Everytime when someone in SL asks me if I ‘create’ I am inclined to say ‘Oh no, I don’t, I cannot make anything!’, as in my little world a creator is someone who makes cool and impressive stuff that others want to have/buy, like furniture, decorations, clothes, hair, skins…and all that. I cannot create any of those things. Heck, I am a disaster when it comes to rezzing and unpacking of purchases is still an adventure. Although I blame the latter to the huge variety in which purchases are delivered: some you need to rez, others you need to wear or add and some stuff comes in a HUD…and when in doubt I just wear it. Not always a succes, but oh well.
So I always consider myself a non-creator, the accidental creation of chaos aside.
The past week though, I have been thinking and after I made some poses for myself (which I often do when I cannot find one I have in mind), I tried to make a couple-pose…with poseballs and scripts and everything….and OMG: I did it!
When I finally, it took me hours and hours to ‘create’ the balls and to manipulate a free script into what it should do….the set was ready! And it worked! I tried with Man-Alt and wow..I felt all proud! But, posing with Man-Alt isn’t too much fun and I am a bit unsure about his size so I asked my friend Coober to come over and be my tester. Luckily he had time and so he posed with me on my first ever couple-pose!
Yes, I haz a proud, look:
So, while he was being a good friend and was sat on the pose and I was adjusting and fiddling us in the correct position, we chatted about art and images (Coobs has amazing work on his Flickr) and he told me he likes to use PicMonkey for processing images, besides Photoshop. Now, I am not a really gifted photoshopper (I use Photoshop Elements 7 – you may laugh – for cropping and occasionally touching up a pic and if I feel brave I may try some layers and effects..) but I got curious about PicMonkey. It is a free, browser based, image editor and you do not need to download or leave emailadress and so on to use the free version.
I have played around with it for two days now, and I actually kind of like it for ..well, playing around. Because for my blog pictures about locations I will still not use any post-processing – I want to show the locations/art/landscapes as I make the picture in world.
For other pictures, the ones I make for Flickr and fun, I don’t mind playing around..and so, here some examples of pictures I have ‘manipulated’ in PicMonkey AND Photoshop (I use PS to resize the image and set resolution and in some cases touch up, and then edit it in PicMonkey for their wonderful options of layers, textures and all kinds of neat extra’s).
![[Halloween] ..can we please just get it over with ?](https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3952/15585161041_529d2e805a_c.jpg)
I had fun and I will keep using both. Creating these images and creating (couple) poses….kind of makes me a creator, right? And upon reflection, I think everyone in SL creates. We create communities, a place to hang out, a home, images, art…you name it, we create it!
Cait's World 
Of course you are a creator, Cait!
Whether you use poses you’ve created yourself and gain the extra satisfaction from doing so (and congrats on doing so!), or you use poses from others, you’re still being creative. Same goes with your pictures of places around SL.
You’re creating scenes and images no-one else has perhaps seen (and certainly not through your eyes), you’re bringing a compositional skill and an artistic flair to the things you see, and an ability to frame them to create something memorable and eye-catching – and isn’t that what “being a creator” is about?. As I’ve said before: I wish I had your creative eye for spotting and framing the sights of SL.
So don’t sell yourself short on the creative front – making your own poses doesn’t “make” you a creator; rather, it extends your talents as a creator into new areas :) .
Thank you so much for the nice words and compliments, you made me blush!