Using the Pixlr App

Member Carolyn Gibson shared tips on using the free Pixlr photo editing app on a cell phone at the January 13 meeting of the Anderson Artists Guild.

Design and composition are the most important elements in Gibson’s photography, and she often finds herself following a theme—like mailboxes or old mills—until she tires of it. “If Andy Warhol can do soup cans, there’s no reason I can’t make a theme out of mailboxes,” she said.

She likes strong colors and often uses repeating colors to unify a composition. She also advises considering all space in a composition, including negative space.

And she loves to mix textures. She is always on the lookout for potential textured “backgrounds,” from a brick walk to leaves on a sidewalk to shiplap to a set of stacked outdoor chairs.

One of her favorite tools in Pixlr is double exposure, placing one photo on top of another. It can be the same photo repeated like an echo or a different one that adds new elements. She also uses the posterize feature to simplify a photo.

She prints all her photos at Walgreens (using the app for extra savings) except when the cropping to fit a photo into one of the standard sizes would remove important elements. In that case, she prints the photos at home. In all cases, her pieces tend to be small since enlargements affect clarity.

For additional advice about using Pixlr, see https://www.thesitsgirls.com/photography/pixlr-app-edit-photos/.