Mashing with Wordles
Everyone loves Wordles. You know the application - enter a number of words and have the application create a word cloud from the content. The more frequently a word appears; the larger that it appears in the Wordle.

The resulting image can then be used in a variety of ways. I use one to demonstrate the content of my newsletter, for example.

Recently, the Greater Essex County District School Board raised $196,000 to provide Shelterboxes for those impacted by the earthquake in Haiti. I was reading the posts from the Eastwood Eagles Blog and was really proud of the character that was shown by these students.

When I read their blog, the last two entries dealt with their efforts.

I had an idea.

I highlighted the content from the two entries and headed to Wordle.net to create a Wordle to reflect the content.

If you're a regular Wordle user, you'll note that the colour scheme is not one of the standard ones that Wordle offers. I chose to create a custom scheme of bright colours so that it will really stand out.

Now, that does a good job and conveys the results from the effort. But, I started to wonder if there's another way that it couldn't be represented.

I brought the image into Adobe Photoshop Elements and resized the width to 498 pixels which is the size of the middle body of my newsletter so that it fits nicely above.

I then went to the Eastwood website where there's a great picture of the school.

Hmmm. It's smaller than 498 pixels but I'll resize it to be the same size as the Wordle. Since the image is wider than it is tall, it's important to note the height. In fact, it's 195 pixels.

There's a little pixelation as you would expect when you create something bigger than the original but it's not too bad. On to the next step.

Back to Photoshop Elements, it's easy to see that the background for the Wordle is white. So, let's just get rid of the background!

Then, it's just a matter of copying what's left over and then pasting it on top of the image of the school. Because it's on a separate layer, you can use the move tool to place the words exactly where you want them. In my case, I've decided to move it to the right of the school doors.

This technique allows you to place a Wordle over top of any image sitting in the background. This makes this terrific tool even better.