Here are a few advanced tips for Ribbet experts and apprentices:
- Hold shift when resizing a shape to distort it
- When color selecting, click the small rectangle to the right of the color picker to then select a color from your photo!
- Right click on text, stickers, frames etc for more options including duplicate, bring to front and delete
- Use “Advanced Blend Modes” under the color picker to make text and stickers transparent, and use the color picker to change the color of stickers
- When using the “doodle” tool and other brush tools like “blemish fix”, use the [ and ] keys on the keyboard to change your brush size
- Use the photo basket to add custom textures to your photos by dragging items from the basket over your photo and then adjusting the “Advanced Blend Mode” and fade level
- Double-click the hex color code on the color picker (a 6 number/letter code like FFFFFF) to enter your own specific color code
Share your own advanced tips or let us know if you’ve got any questions
39 Comments
Can I change the size of my collage? For instance I notice that all of them are square. I’d like to try and make a collage that I can have printed like an 8X10 photo. Can you help?
You sure can. Simply use the proportions slider down the bottom left when creating your collage. For 8×10 use either the 56:44 ratio or 44:56. After you’ve finished creating your collage you can trim off any slight excess by using the Crop tool and choosing 8×10 from the dropdown.
how do you get that ratio and what is the ratio for a 4×6 photo? what about a 5×6 photo?
thanks
Hi Sandi,
The closest available radio (on the Proportions slider) to 8:10 is 44:56. For the image sizes you mentioned: for 4×6 you need 40:60 or 60:40 and for 5×6 you need approximately 45:55 or 55:45 (again this is the closest ratio to 5:6 available on the Proportions slider).
awesome!
When I finished a collage I couldn’t figure out how to save it. how can
Hi Jenn, To save your collage you click the “Done” button up the top right, then (after applying any effects/stickers/text/frames to your collage) click the “Save and Share” tab up the top right and finally the red “Save Photo” button.
How can i cut/clip photos on Ribbet? I can’t find it anywhere, but everyone is making edits with clipped photos and saying that they were clipped on Ribbet.
Hi Emily, do you mean crop photos (ie. cut/clip the sides of the photo)? If so, you can achieve this by going to Basic Edits > Crop, and then dragging the corners of the rectangle that appears to suit the cropping you desire.
Is there a way to save the collages at a higher resolution? say 300 dpi for example?
Hi Michael. Yes you can achieve this. Firstly make sure you are registered. Then in your account settings (click your username on the top bar) change your Image Quality setting to “Archival”. Now, when creating a collage change the Normal/High toggle to High (this is on the settings bar, above the collage to the right). Your collage will now be up to 3600×3600 pixels, which is 300dpi when printing at 12″ x 12″ or even higher when printing smaller than this.
Hi Ribbet Team!
Is there a way to zoom in photos once you are making the collage, or must they be cropped first?
Thanks!
Hi Alison, At this point it is necessary to crop the image first. Once you do this though, when building your collage you can select “History” in the photo basket’s drop-down and drag your cropped image straight from there.
Hello from frozen Minnesota – 4+ above this morning.
I enjoyed using your software to correct a photo before emailing it out to family after the usual Christmas photos and one of the grandchildren needing to be cropped off one edge.
Here is the deal and question. First, I had brain surgery two years ago and now editing, typing or any work on the computer takes three to five times longer to complete. I need to read instructions, make the “linkages”, do the work, and save that work on extra local hard drives. Bummer.
I like your software! Flat out it appears that I can use it to be my main photo editing engine for that ever feared “Family History Project”! I know that this is going to be a bigger pain in the neck than writing my double Masters’ research for telecommunications.
Please provide some guidance of where I need to start reading about using your software and practicing to edit various family photos I have scanned. I have a grans assortment of tin types, black & whites, pin hole cameras, professional photography work that was had colored in (my parents wartime wedding photos), slides that can be converted to electronic images. Just everything in every image format.
This collection is from around the world, both personal and military travels for three generations within the family. Lots of retuning the final prints. Regardless, I have the time, four different types of scanners, three different types of photo printers and unlimited hours to work on this project.
I do not worry about any expense to be requested for basic programs, enhancements or upgrades. That is always part of keeping a quality program running.
Thank you for your assistance. I look forward to your instructions of where within the documentation I should begin my reading on using the software and how to download all software and revisions created for the software.
Dennis
Hi Dennis,
Thanks for being in contact with us and for sharing with us how you intend to use Ribbet for your Family History Project. The best place you can start for reading about Ribbet is in our online help. You can also click the Question Mark icon above most effects to gain an explanation of how the effect works. Lastly, always feel free to post questions in our Online Forum. Either us or other users will come to your assistance.
All software and revisions for Ribbet are automatically applied when you click Start Editing from our home page.
Please could you tell me whether a high res photograph looses any resolution if accessed on line and edited with Ribbet, and then saved to my computer. I have set archival quality and save to highest res possible within Ribbet. Is there any other deterioration? Do professional photographers use Ribbet, and then proceed to sell their work?
Also, on some uploads and some edits, line(s) in images “break up” into slightly jagged lines. Also photos taken as screen grabs from TV can show image breakup when uploaded. However these defects disappear when picture is saved back to computer or put on flickr.
Many thanks for making all this possible – I await news of fees with interest!
Hi Barbara,
Once you’ve set archival quality in your preferences, you will not lose any quality on photos up to 16 megapixels. Photos over 16 megapixels will be reduced to this size, however this decrease will not be noticeable for most purposes, including high quality printing at sizes up to and sometimes larger than 22×32 inches.
There are absolutely professional photographers who use Ribbet and sell their work, particular wedding photographers, professional bloggers and web designers.
There shouldn’t be any “break up” in your images whatsoever. If you continue to experience this problem send us a quick note here and we’ll look into resolving the problem for you.
Hello from Colorado. First, I want to say I am SO excited that I found Ribbet. I was a HUGE Picnik fan…you all are the closest I’ve found. Now I’m a even bigger Ribbet fan! I’m wanting to know how I might go about…
#1 – making a photo black & white but adding a little bit of color to certain areas of the photo
#2 — giving the photo a blurred background while keeping the focal point clear.
Is there a way to do this within Ribbet
Thanks!
Hi Shannon, Thanks for the positive feedback! Both of these effects are possible. For the focal point of color use “Focal B&W” which is about half way down on the Effects tab. For a single point of focus, you can use “Fancy Focus” which is directly below Focal B&W.
Learned about Ribbet today through Net Net Tricks Newsletter by Jack Teems. I found Piknik a bit awkward but find Ribbet to be very attractive and agile. However, I have been unable to find out how to accomplish the following: In an aerial photo I would like to can outline an object or place a fine arrow at an angle which points accurately to an object. Thanks for any tips you can provide to solve those needs. Regards.
Hi KimA, Thanks for the positive feedback! There are a few ways to achieve what you’re trying to do. The simplest is to use the “Basic Shapes” on the Stickers Tab. You can drag on an arrow, and you can rotate and resize it (hold shift down while resizing to distort it). You can also change the sticker’s color. You could also annotate using a Speech Bubble or Geometric Shape (above and below Basic Shapes) in combination with some text.
Your other alternative is to find an arrow you like using Google Images, save it to your computer, and then add it to your photo using the Photo Basket.
Hi Ribbet. Thank you for your prompt and thoughtful reply. I’ll try out your excellent ideas. Now I can really roll wityh the program. Thanks, again
KimA
WOW, just WOW. I am SOOOOO happy to find this site. I loved PIcnik, and was sad to see it go. But NOW I have found Ribbet. Thanks so very much.
i am trying to make a collage, but some of the images that I am using don’t fit into the designated collage boxes. Is there a way that I can zoom out on photos within a collage box? Or, how else can I make them fit?
Hi Robin, Currently the images you add to a collage can’t be zoomed and default to completely zoomed out. The options you have to make them better fit are:
- Use the “Proportions Slider” to find a better ratio for the collage images
- Use Ribbet to crop images before creating the collage (first option on the Basic Edits tab), and then use these images when creating your collage by selecting “History” in the photo basket drop-down
- You can also move images left, right, up or down by dragging them once placed on the collage
I too loved Picnik and was very sad that it closed down. I wish I had known about Ribbet sooner!
Following on Robin Ann’s question – I think this is really an issue that needs to be addressed, I don’t understand why it is not possible to zoom out on the individual photos in the collage to include more of the original photo. PLEASE techy people work on this.
Thanks so much for Ribbet!
Erica
Thanks Erica for your feedback. We hear you about zooming out and do understand why it would be an awesome feature. We’ll look into solving this in a future Ribbet update.
Can I create a more customized collage? So instead of an even amount of columns, can I do 2 pictures on the top and 3 pictures below? If so, how could I create that?
I have 5 photos that I want to all be of equal size.
Thanks!
Hi Shar, This is an excellent suggestion and isn’t something that you can currently do. You can use the photo basket to manually put together a collage but that would be difficult to get perfect. The ability to do what you’re suggesting is something we’ll look at including in a future version.
I have a question about the collages: Sometimes I put together a collage, click “done”, and start adding stickers and text. Then I realize that I need to add another photo or take one out of the collage. How do I go back to the collage editing window after I’ve already clicked “done”?
Thank you!
Hi Rebecca, If you keep clicking the Undo Button up the top right of Ribbet, eventually you’ll land back into Collage Mode where you can add/change photos.
Hi Ribbet,
I have a urgnt enquiry. Do you have a tool to remove background? I have a collaged image that each picture has a slightly different white, when it print out to canvas, it looks ugly. I want to remove all the background and leave a constant white background across the whole canvas. How can I do it?
Do you have any tool to remove the background? Doen’t need to be very accurate.
Thanks
Hi Dan,
Yes there are 2 ways to do this. The easiest way is to use the Doodle effect which can be found towards the end of the Effects Tab. You can use this to paint white over the areas of different white tones.
The other way is using the Eraser Tool: see written instructions and demo video. For this method you will need to be signed into Ribbet, and will need to drag on a new layer to erase from. If you like you can start with a Blank Canvas, and then drag on the image (from the photo basket) that you want to erase from.
Let us know if anything’s unclear and we’ll clarify.
And how do I do a collage with free style? i.e. without any frames insde
Thank you very much!
You can start with a Blank Canvas (this option is available from both the bottom right of the Home tab or alternatively on the Library > Start tab. You can then use the Photo Basket to drag images on free style and resize them in a completely free form way.
Thank you very much!
If I want to create 60cmx20cm, 75cmx50cm, 90cmx30cm canvas from the Blank Canvas, where and how do I set the ratios, and what ratios I can use accordingly to get my canvas?
Thanks a lot!
For both 60x20cm and 90x30cm you can create a blank canvas of size 5340×1780. For 75x50cm use 4500×3000.
Hey Ribbett!! How do I blur a background photo and sharpen the main subject in the photo? Can you please help me?? Thanks, that would be appreciated
Hi Ashlyn! There are a few ways to do this. You can use Fancy Focus, Focal Soften or Focal Zoom which are all a little past half way on the Effects Tab, and click on the center of your main subject. Or, you can use the Blur effect which is towards the end of the Effects Tab. With Blur you can paint the precise area of your main subject into focus (by dragging over the subject with your mouse button down).
Each of these effects will have a different result and the only way to know which one is best for you is to try them out on your photo.