Put Your Pictures in Video Greeting Cards With JibJab.com

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You can now create animated movies with your own photographs using the site JibJab.com. The card above is free and allows you to import five different photos into the animated snowball fight. You can upload your own faces, or pick from the list of famous faces that Jibjab supplies. Other cards have a small charge based on credits you purchase. The results are hilarious.

I inserted my face along with the famous people above. The faces of Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey came from the photos provided by Jibjab. I uploaded the Albert Einstein and Halle Berry images and cut out their faces.

The website is easy to use, allowing users to upload photographs and isolate faces using a services of movable dots. Once uploaded, the faces can be inserted into the card of your choice. You may recall Jibjab is the site that creates those funny political animated videos are all over the media. Here's a review of the e-cards that appeared in the Seattle Times.

You can feel comfortable uploading your photos to Jibjab. Jibjab is a licensee of the the TRUSTe program, an organization that reviews the privacy policy of companies to make sure it is consistent with government and industry guidelines concerning the use of your personal information.

Happy New Year!

Carve Your Halloween Pumpkin With a Photograph

Before and after Pictures

Want to put your child's face (or that of a friend or relative) on a pumpkin for Halloween? Using a photograph and your favorite image editing software (like Adobe Photoshop Elements) you can carve a picture on a pumpkin.

I first saw this technique demonstrated by the Pumpkin Lady on the Screen Savers, that technology show that used to be on Tech TV.

Basically, you create a high contrast version of your image and transfer it to a pumpkin. The pictures above came from masterpiecepumpkins.com which provides great step by step instructions.

If you'd like another approach see the Pumpkin Lady's site or this blog entry from the Okuda Family. This tutorial gives a great explanation on how to punch the holes to make the pattern.

If you succeed in carving a pumpkin from a photograph, please take a picture and post a link to it in the comments. Here are step by step instructions for taking pictures of your halloween creations. Happy pumpkin carving!

George Washington (by the Pumpkin Lady)

Turn Yourself Into A Werewolf (Using Photoshop)

Photoshop can do a number of Halloween transformations. Here is a tutorial for taking a picture and transforming the subject into a werewolf. Although written for Photoshop, it looks like all the steps can be completed with Photoshop Elements.

I learned of it from ImagingInsider.com which reported on a posting in Good Tutorials. The posting originally appeared in Aviva Directory.