I probably spend most of my time in the Photo Impact Forum when I am not taking classes that is. I sometimes get involved in the stationary, animation, and the Photo Magic forums. I love taking pictures with my digital camera and trying different effects on them from the tutorials etc posted on the forum. I just love to spend time looking at everyone's work they do on there.......it's so much fun to see how each person can take the same picture and come up with totally different effects.
I also enjoy using Google for a search engine. Probably one of my most valuable uses of the web is finding answers to my computer problems. I have solved my own problems with my computer a lot just by typing an error message in and see what comes up. It is usually an answer that I need.
I also use the Internet to search products I am going to buy......I get prices and information about the product and then when I go shopping I know the right questions to ask in the store. The Internet is so valuable to me as a research tool like this. It has saved me so much trouble. I usually have to go to a larger town from where I live to buy many electronic items so I go well prepared with my information from the Internet.
The on line classes that I have taken have been some of my most enjoyable hours on the computer. The first class I took was the Photo Impact Workshop which involved doing 96 projects. That took me about 5 months to finish. I had a mentor who helped me tremendously. This was a free class and I highly recommend it to anyone. It helped me so much to learn about the program Photo Impact. I also took the Digital Painting and also the Advanced Digital Painting class with Sparrow at the Visual Arts Academy. I bought a Wacom Graphire Tablet and pen and it sure amazed me how easy it was to paint with that tool instead of using a mouse. I used to paint with the real paints but had to give it up due to allergies to the paint smells etc. I was thrilled to learn I could actually paint on the computer. That is the best way to paint as you have no mess to clean up. Another class I took was basic animation using the Gif animator program included with Photo Impact.I use my paintings to make greeting cards on my computer. Below are some of my paintings I did in the advanced digital painting class.
