Free Photo Editor Fotor Tutorial

I have to tell you that one of my most used blogging tools is a photo editor!  Seriously, a photo editor is a must have as a blogger but useful for everyone.  I mean who doesn’t want the ability to make every photo better?  It is also especially useful to parents who are capturing all those fleeting moments as the kids grow.

For a long time I used my photo editing options on my mac that were built into iPhoto but it just didn’t have all the features I needed and wanted.  I felt frustrated.  I had heard about photoshop but I didn’t have it and I heard that it was complicated besides expensive. Finally, I asked a blogging buddy, and they told me that you can use an online photo editor! It was a light bulb moment for me.  So I thought I would share with you a little Fotor Tutorial to show you how to use this free photo editor to make your photos just the way you want them.

Fotor- Free Online Photo Editor

You can get the Fotor App for free or you can use do your photo editing online at fotor.com

When you go to the home page you can “make a collage”, “edit a photo”, or “design a card”.  First I will walk you through editing a photo which I use almost daily.  You can upload a photo from your computer, dropbox, facebook, and more.

In this example, I uploaded a photo by clicking “edit a photo” and then clicking “open” and choosing computer from the drop down menu.

You can also see the basic photo edit options in the screenshot above.  “Crop” is a very useful feature I use all the time to cut out the busy parts of photos that just don’t need to be there.  “Resize” is another I use all the time to get the photo to be the correct size for my blog and to have a smaller file size for emailing.  Under “Basic” you can adjust the exposure, brightness, and contrast which I also use on a pretty regular basis.

In the screenshot above, you can see that I have uploaded my photo and resized it.  Now I am in the “Photo Effects” options (the red button on the left side) and I have just used the “Tilt-Shift” feature.  It makes the focus clear and deep while the other parts of the photo are a bit blurred.  Tilt-Shift is great for creating depth and focus in a photo.  I used it to blur out the thermostat a bit here.

There is also a face photo options section on the left size.  I obviously didn’t need it here and I rarely use it but sometimes it comes in handy to cover a blemish, etc.  The next button on the way to the left is a borders button. I don’t use it often but it is simple and cute for certain projects.  Then comes the Stickers button which includes features like “banners”.  I love that feature!  You can see the banner feature options below.  I chose the shape, color, transparency level, and size.

Then I used the last option on the left which is symbolized by the “Tt”- add text.

You can to pick a font, font size, center, and presto.  You’re done!

Pretty sweet, right?!  I hope you found my tutorial on how to use the Photo Editor Fotor eye opening.  It really is so useful!  They even have a Fotor photo collage feature which is way fun way to make a photo collage for vacation photos or event photos.  That option is available on the main fotor page as I mentioned at the beginning of this photo editing tutorial but you can also use sub features like photo montage.  Really, you can play with your photos all day!