19.2.12

Blog post photo tips

Blogger photo Tips
These Blog post Photo tips are not photography  tips as I take average photos only but sharing some blogging photo tips as photos are such an important part of a blog post and help popularize your blog!
Name your photos well. 
When  you download photos from your camera they will have meaningless names .Before you upload/post your photos rename your photos manually or more easily using a batch rename software . This helps search engines such as Google to identify your photos and can increase your blog traffic.This is a very basic and easy to follow blogging photo tip!
Blogger Photo Tips

Re-size your Photos
When you take photos on your camera the size is very large. Before you post them on your blog you have to re-size these photos and make them smaller.
Why bother?
Most of us use free photo sharing sites such as picasa, photobucket, flikr etc. Picasa is a popular photo storage site for blogger and it has a limit on the photos based on the total size. If you kept uploading large megapixel photos- you would soon run out of your free quota on the free site!
Large photos take a long time to load on your blog page.
Re-sizing your photos too small has a tremendous downside as they loose clarity and details are compromised.  I generally use approx 400x 300 pixels for photos I post medium size and 640 x 480 pixels for photos I post as original size [the large ones]. 
Blogger Photo Tips
You can quickly resize your blog post photos using the batch re-size function of a photo-editing freeware.
Blog post Photo Size
Whether to post the photos in small/medium/large etc is an individual preference...I like to post the lovelier photos as large or original size! Closeup shots and tutorial steps can be posted as medium which is the default blogger photo size
Blogger Photo Tips
Many a times if the photo is posted small you have to click on it to see things better.Since blog surfing isnt at a leisurely pace always , the pundits say having to go an extra step to click on a photo to view it better puts people off !
Large photos look nicer but have a down side- they take longer to load on your page ! So no consensus on this point -do what you like!!
Protect your photos
It leaves a very unsavory feeling if people may post work inspired by you and don't give credit or even worse sometimes post your photos and claim them as their work. It has happened to quite a few of my blogger pals. To decrease incidence of such heartache- 
Watermark your Photos
Do watermark your photos-This helps you in 2 ways – 
1) Anyone who saves your craft photo for inspiration and later creates a project based on it can more easily credit it to you. 
2)The other way watermarking helps is it deters unscrupulous people from stealing your images and claiming them as their work to some extent. 
Popular photo-editing freeware can easily help you to even batch watermark your photos.
Positioning it across the center or in the background makes it difficult for anyone to crop it off or erase it and is one of the best watermarking positions.I personally dont like the watermark in the center as I feel it is distracting for the viewer.
The watermark should not be so large as to dominate your photo and spoil the beauty of your creation.
Disable right click
Disabling right click is a huge deterrent to anyone saving your picture. I don’t like doing that cos I feel it is an honor that a person is saving my photos to inspire them! Just because someone saves your picture doesn’t mean they will misuse it! And if someone wants, they are many ways to still capture the image despite the disabled right click!

Blogger Photo Tips
Photo Enhancement
Most of us are casual photographers and it will help our photos tremendously if we can use some simple photo enhancing tricks! The simplest tricks are playing with the brightness and contrast of your photos using a software.
What photoediting software to use?
The "boss" is Photoshop but I didnt have the patience to master it and have played around with quite a few freeware. Now settled on 2 freeware Photoscape [ helps add lines and shapes on tutorial photos] and Fast stone image viewer[ helps me batch edit fast]. Why I like these are they are easy to learn and not too complicated to understand!A caution about auto enhance feature on photo editing software-- most of the time your photo looks odd if you use it! So better adjust the brightness, then the contrast etc one by one.
Tricky Craft photos to take
Embossing- take several shots from different angles and you might get lucky! 
Shiny papers- A big pain to capture. Anyone worked out a solution do let me know!
Photos at night- A big majority of us are night bloggers and even nocturnal crafters so mastering night time photography would be quite a boon! U can use the flash or the Party/ Indoor mode of your camera. You can use a lightbox like the professionals Or you can heavily play around with your photo-editing software. However I always find it easiest and in the long run quicker to take pictures in daylight outdoors[ only drawback- have to wait for free time in the day!].
Close up shots – most digital cameras will have an option for close-up mode. Since most of us are amateur photographers it pays to use this easy option of your camera.
White craft projects/cards- very difficult to capture the beauty of white- place a dark chart paper or back ground against your project while taking the photo and the contrast just may do the trick!
Easy Craft photo tip- The easiest way to get " good " pics is to take a white chart paper outdoors , prop it behind  your craft project. Snap in normal or closeup mode in natural daylight and 95 % of the time you will get a good photo!
Add Captions to your blog photos
This blog post photo tip again helps search engines find your photos.This photo shows a screen shot of a blog post editing window. Click on the photo in your blog post draft and an "Add caption" will show up.Click on it and type in a descriptive photo caption.

Blogger Photo Tips
If you feel its too much of a chore ,you can take the lazier easier way out like I do and put in the same caption for all your photos! [Just a matter of pressing "Ctrl  and V" !]
The first photo of your blog post
Choose the first photo of your blog post wisely as this is the photo which shows up on the reading list of the blogger dashboard of your readers .This photo along with the blog post title  will be instrumental in making your follower decide whether to visit your blog to check out your post! 
So the most beautiful photo should be at the top of your post! 
Not everyone will be inclined to visit if on the dashboard they see a blog hop’s blinky or a challenge Bingo table but will surely be more tempted to click on to your blog if they see your lovely creation!
Check your blog dashboard reading list and tell me if its true!
Post a photo towards the top of your blog post write up.
Sometimes no photo from your blog post shows up on the reading list of the dashboard- this happens if you post the photo quite lower down. As an example I have taken a screen shot of my reading list which shows a blog post by my dear friend Patti.. no photo ...
Blogger Photo Tips

Do I click ??? Yes I do since she is my friend and I know how creative she is .I dropped by her blog and was greeted with a stunning project.. the gorgeous photo hadn't shown up on my reading list as she had posted it lower down her blog post and not at the top.  Do drop by Patti's blog and see her awesome card!
So if its a friends blog you will go over no matter whether the heading is catchy or whether a photo is there or not but not all your followers will do that-- to tempt the casual reader to drop over to your blog ,you need a photo to show up on their reading list!
For bloggers who use google reader to track the blogs they follow, this whole issue doesn't arise at all!
Dont make a blog post with only photos
We all love photos but dont be tempted to make a blog post with only photos. This is a mistake many budding bloggers make including me. Many of my early posts are photo only posts! Either I didnt have the time to write about the project or was hesitant or I didnt know what to write!
Why should you not post a photo only blog post?
1.Google search engines cant see the photos- they need a word description- so put in at least captions!
2.Most of your readers would like to know something about your photos- So do pen down a few descriptive words as it keeps the post interesting and more interactive.
Post multiple photos
If you are blogging about a project you are particularly proud of -- do take multiple photos from different angles and some closeup shots. It draws your readers attention to the different facets of your project and is visually more satisfying!
Preview Preview Preview
This is the last blogging photo tip --- always preview your blog post before you publish it!
You will realize yourself which photo needs to be published in a larger size , which photos need tweaking and you may even decide not to post a blurry picture altogether!
Dear friends I am no photography expert or a computer wiz- these tips are what I have managed to imbibe in this crafting blogging journey and sharing in the hope it is of some help to my bloggy buddies!
Do add your experience, tips and suggestions so that we can all learn from our experiences.
Here are more Blogging Tips


88 comments:

  1. Hi dear,
    thanks a bunch for sharing these tips & info..very well described!you are such a helping friend :)

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  2. Great tips :) Thank you for shearing :)

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  3. Wonderful tips Sonia, much of the same things I have come across by trial and error, but some new things too (always wondered what that "add caption" was for - now I know :)

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  4. Dear sonia...
    Very useful post to help all our crafty friends....
    Thank you very much...:)
    Ramya

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  5. this was a very informative post and for a relatively new blogger like moi..very very helpful.thanks a tonne...

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    1. Thank You for taking the time to encourage me Simran!

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  6. Thank you, once again, Sonia. You're so kind and thoughtful to do these very detailed and easy to follow tutorials for us:)

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  7. Thanks for the info. It's very useful.

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  8. Such great information, Dr. Sonia! Thanks for taking the time to post these tips. Some tips I had no idea at all like naming my photos.

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    1. Yes Helen I didnt know it earlier too and discovered it when I searched Dr Sonia S V on google and many of my cards turned up in the search results-- that was because I had named them as Dr Sonia S V ! Now I think of better names for my projects than my name!!

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  9. Thanx a ton a bunch !
    really very helpful
    gawd ! how can a doctor be so versatile .. i m amazed!
    i saw u r from aiims ! I almost fainted .. my lil sister is preparing for it and my dad is gastroenterology doctor from BHU .
    You are gifted ..
    the way you post tutorials .. in such an innovative way .. i simply love it
    Hugs
    Mallika

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    1. Wow so you are from a doctors family. Your comment has put me on cloud 9 !!
      Thank You dearie!

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  10. Thanks a lot Dr. Sonia.......I'll definitely follow your advice.

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  11. Thanks a lot Dr. Sonia.......I'll definitely try your advice.

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  12. Thank you for sharing the tips, it's a big help, have a good day!!!
    Paula

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  13. What an excellent set of tips, Sonia! Thanks so much for taking the trouble to post them.

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  14. AWESOME GREAT TIPS SONIA .
    to be honest i am a nocturnal crafter and have meagre knowledge about blogging
    .could you pls tell how to collage the pictures .its a great way to use for step by step instructions .

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    1. Angelin I use Fast stone to collage pictures in vertical or horizontal fashion. If you want more stylish collages picasa is good

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  15. Thanx for these informative tips ,Sonia.So informative for an amateur blogger like me.

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    1. So glad I was of some help Usha ji

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  16. Thanks Doc for these lovely tips... I got to make a lot of changes in my blog... especially about watermarks and also adding captions

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    1. Yes Deepthi watermarks are essential for craft blogs

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  17. Fantastic post Dr Sonia. Loz

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  18. Great tips!! Thanks for sharing them :)Amy

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  19. What a great post, dear friend! And thanks for the nice shout-out. Do you know that I never even realized that my photo didn't show up? Thanks for that info, as well. I love dropping by to visit you - I never know what I may learn!!! Hugs...

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  20. Great compilation of tips Sonia! :)

    Thanks for sharing!

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  21. What a great post this is. So many useful tips here.

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    1. Ann you are making me blush and cringe since you are such a photo professional!!

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  22. Good tips! Like you, I like the large or orginal size photo, too. And, I do really intend to start making more pictures...just need time.I can get around to it in the near future. It does make it all the more interesting. I use Picasa, but just this weekend, I saw a tutorial on Windows Live Photo Gallery and it may do one or two more things than I can do now. So, I'm going to try it out as my computer came with it.

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    1. Benzi I have tried windows gallery and found I didnt enjoy it

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  23. All very worthwhile tips. I have the joy of having wonderful Canon camera equipment that my hubby gave me. I have a Canon point & shoot also that I carry with me at all times but when I want to photo my cards or such I use my better Canon. One other tip that I seem to enjoy is the presentation of the photo by including props or such in the photo to tell a story.
    Melissa
    "Sunshine HoneyBee"

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    1. Yes Melissa you do that so well... I just barely make it to my balcony with the craft project , white paper and camera for my photo shoot sessions!

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  24. Thanks so much for the valuable information Sonia

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  25. Hi Sonia, Thank you So much for sharing these tips....

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  26. Thanks for taking the time out for such a post doctor. I real through it all. I am sure I have learnt a lot.

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  27. this is a great post I am bookmarking it.very informative and useful.thanks Doc for taking time to help us all out

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    1. Thank You Snehal glad u find it nice

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  28. These are all AWESOME tips, Sonia!! This will help so many people out!! Thank you for taking the time to write all of this down...you are amazing!! :)

    Lisa
    indymermaid.blogspot.com

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    1. Lisa I hoped it will be helpful when I formulated this post and am glad it seems to be appreciated!

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  29. Thanks for sharing such informative tips,,..

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    1. Nice to have you drop in after a long time! Thank You for encouraging me

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  30. No doubt u r the most successful blogger Sonia!!These tips have loads of tips in them!!So thoughtful and well explained!! Kudos!! u r one amazing human, I admire!!

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  31. Great photo tips and great to see them all in a blog post for new bloggers! I picked these up through quite a bit of trial and error so I know someone out there will be glad to see them all together :)

    For capturing glitter I have 2 tips. The "professional" one is with a cross screen filter on a DSLR camera. This tutorial explains it well - http://www.pkglitzblog.com/2011/02/how-to-photograph-glitter-on-your.html. The "usual" one I use when I am in a hurry (and mostly I am!) is to have a strong light source positioned on the side of my card while taking the photo from the front. This makes the glitter shine but needs several shots to get it right. The first photo here is an example - http://cutscropscreativity.blogspot.com/2012/02/trifold-shutter-card.html

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    1. Thank You so much for your input Chaitali

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  32. Hi - I love your site. I am stopping in from TheStuffofSuccess. Feel free to stop by and say hello. Enjoy your week. Athena

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    1. Athena loved your blog-- especially the recycled crafts

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  33. Great stuff Dr.

    Stop by my blog...you won't be disappointed ;0)

    Be blessed, Beckie
    http://justbcreativecrazy.blogspot.com

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    1. Beckie Thank You so much and you are such a sweet heart for dropping by to let me know!

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  34. Wonderful set of tips... For someone who is still struggling with photo blogging, these are really great words of wisdom... Some takeaways for my own blog

    1. I mostly post a single picture... Feel that it would suffice. But now I want to reconsider this strategy

    2. I also post medium size pics and hope the reader would click and view the actual sized picture.

    3. I also am bad a photo placements. Sometimes post the pictures in sequence without giving a second thought to how the first picture looks. :)

    Thanks a lot.

    One thing that I do, besides giving a photo a caption and relevant file name, for the purpose of Search engines, I also add the html "alt" (alternate text) tag and "title" tag to my pictures. It involves editing the html from the html tag.

    Cheers,
    Somu (woodooz)

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    1. Thank You for such valuable inputs Somu.
      I have read about alt tags too but havent yet put it into practise as I read conflicting reports about its SEO usefulness!

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  35. Thanks for stopping by Sonia. Yes it was very nice talking to u... MY BIL has visited that hospital that you suggested... Thanks so much..

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    1. Glad to have been of some help Swathi

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  36. The tips are really helpful.

    Thanks
    Dora's Unique Touch
    http://chandradey.blogspot.in/

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  37. From Sonia To Sonia
    Hello! Thanks for sharing all your tips.
    -Sony
    http://sonia-studio60.blogspot.com

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  38. A lot of great ideas and suggestion and some I had never thought about and many I am already doing. I sometimes forget to watermark, but rare. However, in my earlier days I didn't know any better and after viewing my cards at the beginning, know one would probably had wanted t save them anyway...haha

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  39. wow wow wow thank u so much for posting this. I already follow a few of these, will surely follow more......thanks agn

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  40. wow wow wow thank u so much for posting this. I already follow a few of these, will surely follow more......thanks agn

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  41. This is so cool! I hope it's ok that I pinned this so I can come back and take time really reading all your tips:)
    ~Kim

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    1. Thank you Kim..such an honor to me that you have pinned this post

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  42. Thanks a lot for your wonderful tips.you r really amazing person:)

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  43. Thank you for your nice comments
    on my blog
    http://jackieskg.blogspot.com
    You have lots of interesting info
    on your site and I surely will visit
    again. As I am still learning about
    having a blog, I got some good
    pointers from you.

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  44. Hey really sweet of you to take so much time out to explain to all of us abt blog photos. In so much detail.. :-) :-) Thank u..

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  45. Hattsoff to your patience.thanks for the post

    kavitha
    www.snapkavi.blogspot.com

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  46. Thanks alot for the tips.It really helps heheh. I have many things to change . I really want to ask though How do you make the Reply button to appear?Im not sure how to add it . Thanks again for this and for taking from ur free ime to help all of us newbies.

    *hugs*
    M.
    http://quilltiqueparadise.blogspot.com

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    1. Try this link :http://www.spiceupyourblog.com/2012/01/threaded-comment-replies-blogger-blogs.html

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  47. You are just amazing. So well read and the best part is that you take time out to write a post especially to help your fellow bloggers.

    I must say I am complete fan of yours......would really love to meet you someday.

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    1. Thank you Darshana..would love to meet a crafty friend too!

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  48. OMG!
    Sonia, I am very late here, i have been searching for such tips for my photo blog, though i am not a professional photographer, i posted few photos i have taken. I like the tip 'The photo caption' great tip. only then the search engine can find your pic. Yes, the concluding tip. Review Review & Review. Great that's really good. I very seldom do this, only after uploading again come back to do the correction, now this review thing is more easy to check. I could pick a number of tips here for my blog posting, thank you so much for your kind visit and the link.Thank you again for all the connected links. And I am saving this post and of course i am adding a back link in my recent post
    "9 Tips To Get Traffic Into Your Blog Pages Or How To Promote Your Write-ups (Blog Posts) to Get Traffic." with a small note about your post. Hope you don't mind
    Have a good day.
    Keep inform.

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    1. So kind of you and I am no blog or photography expert..just like you sharing my blogging experience!

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    2. glad to note that i made a Malayalam translation (not exactly) of my above mentioned blog. Your page is mentioned in it,
      Thanks for sharing
      http://arielintekurippukal.blogspot.in/2013/03/blog-post.html

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    3. Thank you Mr Philip..my Malayalam reading abilities is of first standard level only though I can converse fluently in Malayalam..but will try to see if I can read your blog!

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  49. Dear Dr,
    When i was reading your post,i was recollecting my mistakes which i have done.Your post has really helped me a lot coz i'm not a good photographer but still trying...till date i did added any caption but will surely make it a habit.Nice that along with the crafts you wrote something so useful for newbie bloggers.
    Thanks for the tips.

    http://www.mythreadcreations.blogspot.in/

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  50. Hello there doctor... thank you very much for the post.. am reading it only now :P
    I have a couple of doubts - can i add the watermark using MS paint? and how to remove the self- blogviews? any ideas on that?

    thanks a ton again..

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    1. Hridya I don't like MS paint so haven't really worked on it and didnt quite catch you what are self blog views..if you are talking about stats of your blog there is an option in the stats page to disregard hits from your computer

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  51. Thank you thank you and a million thanks.... :)
    Thank you doctor for so many wonderful tips.... I am sooo glad I dropped by because every single thing you mentioned here is new to me but very very helpful.... Many of my friends who visited my blog have been telling me abt my horrible photography skills.... Your blog has definitely given me a lot of ideas. I didnt even realise blogger had so many settings... The preview button was a thing I never used :P and now I realise the difference.... The caption tip was very very helpful. Thank you so much for such detailed step by step explanations and that too with pictures... You are truly an angel for beginners like me... always there with the best of compliments and ever supportive... :) I have become a huge fan of yours.... I am sincerely hoping that we would bump into each other soon at Itsy Bitsy in New BEL road ;)

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    1. Ann I am so glad you found it helpful.You are a very talented person and I didnt want photography to hinder you!! And when we are both free we will catch up in Bangalore

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  52. Am so glad it was of help and you took the time to tell me too

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  53. wow! what a great comprehensive tip, Dr. Sonia! hugs, de

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  54. Very usefull information !I have just started my blog MY CRAFT DECOR...These tips will be helpfull to me,n I am going to implicate it for my blog.please visit my blog www.mycraftdecor.blogspot.in

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  55. I'm just dumstruck, Sonia. How you put the information in a good narrative way.
    I keep reading all your posts, even at office hours ;-) There are plenty of posts with informative. I don't know which to leave, but i want to note it down everything.

    Better i stop this and send a mail to you. I'm inspired by all your posts actually. You are the good inspiration/encyclopedia for all crafters.

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