I have never really worked on editing pictures. I used GIMPshop and I did not find it difficult to learn how to use it. I was able to quickly find easy to follow tutorials online. I decided to take a picture of my son and I and edit it into what I was feeling when he was about one month old. I felt good and warm inside, I felt like everything was good, like as if I was on a beach. So I cropped our image out and set it in a beach background. I learned how to crop an object out of a picture (using the lasso tool) and make the rest of that picture be a transparent layer so I can layer pictures (useful when making a collage). I was very tired in the picture as I did have a new born so I decided to some editing on my face and I blurred the wrinkles and dark circles under my eyes.

I took pictures of s stuffed koala and I uploaded them as layers onto GIMP. I arranged the layers in the order I wanted them to appear in the GIF. After that I went into Filters/Animation/Optimize for GIF. Next I went to Image/Mode/Indexed and choose color dithering :Floyd-Steinburg (reduced color bleeding). Finally I exported the file as .gif and it gave me the option of animation so I clicked it and exported. I had never made a GIF before so this was a learning experience, again a simple tutorial made things very simple and explained why I took the steps I did in creating the gif. At first I tried to make the gif with GIMPshop but it would not export correctly so I switched to GIMP and it worked fine. ​

The only online editor I have ever used is shutterfly. I am not big on editing. I used Phixr and PicMagick because I did not have to sign up for them and I was curious to see what I would get for that price. I used Pic Magick first. It was not very complex. It had simple commands and there weren't many. Most had to do with colors and hues. There was not much to do with editing or adding to the picture. On the other hand Phixr was a lot more like a real photo editor were it has more options on what you can and can't do o the picture. The Phix button is the key feature in this editor. It has a lot of presets. I also liked how this editor has a preview screen before you apply the edit. I think this could be used to make memes and if need be or quick posters for Standard Operating Procedures or things of that nature. I don't think PicMagick would be as useful in a work environment. Phix also has a collage tool which could come in handy in a work environment. I think overal Phixr is a good program to use if you are in pinch and need and online program to edit a picture. It is easy to follow and if you don't understand the icon you can hover the mouse over it and the description pops up. 

I choose to create a collage. I had an idea of creating the word Jazz using notes and making them sparkle but I was crunched for time. I try to mindful everyday but as a teacher sometimes we get caught up in the daily hustle and bustle and we forget to stop and smell the roses. Recently I have been having a lot of conversations with my colleges about how since the beginning of the school year we have not has any time to be real people. Right now I think is a time to be mindful and to see the potential that is there and what we already have in our lives so I choose the quote: "If we could see the miracle of a single flower our whole life would change" -Gantama Buddha I choose the picture of one of my favorite flowers and a vector of glasses and I was able to put them together and put the quote on top in different colors. I think the colors make each part of the quote pop out in a distinct way. I choose the glasses because sometimes some of us need help to see things in a different way. Like I said before I am not big on editing images and every time I tried to think of something to do I thought of something that was moving or in a clip or could be a GIF. I will now do more picture editing. I think it can be beneficial and it is not as difficult as I thought it was at first. Also GIMP has changed a lot since the first time I tried to use it and it is a lot more user friendly now.