What is Creative-Kit, and how to use it

This article describes Creative Kit, which was a photo-editing tool for enhancing pictures in your Picasa-web and Google+ albums.

A little history: Picasa, Picnik and Creative Kit

In 2002, a company called Lifescape created a program called Picasa, which people could use to manage photos on their PC.

Google purchased this in 2004 and then integrated it with web-storage, linked to a person's Google account, to make Picasa-web-albums: see Understanding Picasa and Picasa-web-albums for more information about how they work together with Blogger.

Picasa has some photo-editing functions (cropping, red-eye removal, sharpening, lightening, making collages, etc).  Useful, far easier to use than Photoshop - but without features that some people wanted. So in 2010, Google integrated a photo-editing tool from Picnik, a small company that was offering a subscription-based photo hosting and editing service.

Picnik's editor did some cooler things than Picasa, (applying visual effects, watermarks, etc).   The tool  had some serious fans, and a quirky culture which saw them show messages like "packing the lunch" "watching the flowers", "chasing butterflys" while Picnik was loading.  The type of messages that are funny the first few times, but quickly get tedious. And people using Picnik via Piscasa-web-albums often found that it was very slow.

In 2012:

• Picnik announced that they were closing down their separate photo hosting service, and moving the product to Google+.

• Google's announced that they were were closing Picnik, and using Picnik's engineers to “continue creating photo-editing magic across Google products."   (ref:  closure announcement).

Today, the original Picnik photo-hosting-and-editing service is most definitely closed.

The Picnik photo editor has been either replaced with or re-badged as "Creative Kit", and is available through Google+.  They may have intended to make it available through Picasa-web-albums too - but as I noted in previously, this feature isn't working. Possibly this is about selling additional storage space:   Picasa-web-albums are available to any Google account, while Google+ Photos is only available to named individuals.   So each person can have lots of Google / Picasa accounts (with free storage on each one), but only one account Google+ account.

How to access Creative Kit

To start creative Kit, so you can edit a photo with it:

• Go to Google+, and log in to your Google account that has Google-Plus enabled.
• Go to your Photos page (which may be on the left-sidebar, or under the More tab on the left sidebar if your screen is small)
  

• Go into an album, and open the photo you want to edit.
• On the menu at the top of the screen, click the Edit button.

This opens the photo inside a window with photo-editing tools. The screen just looks like another set of options within Google-Plus, but actually you are now inside Creative Kit, and you can use it to edit your photo.

When you are finished editing, choose the Save button from the top-left hand side. This give you an option to apply your changes to the current file, or to save a new copy of the file.

• If you choose Replace then any places (eg blog-posts) that link to the existing photo will now link to the edited photo.

• If you choose Save a new copy then your existing file is not changed and a new copy of the file will be made in the same folder as the existing one but with a slightly different name.

If you upload pictures into your blog-posts inside Blogger, then the picture files are stored in Picasa-web-albums LINK. If you have Google+ enabled for your account, then you can access these photos directly through either Picasa-web-albums or through Google+, even if you have not linked your blog and your Google+ profile. So you can use the Creative-kit method of editing these pictures, even if you didn't load them via Google+.

What features are available in Creative Kit

At one point Picnik used a "fremium" approach: Basic features were free for everyone to use for free, while people needed to sign up and pay a subscription to use the Premium ones. This has changed, though,and now features are are all free.

At the time of writing, the features include:

Basics

• Black and White
• Bocal B&W
• Boost
• Soften

Camera

• Lomo-ish
• Holga-ish
• HRD-ish
• CinemaScope
• Orton-ish
• 1960s

Colours

• Tint
• Vibrance
• Duo-Tone
• Heat Map 2.0
• Cross-Process

Touchup

• Blemish Fix
• Shine-be-Gone
• Airbrush
• Sunless Tan

Google Plus Exclusives

• Daguerreotype
• Reala 400
• Green Fade
• Magenta Fade
• Polaroid* Plus
• Sun Aged

Troubleshooting / Where to get help

Creative Kit uses Adobe Flash Player. If Creative Kit doesn't work inside Google+, try installing a newer version of Flash Player.

If that doesn't help, try:

• Clearing your cache

• Clearing Flash shared objects
  These are data files are created by the Creative Kit on your computer, like cookies.  To clear them, go to Abobe's Flash Player help web site.
  The Settings Manager that you see is not just an image; it's the actual Flash Player Settings Manager. Scroll through the list of sites and select www.picnik.com and www.gstatic.com.
  
  Click the Delete Website button for each, and confirm the deletion.
  
  Open the Global Storage Settings Panel. Check both of the following boxes:
  - Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer.
  - Store common Flash components to reduce download times.
  
  Once you've cleared your local shared objects, clear your browser cache again.
  

• Using a different browser, eg Chrome or Firefox.

• Disabling ad-blocker or flash-blocking extensions

For more assistance, there is a Creative Kit help-centre in Google:
https://plus.google.com/100432630524345907101#100432630524345907101/posts

Is Creative Kit just Picnik with a new name?

Most probably: the controls and features are very similar, and the press-releases seem to tie up. There is one screen that names both while the photo-editor is loading in Google+>Pictures.

But on the other hand there's no official confirmation either, and there are some product differences. It's possible that Google's engineers were simply inspired by the former Picnik colleagues to create similar controls, and that the underlying photo-editing tool is different. Who knows.

What we do know is that many of the much-loved Picnik features are available in Creative-Kit, provided you're willing to load your photos to a Google+ account.

TL;DR

You can edit a photo in Creative Kit by uploading it to your Google+ account, then choosing the Edit button when you are viewing it.

This may be the same Picnik photo editor that was available in Picasa-web-albums until 2012. Or it may not. Either way it lets you crop, re-colour, apply lots of filters etc for free.

Don't want to put your photos into Google+? Bad luck, there's no other way to use Creative Kit / Picnik on them at the moment. Find another on-line editor instead.

Update

In mid 2013, Google Plus replaced CreateKit with a new photo editor (which only works on computers running the Chrome web-browser).    Therefore it is no longer possible to use Creative Kit. 

Picasa-web-albums still has  a link to Creative Kit.   But this does not work, and PWA now has other options for editing pictures that have been uploaded to it via Blogger or otherwise.

---

Related Articles

Creative-kit works with pictures accessed through Google+, but not Picasa-web-albums

Adding a picture to a blog post

Introducing Picasa vs Picasa-web-albums

Adding a Youtube Video in the Background of a Blogger blog

Some of you might have wondered how to put a video to play in the blog's background, so that instead of having just a color or an image, to have a video. We can do this thanks to the jQuery plugin Tubular that lets you use a YouTube video as a background of a web page.

Although the result can be very original and attractive, I must say it has three drawbacks: they can not be silenced, if the video has ads, they will also appear, and it can slow the loading time of the blog, so if anyone wants to use it, may consider putting it only on special occasions, or on blogs that load very quickly.
Also it can be done in HTML5, the problem with this method is that you need to load the video in 3 different formats (.mp4, .webm and .ovg) along with a picture for browsers that do not support them, so this YouTube option seems more practical to me, despite the drawbacks.

You can see it working on this demo blog

Steps 

1. The first step is to just above the </head> tag, this script:

<script src='http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.10.2/jquery.min.js' type='text/javascript'/>

<script type='text/javascript'>
//<![CDATA[
/* jQuery tubular plugin
|* by Sean McCambridge
|* http://www.seanmccambridge.com/tubular
|* Copyright 2012
|* licensed under the MIT License
|* Enjoy.
|*
|* Thanks,
|* Sean */

var videoWidth = 853;
var videoRatio = 16/9;
var defaultDiv = 'wrapper-video';

jQuery.fn.tubular = function(videoId,wrapperId) {
wrapperId = (typeof(wrapperId) == undefined) ? 'wrapper-video' : wrapperId;
t = setTimeout("resizePlayer()",1000);

jQuery('html,body').css('height','100%');
jQuery('body').prepend('<div id="yt-container" style="overflow: hidden; position: fixed; z-index: 1;"><div id="ytapiplayer">You need Flash player 8+ and JavaScript enabled to view this video.</div></div><div id="video-cover" style="position: fixed; width: 100%; height: 100%; z-index: 2;"></div>');
jQuery('#' + wrapperId).css({position: 'relative', 'z-index': 99});

var ytplayer = 0;
var pageWidth = 0;
var pageHeight = 0;
var videoHeight = videoWidth / videoRatio;
var duration;

var iframe = '<iframe id="myytplayer" width="' + videoWidth + '" height="' + videoHeight + '" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/' + videoId + '?autoplay=1&controls=0&modestbranding=1&showinfo=0&hd=1&iv_load_policy=3&version=3&wmode=transparent&loop=1&playlist=' + videoId + '" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>';

jQuery('#ytapiplayer').html(iframe);
jQuery(window).resize(function() {
resizePlayer();
});
return this;
}

function onYouTubePlayerReady(playerId) {
ytplayer = document.getElementById("myytplayer");
ytplayer.setPlaybackQuality('medium');
ytplayer.mute();
}

function resizePlayer() {
var newWidth = jQuery(window).width();
var newHeight = jQuery(window).height();
jQuery('#yt-container, #video-cover').width(newWidth).height(newHeight);
if (newHeight > newWidth / videoRatio) {
newWidth = newHeight * videoRatio;
}
jQuery('#myytplayer').width(newWidth).height(newWidth/videoRatio);
}

//]]>
</script>

And this one too:

<script type='text/javascript'>
//<![CDATA[
$().ready(function() {
$('body').tubular('61BLn00AN_w','wrapper-video');
});
//]]>
</script>

2. Then locate the <body> tag (CTRL + F)
Or if you are using a template from Template Designer, find this line:

<body expr:class='&quot;loading&quot; + data:blog.mobileClass'>

3. Under either of these two, add this:

<div id='wrapper-video'>

4. Now search for the </body> tag, and before it put this:

</div>

Save the changes and that's it. In red you must put the ID of Youtube video, the ID are the characters that appear at the end of the URL:

Remember: There is no option to mute, so if you don't want to have sound as in the demo blog, you have to choose a video that has no sound. I also recommend using a video in HD in case you don't want any black parts to show around it.

If you are using jQuery, remove other versions that you have to avoid duplication and have problems.

Author | jQuery Tubular

Create a Background Slideshow for Blogger

In the previous post we saw how to make the blog's background fill the screen regardless of the resolution of the monitor. The method that we'll use now with jQuery is a plugin called BackStretch which also has the option of creating a slideshow of pictures as a blog wallpaper without losing the property of adjusting to the width and height of the screen.

What we will do in this entry is just this, try to make the blog's background to have some images that are changing, all with fade effect between each transition.
You can see an example in this demo blog.

To put this slideshow in the blog's background, just go to Template - Edit HTML and before </head> add the following code:

<script src='http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.10.2/jquery.min.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script>
//<![CDATA[
/*
* jQuery Backstretch
* Version 1.2.8
* http://srobbin.com/jquery-plugins/jquery-backstretch/
* Add a dynamically-resized background image to the page
* Copyright (c) 2012 Scott Robbin (srobbin.com)
* Licensed under the MIT license
* https://raw.github.com/srobbin/jquery-backstretch/master/LICENSE.txt
*/
;(function(a){a.backstretch=function(p,b,l){function s(){if(p){var b;0==c.length?c=a("<div />").attr("id","backstretch").css({left:0,top:0,position:m?"fixed":"absolute",overflow:"hidden",zIndex:-999999,margin:0,padding:0,height:"100%",width:"100%"}):c.find("img").addClass("deleteable");b=a("<img />").css({position:"absolute",display:"none",margin:0,padding:0,border:"none",zIndex:-999999,maxWidth:"none"}).bind("load",function(d){var b=a(this),e;b.css({width:"auto",height:"auto"});e=this.width||a(d.target).width();d=this.height||a(d.target).height();n=e/d;q();b.fadeIn(g.speed,function(){c.find(".deleteable").remove();"function"==typeof l&&l()})}).appendTo(c);0==a("body #backstretch").length&&(0===a(window).scrollTop()&&window.scrollTo(0,0),a("body").append(c));c.data("settings",g);b.attr("src",p);a(window).unbind("resize.backstretch").bind("resize.backstretch",function(){"onorientationchange"in window&&window.pageYOffset===0&&window.scrollTo(0,1);q()})}}function q(){try{j={left:0,top:0},rootWidth=h=o.width(),rootHeight=r?window.innerHeight:o.height(),f=h/n,f>=rootHeight?(k=(f-rootHeight)/2,g.centeredY&&(j.top="-"+k+"px")):(f=rootHeight,h=f*n,k=(h-rootWidth)/2,g.centeredX&&(j.left="-"+k+"px")),c.css({width:rootWidth,height:rootHeight}).find("img:not(.deleteable)").css({width:h,height:f}).css(j)}catch(a){}}var t={centeredX:!0,centeredY:!0,speed:0},c=a("#backstretch"),g=c.data("settings")||t;c.data("settings");var o,m,r,n,h,f,k,j;b&&"object"==typeof b&&a.extend(g,b);b&&"function"==typeof b&&(l=b);a(document).ready(function(){var b=window,d=navigator.userAgent,c=navigator.platform,e=d.match(/AppleWebKit\/([0-9]+)/),e=!!e&&e[1],f=d.match(/Fennec\/([0-9]+)/),f=!!f&&f[1],g=d.match(/Opera Mobi\/([0-9]+)/),h=!!g&&g[1],i=d.match(/MSIE ([0-9]+)/),i=!!i&&i[1];o=(m=!((-1<c.indexOf("iPhone")||-1<c.indexOf("iPad")||-1<c.indexOf("iPod"))&&e&&534>e||b.operamini&&"[object OperaMini]"==={}.toString.call(b.operamini)||g&&7458>h||-1<d.indexOf("Android")&&e&&533>e||f&&6>f||"palmGetResource"in window&&e&&534>e||-1<d.indexOf("MeeGo")&&-1<d.indexOf("NokiaBrowser/8.5.0")||i&&6>=i))?a(window):a(document);r=m&&window.innerHeight;s()});return this}})(jQuery);
//]]>
</script>

<script>
//<![CDATA[
var images = [
 "Image URL",
 "Image URL",
 "Image URL",
 "Image URL",
 "Image URL",
  ];

  $(images).each(function(){
 $('<img/>')[0].src = this;
  });
  var index = 0;
$.backstretch(images[index], {speed: 1000});
  var slideshow = setInterval(function() {
  index = (index >= images.length - 1) ? 0 : index + 1;
    $.backstretch(images[index]);
  }, 5000);
//]]>
</script>

Here add the URLs of the images that will be the background of your blog.
If you would like to add more pictures, just add after the var images = [ another line like this:

 "Image URL",

The images will be changing in the order you have added them, if you want these to appear in a random order, then change the second part of the code with this:

<script>
//<![CDATA[
var images=new Array();
images[ 1 ]="Image URL";
images[ 2 ]="Image URL";
images[ 3 ]="Image URL";
images[ 4 ]="Image URL";
images[ 5 ]="Image URL";

  Array.prototype.shuffle = function() {
  var len = this.length;
  var i = len;
  while (i--) {
  var p = parseInt(Math.random()*len);
  var t = this[i];
  this[i] = this[p];
  this[p] = t;
  }
};

  images.shuffle();
  $(images).each(function(){
 $('<img/>')[0].src = this;
  });
  var index = 0;
$.backstretch(images[index], {speed: 1000});
  var slideshow = setInterval(function() {
  index = (index >= images.length - 1) ? 0 : index + 1;
    $.backstretch(images[index]);
  }, 5000);
//]]>
</script>

You can also add more pictures by adding a line like this:

images[ 6 ]="Image URL";

But you will see that in this case there are some consecutive numbers in blue, so if you add another such as 6, then the next one should be 7, etc..

In both cases you can change the duration of each image which is in the 5000 value that is at the end of the script.
The advantage of this slideshow in the blog's background is that images are automatically resized to the size of the monitor, so that, no matter of the resolution, it should look good.

It is worth remembering that if you are using Scriptaculous, you have to make some changes, and if you already use jQuery, should leave only one version.

Author page | Backstretch

Rounded Corners and Shadows for Images using CSS

Here are some unique border styles that you can apply to blogger images by using the border-radius property and defining either all four corners simultaneously or applying the rounded border only to some of them.

One of the advantages of CSS3 is that we can apply rounded borders without complicating things too much and one of the options would be to use these edges or borders to images in the blog posts, to which we can also add some hover effects such as shading and rounded borders accompanied by transitions.

Note: if you need more info about how to add rounded corners on images, follow these links:
- CSS Basics. How to Apply Rounded Corners On Images #1
- CSS Basics. How to Apply Rounded Corners On Images #2

Below are a few examples of these borders and how the images behave when you hover over them.
If you want to use one of these styles, just copy the code below the image, then go to Template, click on the Edit HTML button and paste that code before ]]></b:skin> (CTRL + F to find it)

.post-body img {
border:0;
padding:0;
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
}
.post-body img:hover {
box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #000; /* Shadow */
border-radius: 50%; /* Rounded border */
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
cursor:pointer;
}

.post-body img {
background:#FFF; /* background color around the image */
padding:15px; /* space between border and image */
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
}
.post-body img:hover {
box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #000; /* Shadow */
border-radius: 0% 50%; /* Rounded border */
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
cursor:pointer;
}

.post-body img {
background:#FFF; /* the background color around the image */
padding:15px; /* The Space Between Border and Image */
border-radius: 50% 0; /* Rounded border */
box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #000; /* Shadow */
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
}
.post-body img:hover {
border-radius:0; /* This removes the border roundness (value 0) */
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
cursor:pointer;
}

.post-body img {
box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #000; /* Shadow */
border-radius: 50%; /* Rounded border */
border:0;
padding:0;
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
}
.post-body img:hover {
box-shadow: 0; /* With this we remove the shadow (value 0) */
border-radius: 0; /* This removes the border roundness (value 0) */
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
cursor:pointer;
}

.post-body img {
border-radius: 45% / 20%; /* Rounded border */
box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #000; /* Shadow */
padding:0;
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
}
.post-body img:hover {
border-radius: 0; /* This removes the roundness of border (value 0) */
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
cursor:pointer;
}

So these effects will apply to all images uploaded to your Blogger posts. But if you want to apply them only on certain pictures then change .post-body img with .rounded  and .post-body img:hover with .rounded:hoverThen add the rounded class selector in the image's code:

<img class="rounded" src="Image URL"/>

These are just some examples, however, you can modify them anytime by adding or deleting more CSS styles, it depends on everybody's tastes or needs. But as you have seen, we can make the images look way more attractive and this has been done only with CSS ;)

Fundraising for GPL game Plee the Bear

This is a guest post by Julien Jorge, developer, artist and musician behind the open source indie games Plee the Bear and Andy's Super Great Park, here to present the fundraising campaign he launched for the former.

Some years ago, with the help of three of my friends and anonymous people on the web, I have created Plee the Bear, a great platformer in which you play an angry bear whose son has been kidnapped by god. Here is a guy hard to brave! You sure will jump in this amazing journey to find and rescue your son. Because you want to rescue him, don't you? Or to slap him? Maybe both….

The game was a spare time project for a long time, then we recently decided to create a real, full, complete, fun and original version out of the prototype. We have thus created our company, Stuffomatic, published a first game and now we are launching a fundraising campaign for Plee the Bear!

The prototypes of the game have always been released for Windows and Linux as free software, available under the terms of the GNU GPL and the CC by-sa licenses. The latest version contains three levels of the storyline and four mini-games; and has already generated very positive criticisms (e.g. on The Linux Game Tome). Players loved the fun, the graphics and the music; other indie developers were pleasantly surprised by the technical skills and the details of the game; and people in the free software movement appreciated the overall process and the quality of the resources, remarkable for a free game.

All these feedbacks motivated us to complete the game and to launch a fundraising campaign to help the development. The campaign is organized in order to implement the new contents of the game one after the other, each time with a new fundraiser. So, for the initial one, the feature you are welcome to support is a complete refresh of the existing work. You can see the details on the project's page on OpenFunding but let me show you how the game will look:

To be compared with the current release:

(The screen is larger in the new version, it's not just Plee who is smaller…) 

The animations will also be reworked. For example, here is a comparison of the changes in the animation of Plee walking. The old version is on the bright stripes, the new one is in the black stripes:

If you are a game developer, you may have already used some free resources from websites like OpenGameArt.org or Freesound.org. If you are a gamer, you may have played games using the resources of such websites. In both cases, you are certainly interested by our process consisting of releasing each part of the game under a free license. Actually, we have recently started to supply OpenGameArt.org with our assets.

So, if you like our project:

• give us some money for the next development steps,
• give us feedback about the process to help us improving it,
• share this announcement with your neighbors.

This way, we will all go toward a fun and good game :)