Design and photo editing tools for Bloggers

Welcome to the fourth post of the series #BlogchatterA2Z 2022. In this series I am publishing my list of Fabulous Fives related to my two favorite topics – travel and blogging. Today’s list is for all the bloggers who want to add a professional look to their blog. I personally want to change a lot about my blog design, but one thing that I seem to have cracked is the graphic designs and photos I use in my posts.

I know Photoshop is a powerful tool that can be a one-stop-shop for all your needs, but it needs a certain degree of expertise that I lack. So, I figured out some jugaad, which I’m going to share with you here.

MS Photo editor

MS Photo editor is a lightweight default app in Microsoft Windows operating system. It works best in Windows 10 and above. It is the tool I use most frequently for my travel blog to resize my photos.

As you know the image size and quality is important for the site to be attractive as well as fast. I try to keep all the images I use in my blog within 100kb and with a uniform width of 760 px or 900 px. I had earlier tried to do this using some free online tools before I had a facepalm moment when I realize how easily it could be done on my computer.

Besides the resize feature, I use cropping and auto-enhance features in decreasing order of frequency. I also use the manual adjustments sometimes to correct lighting and contrast of the photos.

Google Photos

 Google photos are an excellent way to backup image files in the cloud but it is also a largely underutilized tool for photo editing and graphic design using photos is Google photos. They can be used to add impressive finish to dull photos in a few clicks. Besides that you can easily create collage, resize photos and create videos using Google Photos.

Google Photos

Google photos are an excellent way to backup image files in the cloud, but it is also a largely underutilized tool for photo editing and graphic design using photos is Google photos. They can be used to add impressive finish to dull photos in a few clicks. Besides that, you can easily create collage, resize photos and create videos using Google Photos.

Canva

Canva is a life-saver for photo editing noobs like me. I don’t have the time and energy to install adobe photoshop and do all the magic on it. Besides, the tool is quite expensive in terms of space and system resources it consumes.

The free version of Canva helps you create beautiful designs for Pinterest, and other social media platforms. It has some amazing built-in templates where you can easily replace the text and images with your own. If you want complete flexibility then you can start with a blank canvas of selected dimensions and use all the “elements”, “text” , “filters” and your own images to do the same. Canva also brings to you a plethora of free images to work with.

My Canva Design dashboard

The paid version of Canva takes you many steps ahead in turning your blog into a good business. It will save you time with premium templates, reusable brand color themes, logo etc. Plus you get access to premium stock images as well for your design.

I use Canva mainly for creating multiple Pinterest images and one cover image for each blog post. Besides that, I have used Canva to create Instagram videos and Youtube thumbnail as well. Oh, and how can I forget the priceless book cover of my first-ever publication.

Join Canva

Pablo by Buffer

The plethora of tools and options available on Canva can be a bit overwhelming for beginners. It is also relatively more time-taking to make the most simple edits – like overlaying stylish text on photos for social media. Pablo by Buffer is the perfect Canva alternative for those. 

The flexibility is limited in Pablo but impressive edits can be created in few seconds. Just upload or choose photos from their gallery, chose one of the preset layouts, text styles and filters. And you are done. You also have the option to add a logo to your files.

You can also download a Chrome extension for Pablo!

BeFunky

This is another online design tool especially designed for Instagram. It has plethora of preset layouts and designs for square shaped Instagram-friendly photos. Once you enter BeFunky you can choose to do one of the three things – Graphic Design, Photo Edits and Collage Maker. I loved the graphic design templates in the tool and have created the Pinterest image of this post using the same.

The photo-editing tool has some cool editing options like face correction, but is not useful for the kind of blog I have. I tried the collage but was not impressed by it. The end-result looks pretty basic with the free tools. For premium tools you need to upgrade to the paid version.

So here is my list of easiest and my favorite design tools for my blog. What is your favorite? Tell me in the comments section and I will try them too. If you found this listicle helpful, please share this and save it on Pinterest.

This graphic was created using BeFunky