My 3 Favourite Go-To Photography & Editing Tricks

Book and blog photography has quickly become one of my favourite side-projects, and with good reason - I'm actually really good at it. I love coming up with new and exciting prompts, new styles, new ways to show off my products and my collections, and it's almost impossible for me not to take a least one new photo every day. It's without a doubt a new favourite hobby, and worth getting out of bed to do, but my 'perfect photos' are sprinkled with lies, and by lies, I mean some sneaky little hacks.

Is it right to be 'hacking' my photo editing, to be creating the image of something that isn't there, or getting a quick fix from some sneaky lil' editing? Maybe not, but these little secrets have played a BIG part in my social media and blog growth, and have really delivered. Today, I wanted to share with you my favourite photo editing hacks, made possible with Picmonkey, so you can be lil' photo editing monsters with me.

1 | How To Bring a Broken Phone To Life

Frequent followers on Instagram will have seen both black and white samsung phones creeping into many of my photos, and with good reason. Not only is a phone a really good prop on it's own, but you can use it to provide more depth to the photo, like featuring your blog, or your current e-read. Here's the sneaky lil' lie..

My Quick and Easy 5-Step Process To Editing Photos (With Picmonkey!)

Some say a good photo doesn't need editing, it's perfect as it is, and sometimes, I'll humour that idea. I've seen article after article after article that says unedited photos tend to gain the most likes, the most comments, the most interaction on social media, and especially on Instagram, however, what those articles don't take into consideration is that many users are now editing their photos before the image even hits the Instagram scene. When those articles say that unedited photos get the biscuit, there's a very likely chance that those photos are still being edited. A touch of brightness, a sharpening of look, it's been poked with the editing stick somehow, and mine are no different.

I've developed a step-by-step system that I use to edit my photos every single time. Every photo is edited in the same way, with slight variations on the actual depth of each poke, but generally, every photo is edited with the same method, which means that although I don't have a theme for my Instagram feed, they have a universal look and feel. Today I'm sharing my process, and the quick and easy steps I use to achieve bright and vibrant photos that stand out with happiness. Oh, and it's done with Picmonkey, but what do I do that isn't these days? I'M OBSESSED. *cough*

10 Colour Palettes Inspired By Young Adult Book Covers (+ How To Create One in Picmonkey!)

Colours are vital when it comes to designing, well, anything and everything. Different colours affect people in different ways, as does their shades and tones, it's all about colour psychology, and what emotions or messages those colours evoke. Take Nellie for example. Grey is quite a calm colour, that gives on the impression of composure and relief, but it can also be an emotionless colour, and doesn't tend to stimulate excitement or energy. Sure, the colour represents me in a huge way, but it can put people off.

If you're not confident in your colour scheme, you're never going to be comfortable.

I've read quite a few interesting posts in finding the right colour scheme or palette for you and your blog/business, and it feels as though everybody and their uncle is creating Pinterest boards for absolutely everything, but for me, I find book covers inspiring in terms of colour schemes and moods. The right colours partnered together can stimulate a whole collection of emotions and feelings, either pulling me towards or pushing me away from picking it up, and rightly so, that's what colour does.

I've put together 10 different colour schemes, all inspired by, or based on book covers, each with their hex colour codes so you can start to create amazing things with those you most like, and at the end, I'll be showing you how to create your own, so stay tuned for that.

5 Blog Graphic Styles You Can Create With Picmonkey (+ Showcase of Examples!)

Blog graphics are super important. They play a huge role when it comes to your blogs design, but more than ever, they're extremely important for use in social media. A picture tells a thousand words, and when you're an introvert like me, that's not only clever, but a life saver. But a bad image can say just as much, if not more, about you, your blog, your brand, your business even, than a good one, and that's why creating the perfect blog graphic sounds tough. I'm here to tell you, it isn't.

I'm a sucker for an attractive image just as much as the next girl, but I'm so attracted to them, I've been checking out Pinterests vast collection of graphics to find you the 5 biggest and most popular styles around, and I'm going to show you how you can create them, completely free, no experience required, with Picmonkey, one of my favourite blogging resources I can't blog without.

The 'Say It As It Is' Graphic

This is without a doubt the easiest of blog graphics to put together. Simply open Picmonkey and choose your desired image size. I would recommend 4x6 or 5x7, but most definitely choose something has some length to it, you want your graphics to be tall rather than wide.

How I Create My Blog Graphics | Part One: Picmonkey

Starting out blogging, I was under the impression it was all about the content, and sure, content is key, it's one of the most common and popular phrases available to man, but 2 years down the line, like other things in life, blogging, and what works best when it comes to marketing and promoting, has changed. You can create some of the best content possible, you could have all the facts, all the figures, all the opinions, and lets face it, all the followers possible, but without something visual, you're lagging behind, and that's never a good thing.

Create something visual on your blog post is a sure fire way to get your post gaining more views. You might be ready to read for the long haul, but 90% of information transmitted is visual, and it's processed 60,000 times quicker than text. 40% of people respond better to visual images, and over 45% of people say design plays a huge part in the credibility of brands - all more than good enough reasons to consider using visuals in some way or another on your blog. Not only that, visuals are much easier and much more likely to be shared on social media, and with an accompanying image, your post can go from cold to behold.

So why do so many bloggers not use graphics?

They don't know how to. They don't know which programs to use, or better still, they've been brainwashed into thinking the only way to create great looking visuals is through Adobe, and sure, I can't speak for Adobe, I can't afford it and therefore can't use it, (Lauren at Elle and Company has a lot of tutorials for people more interest in the 'professional' graphics route) but there are so many other great options available for bloggers lacking design experience. Even better, there are programs available online, completely free, and I'm a passionate believer in getting what you can for free before going all out.

I use two free image related programs: Picmonkey and Canva

Today, I want to focus on how I use Picmonkey to create my most commonly used graphics. Picmonkey is a free to use website that allows for collage creating, image editing and creating graphics for free, although for a monthly or annual fee, you can access further features such as extra fonts, better quality clip-art images and photo editing that enrich the users experience, although I personally know of a few loop holes to gain access to these free features in other third party ways, but that is for another day. For now, here's a behind the scenes look at how I created the accompanying graphic used in this post and other graphics you've seen of a similar style across Nellie and Co.

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