How I Make Money Online

Nobody likes to read a book online anymore, so I will get to the point. I make a little online, and here are the things I do.

These are sites that actually paid me. I am an Android user.

Disclaimer: This won't make you rich but you will have something to look forward to and help you save so you could buy that eyeshadow palette or foundation that you have been wanting to buy but can't justify the cost. Here it goes.

Click on names -- they are links.

1. Google Opinion Rewards (you could only spend within the apps store) 

Download the app, you will be notified if there are surveys available (very short surveys, 7 questions at most and you get rewarded. This is good if you like buying apps. 

2. Swagbucks (this pays with store gift cards or paypal)

This is a paid-to-click site. They have a whole bunch of activities you can do to earn SB's or swagbucks. 100 sb is equivalent to $1. I find you qualify more in the surveys if you have children. There is also a mobile version, where you could watch videos and earn up to 500 sb per day.

3. Gifthulk (pays with store gift cards or paypal)

This works the same as Swagbucks. I only play Guess the Card everyday and it adds up after a while. I don't redeem as often as I do with Swagbucks.

4. Inbox Dollars (pays with Tango that you can then use to buy store gift cards)

Similar to Swagbucks and Gifthulk, this site is also paid to click. I only do the paid email. They send an email and you click the pink Confirm button and you get 2 cents. I get about 4 emails everyday, which accumulates after a while and all I have to do is click. The key is not giving up. It feels pretty sweet when you get that 30 dollars.

5. National Consumer Panel/NCP (pays with store gift cards starting at $25)

You scan anything you buy and transmit once a week. If you don't have a smart phone, they will send you a scanner so that you can scan, otherwise you will use an app to scan everything to buy. The more you transmit the higher your score is and the more points you make.

6. Microsoft/Bing Rewards (pays with gift cards)

Sign up, use Bing instead of Google to search and you get rewarded. There is also an app that you can download that lets you earn more. There is a daily limit on how much you can make everyday but if you already do search, why not get rewarded for it?

7. Job Spotter (pays with amazon gift card)

Download this app on your phone. Simply take pictures of any Hiring or Help Wanted sign. Make sure it's legible and not blurry, submit. If it gets approved after they verify that they are indeed hiring, then you get 50 cents for every submission. Pretty cool, right? I made about 15 dollars while walking in the mall with this app. This app is owned by indeed.com.

8. Smart Panel (pays with amazon gift card or paypal)

This is the easiest one for me. Download Smart App on your phone and to one other device that you have to qualify. This doesn't bother me, it runs in the background. You get a sign-up bonus and 5 dollars for every month that this app is installed. It collects data on your online behavior and activities. I only have this on my computer that don't have any information that are not sensitive.

9. Cross Media Panel (pays with store gift cards)

This is owned by google. It works the same way as Smart Panel but does not require to be installed on two devices to qualify, you can have just one device. You make 1 dollar per week per device and you can have up to 3 devices.

10. Twenty20 (pays with paypal)

I saved this for last, just because this where I make the most. This is a crowdsourced mobile stock photography site. You upload your pictures and you get paid if your photos sell. If you want your photos to sell I recommend you really take good quality pictures that are in demand. You can use your phone to take pictures or use a nice camera. Photos with people or hands in them do best on this site.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this and would try them as well. Hope this was helpful.

Here's my youtube video about it if you would rather hear me talk. But they are pretty much the same.

xoxo Jijie

The Ark Encounter by AIG

3 Months In on A-photo-a-day Challenge

It's been a while since I last posted. This a look-back post for my photo a day challenge. I have been learning a lot, making friends and falling in love with this art even more. So, I am just going to share with you 3 photos of collages from the months of June, July and August.

I play by the rules of the challenge: which is to take a photo a day, because my goal is to improve and to practice, I have disciplined myself to take a photo a day and not pull up photos I have taken many years ago. Although, a couple of days here and there, I would have to do a throwback, 99% of these photos are my clicks everyday since June.

Here's my June:

With a couple of throwbacks. Looking at it, I am not that happy about my color choices during this month. Too many browns for my liking, but I hope to improve and make conscious choices when I shoot.

July:

I love this month! My colors are pretty and filled with whites. It's easy on the eyes.

August:

I tried a few things this month. This collage does not include the photos I have taken with my mobile phone or the throwbacks. Generally, still a few shots here and there that doesn't reflect how I want to shoot, but I am getting there.

Come join me on Instagram if you are interested in photography and would like a community of great photographers doing the same thing. Link should be on the top right corner.

Thank you for reading!

xo Jijie

Just Because

I put this together a couple of months back, and I just thought I'd share it outside of facebook. This is one of my favorite songs, I did not sing it perfectly, but hope you enjoy it.

How I Edit My Photos For Instagram

Yeah baby, that's my phone, I know she's a beauty. LOL. I bought it for the camera. 

Firstly, I am an Android user (Droid Turbo) cause I'm cool like that, I use a canon 5D Mark III on days that I am not out running around or if I feel like bruising my neck during my long walks. Today, I am sharing exclusively about the photos that I take with my Canon, and share with you the steps I do to get them to Instagram. Follow along, hopefully you will learn a thing or two that you can apply in yours.

Please note, I don't use instagram filters because it will mess up my white background/border.

And make sure: Your photo crop dimensions are the same every single time: always crop to the original dimensions. If you are taking photos with your phone, you will then have to resize them to 6:4 ratio (because my phone takes wide screen and it took me a while to figure out the dslr crop original ratio. I know it's sad! Don't even talk to me about it) to copy the dslr original crop ratio.


Shooting
I learned not too long ago: the trick to having a sleek, clean, crisp looking IG feed is color coordination and uniformity. So, as much as possible, AGAIN --- IF possible, I try to shoot with white background, or clip my backgrounds so it appears white, I know it's a no-no to lose details, but I like it. It's my style. I like to overexpose.

I stay away from shooting portrait style, because I don't like how it looks on my feed with the other photos. I still do it, but every time I go through my feed I get the urge to delete. EEERRRR... But, you do you.


Editing
I edit in Lightroom, and tweak the lighting and contrast to suit my taste, I don't use presets, but I try to be consistent. I watermark my photos upon exporting.


Pre-posting Prep
We all know Instagram is only for mobile devices, so I email the photo to myself -- I use gmail because it allows for bigger file size, then I download it to my phone. Now I can take it to the app I use to fit the square!

App

Android: Square Droid (there's a lot of apps for IOS out there, so if you are using iPhone, you have so many options, good for you! You go girl!).

After downloading the photo, I then open on squaredroid, resize it to 95%, change border to plain white. (The app automatically detects colors in the photo and selects one to use as border, but I want my feed to look clean, so I use white, the same white every single time, and the same percentage (remember it so you don't have to figure it out the next time you do it). And then post it to instagram! 

To recap the steps: shoot, edit, watermark, send, download, resize and and pick border color and you're ready to post.

Now, I can post on IG quick. It used to take my about 20 minutes to figure out how what I used on the previous one, until I figured out why and they don't match.

I hope this helps you and that I was understandable. I don't know anymore, sometimes my husband doesn't understand me. So I question my English sometimes. LOL.

Alright bye! Let me know you were here, talk to me! I like talking to you guys, girls, child...

See you when I come up with something again. Ciao!

XO

Jijie

How Photo A Day Helped Me Improve

Yes, I finished the month of April, I started out strong but some days I was just not feeling the process and everything I have to do to get one shot to share, and thought to myself "there's no contract, I don't have to do this, I will quit. But no, I didn't quit, I finished the month! Yay!

The challenge of taking a well thought out subject that fits the prompt, adding a few elements here and there to make the composition not look like a snap I took in a hurry with my phone without much planning is one of the things I really struggle with, to the point where I took about a hundred photos just to get one that really made me happy. Therefore, this photo-a-day has turned into a stressful hobby instead of something I enjoy. 

So, this month, my plan of action is to read and be familiar with the prompts. I have printed a blank calendar that will go on my fridge, and I will brainstorm ahead of time. As far as the execution of the plan, I am going to limit myself into 10 shots and be done. 

I am doing this photography challenge to help me improve, so that when I am faced with real life subjects, I know how to compose, I know my lighting, I know what and how. However, while practicing, I need to keep this in my mind; I cannot be taking 100 shots of the same thing! I am making it a goal for the rest of the year to limit myself to 10 shots per prompt, (because I won't have that luxury when I am actually photographing people in real time). So, 10 well thought out shots and stop. This is going to be hard but I am determined to stick with it. I don't want to be snap happy.

I hope this encourages you to do the same. If picking up your camera everyday is a hard thing to do and you're serious about photography, this challenge will push you to do it, even though there is no contract or agreement that you must finish it, in your mind you always think "I am not a quitter". 

So, I am going to conclude this with a collage of the shots I took with my real camera (there was one day that I took one with my smart phone because I was running around and wouldn't be able to post the same day if I took it with my dslr) and then a few of my favorite shots.

I hope you enjoyed reading this and if you are interested in the challenge I'm in, check out www.bethadilly.com. She is an awesome photographer, I adore her style.

xo

Matte Lovin' | How To Make Photos Matte in Photoshop

I took a short walk today, mainly so I could take photos of the flowering trees before they're all gone. I have been practicing on my matte edits, and thought I would share how I do it. It's very quick, simple. So here are my shots for the day, cause maybe I'm a showoff... LOL. And keep scrolling down to read on how I processed them.

Now on the HOW:

I use Adobe Photoshop CC -- pretty much a rental ($10/month) of Adobe Photoshop and the latest version of Lightroom. Although it could be done with the Dehaze tool in Lightroom, I prefer to do it PS because I have better control of the midtones and highlights. 

1. Add Levels layer mask.
The key is to underexpose the photo a little bit. I find that it does magic to noisy photos! It does wonders. Love love love this technique for those grainy photos! See for yourself.

2. Adjust Sliders.
The most important slider is the bottom left. Slide it to the right just enough so the photo doesn't get washed out. BUT if the photos get too washed out, move the top middle slider to the right and if that doesn't do it, move the bottom right slider to the left. And you're done!!!

Well, there you go. I hope you learned something. There's a lot of ways to do it, but I find this super easy. One layer mask, 3 sliders and you're done! 

Thanks so much for reading!

xoxo

Photo A Day Challenge | March 2016

 I think I am hooked.

When 2016 started, I vowed to pick up my camera every single day, to practice and to improve in the technicalities of photography. I want to develop my style, and have my pictures look the same, a signature that people will recognize just by looking at my photo. Well, I took about 3 pictures in January and I could not get motivated to shoot anything or even take my camera anywhere to take pictures when traveling. That's when I decided I needed help. I went on instagram (I was not an instagram regular before March), I searched "photoaday challenge" and I came across, fms (fatmumslim prompts). So, I did a whole month of photos everyday, except one day. I took pictures with both my DSLR and my Droid Turbo (love this phone). 

I was able to take one everyday except for day 27 -- flying which I opted to throwback because I had nothing flying nor was I creative enough to get around the prompt. 

On this post, I want to share the highlights and my favorite photos from this challenge. 

If you would like to see more of the photos I took during the challenge, check out my fb and instagram. I might be posting some "How I shot it" on some of the photos I took last month.

Hope you enjoy them!