinema. Better special effects for Star Trek and superhero films and hopefully, even better graphics for blogs like this one. Even the Royal Family have been featured in digital imaging news, did they digitally alter a picture of Kate Middleton and her children? Oh dear.
Anyway, that’s enough blogging for now. Think I might go out for a jog. well, not a real jog, maybe just an AI one!
ge has transformed me too. In the picture over on the right you can see me as I was when I was aged 19 or 20. It was taken in France by my best friend Chris. Now I am older, at least older on the outside. On the inside I’d have to say that I haven’t really changed that much. You might think that now I’m probably much wiser with different ideas and different thoughts. Actually though, I’m pretty much the same on the inside with similar ideas and similar thoughts.
When I was a teenager up on my bedroom wall alongside pictures of various racing drivers was a poster of my first crush, Olivia Newton John. In fact, the very first vinyl singles I ever bought were records by Olivia; The banks of the Ohio and What is life? A chart single at the time in 1973 cost about 48p and as those two singles had dropped out of the charts they were half price. To this day one of the few songs I can correctly recite the lyrics to is one of her other songs, Country Roads. I bought many of her albums and followed her career with interest. It was sad to hear of her death last week.
Update: When this post appeared on Facebook, one of my readers told me in the comments that she had the Face App Teen Filter and sent me a photo of herself using it. The result was really amazing and later she sent me a picture of myself, suitably Faceapped. Actually I kind of like it. Should I start using it as my profile picture? Well, I like it but I’m probably better sticking to reality.
Letters from an Unknown Author! 