Colorcinch
Great Way to convert images into Cartoon Style
There's lots of online graphic solutions, and some are better than others. One that I recently encountered is colorcinch.
What makes colorcinch different from others is that they focus on photo editing and they have a lot of cool Effects and Overlays. This helps make your photos really stand out and give them a modern look.
colorcinch has the basic tools: crop, resize, rotate. It's their other tools that make them stand out from others. They have 2.5 million photos, graphics, and icons - an awesome collection to make your photo unique.
Website Description
Our all-in-one creative platform helps you achieve professional and stunning results with less time and virtually no experience.
Resize, enhance and transform ??? use our wide selection of essential features to customize and beautify your artwork.
You can try out Colorcinch for free, some of the tools do require a purchase to download the image. It cost $5.99 a month (or $3.99 for the annual plan)
Sample Images
This is using the Painting Style Number: Fx006
This is using the Cartoonizer Style Number: FX001
An image from thispersondoesnotexist.com converted to three cartoonize effects. The original is in the top left.
Tools Information
Effects
- Cartoonizer - 30 Different styles to select from.
- Digital Art - 12 Different styles to select from.
- Sketcher - 19 Different styles to select from.
- Painting - 7 Different styles to select from. (Fx006 is my favorite)
Filters
- 16 Different Filters. You can preview the various options available under each filter before applying them.
Overlays
- Texture - 50 Different styles to select from!
- Sun Flare & Haze - 40 Different styles to select from!
- Light Leaks - 40 Different styles to select from!
- Bokeh - 50 Different styles to select from!
- Shadows - 16 Different styles to select from!
- Fog - 20 Different styles to select from!
- Falling Snow - 30 Different styles to select from!
- Floating Dust - 30 Different styles to select from!
- Lights - 40 Different styles to select from!
- Specialty - 40 Different styles to select from!
More Tools
- Freehand Drawing
- Crop & Resize
- Straighten & Rotate
- Exposure
- Sharpen & Blur
- Color & Vibrance
- Text Editor
- Multiple Layers
- Export & Share
Highly Recommended
Colorcinch is worth checking out. It's super easy to convert any image into a cartoon image. This is a lot cheaper than paying someone on Fiverr!
PermalinkZombie Pumpkins
Start planning your pumpkin designs now.
Hard to believe but about a month from now, you'll see pumpkins at the supermarket. Where has the year gone?
If your into creative pumpkin carvings, you should check out zombiepumpkins.com. They have a huge selection of pumpkin templates. Simply print out the template and attach it to your pumpkin and carve away.
- They have been creating templates for 18-years. That's a long time for a website with a focus only on one holiday.
- There are 18 categories to select from. If your unsure of a particular category, you can always use the search engine.
- Currently they have over 500-designs to pick from.
Website Description
Since 2002, Zombie Pumpkins has confidently cured carving cravings as the premier provider of pumpkin patterns. Hundreds of stencil designs are here, ready to print immediately. From classic creatures to famous monsters, you'll find designs for all skill levels - from nervous beginners and experienced maniacs. Browse the categories to find your favorites, and join us when you're ready.
https://www.zombiepumpkins.com/
Not 100% Free
Zombiepumpkins.com has a limited number of designs available for free, the rest you have to be a member.
It's actually not bad to join. There are four plans that allow you to download the designs. I think the $5 plan is a good plan, you get to download 25 patterns over the next 9-months. This is cheaper than getting a book at the store plus you get to pick the designs that you'll actually use.
If you think this is too early to post, go check out all the Halloween decorations at Lowes and Homedepot.
PermalinkMotionbox
Quickly create professional videos
In the media space, there are a lot of options when it comes to creating videos. One of the newest players is Motionbox
Motionbox is different than others by offering these key functionalities:
- YouTube Intros
- Automatic Subtitles
- Animated Text
- High Quality Content to make your videos stand-out
Website Description
Motionbox is a video design platform that features an arsenal of tools that cuts down the effort of creating any visual content. It features a huge library of templates that can be used as-is or may serve as the foundation of your design. It also has a collection of fonts and multimedia files that include audio, images, and videos, most of which you may freely use for your project. Motionbox is quite easy to use, thanks to its drag-and-drop interface that brings creativity out of its users. With features such as music visualization, GIF resizer, video trimmer, and video calendar, it offers an unlimited possibility when it comes to design.
You can try out all the features of Motionbox for free - with a watermark. If you want to remove the watermark, it cost $15 a month. This is similar pricing offered by other tools with less functionality.
Sample Video
You'll see another example on the August 16, 2021 blog post - "Media Monday." Be sure to come back to check that out.
PermalinkEmupedia
Play Classic Games again!
Did you have any favorite games from Windows95, Windows98 or WindowsMe? Well now you can play them again!
Emupedia has brought back many of the classic games. You can play Quake, Minesweeper, Microsoft Bubble, Doom, Tomb Raider, Worms Armageddon, Hexen 2, Pong and so much more.
Website Description
The purpose of Emupedia is to serve as a nonprofit meta-resource hub and community for those interested mainly in video game preservation and computer history which aims to digitally collect, archive and preserve games and software to make them available online accessible by a user-friendly UI that simulates several retro operating systems for educational purposes.
https://emupedia.net/beta/emuos/
3D Bay
Find some cool 3D Graphics
3D Bay is a cool resource for unique 3D stock images. These would go great with a PowerPoint presentation.
These graphics can make your presentations stand out. There are currently 41 graphics available with more being added all the time. You can find graphics easily by their search engine or using one of the ten categories.
Website Description
Explore the extensive collection of 3D stock images brought to you by CloudDevs, now available free of charge.
Select from our wide range of image categories to get started on your new project with style & ease using the hundreds of high-quality royalty-free 3D images we have on offer.
SentenceCheckup.com
Make your sentences stand out for the right reason
Having complex sentences can make or break a social media post's effectiveness. That's why sites like SentenceCheckup.com is around. Using AI, SentenceCheckup.com will proofread your sentence structure and help improve your writing styles.
I found the site to be easy to use. Simply visit the site, paste in your text and fix those errors! Now your social media post will make sense.
Website Description
Sentencecheckup is a Free online sentence checker, It can check for run on sentence and fragment check, correct grammatical errors, and improve your writing style, Spell check and punctuation checking is a bonus feature of its AI algorithm.
Artbreeder
Creative Image AI
Artbreeder is a website that uses the power of AI imaging to create some very unique images. You can have some control over how the final image looks look like.
There are lots of unique ways to play around with images, and you can certainly spend hours on the site looking at other designs to be inspired by the age-old question... what if..
Website Description
Artbreeder aims to be a new type of creative tool that empowers user's creativity by making it easier to collaborate and explore. Originally Ganbreeder, it started as an experiment in using breeding and collaboration as methods of exploring high complexity spaces. Artbreeder is named after the research of Picbreeder which investigated the role of exploration in the optimization process. It is also inspired by an earlier project of mine Facebook Graffiti which demonstrated the creative capacity of crowds.
Hashatit
Find Hashtags on Social Media
Everyplace you look on social media, Hashtags have become a thing. The problem is that there's no real easy way to find them.
That's where HashTagIt comes in handy. You can easily search for hashtags across all the popular social media platforms.
Website Description
Everywhere on social media, content is being generated at unheard-of speeds. Hashtags help you navigate the ever-expanding internet, and HASHATIT keeps you on top of hashtags.
Since 2014, the Hashatit team has provided one of the internet's easiest and most powerful tools to search social media for the content you want. With Hashatit, you can easily track what interests you, keep those interests organized, and come back to them at any time.
In short, Hashatit helps you cut through the noise and find what you're looking for.
Some Ideas
Some creative searches:
PermalinkAm I FLoCed
Are you part of the new Google Cookie tracker?
Google will soon be eliminating third-party cookies in their browsers. This will cause some issues with how some advertising works today - as companies can track you no matter where you are.
Google has announced that this isn't going to happen any time soon. Last week Google announced that they won't stop third-party cookies until 2023.
In the meantime, Google is testing a new concept called Federated Learning of Cohorts or FLoC. It uses your browser history to assign you to a group of similar users around the world. They assign your group a label. Then Google displays this label to websites you visit where they can profile you.
Use the "Am I FLoCed?" to see if your browser is in the trial run. If it is, you can learn how to opt-out of it.
Website Description
Google is testing FLoC on Chrome users worldwide. Find out if you're one of them.
Google is running a Chrome "origin trial" to test out an experimental new tracking feature called Federated Learning of Cohorts (aka "FLoC"). According to Google, the trial currently affects 0.5% of users in selected regions, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, and the United States. This page will try to detect whether you've been made a guinea pig in Google's ad-tech experiment.
Mic Test
Make your microphone is working in your browser
One of the worst thing that could happen on a Zoom call is the microphone to fail. The worst is if the video fails - but that's an obvious failure.
You can easily test your Microphone by using the Mic Test. This easy to use site allows you to visually see how well audio is coming through your microphone.
The nice thing about this test is that its browser-based, so if the microphone is working on this page, it should work on any website.
Website Description
This website provides a simple online mic test that allows you to check if the microphone is working properly. Since it???s a browser microphone test, you don???t have to download or install any third-party software. Moreover, even if it may seem too simple, MicTests.Com will test your microphone regardless of its type or the device and operating system you are using. And to surprise you, even more, this mic test will display a lot of useful information about your microphone (for example, its name, number of audio channels, latency, sample size, and sample rate, as well as if it supports echo cancellation or noise suppression). In addition, if the tester will detect any problems with your microphone, you will receive tips on how to fix them.
About
I will highlight a fun Internet site every Saturday. The basic premise is to highlight sites that I regularly visit for a variety of reasons. All site recommendations are mine and are unsponsored. By highlighting these websites, I hope to provide value to those who may not know of the sites or who might be interested in visiting the sites. I also want to share the sites that I find valuable in the hopes that others will find them just as beneficial.
Check out all the blog posts.
Schedule
| Wednesday | iPhone 14 Pro Max |
| Thursday | New England |
| Friday | Macintosh |
| Saturday | Internet Tools |
| Sunday | Open Topic |
| Monday | Media Monday |
| Tuesday | QA |