Sunday, March 26, 2006

hats


hats
Originally uploaded by steve.wannabe.
taken opposite the photographers gallery, London, March 26, 2006

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Recommended Useful Photo Tools #1

Flickr
www.flickr.com
Flickr is a photo-sharing site. Possibly the worlds biggest. Basic membership allows you post up to 10 mb of images per month though a small fee gives users unlimited storage. When users post an image they add 'tags': tags are important and I'll get to why in a moment.
So why Flickr? Well.... it's a community. A community of photographers of different styles, background and ability all seeking to improve their work and to present images for others to view and comment.  The quality of work on Flickr varies but most is very good and many images are outstanding.
I highly recommend flickr. It's a like well run set of thousands of camera clubs with free membership and friendly members
Photobox
www.photobox.co.uk
Photobox is an online DP house that, in my experience, provides great service and has some useful free solutions. Need a website to display and sell your work? Photobox provides pro galleries to enable just that.
I recently had a 30 x 20 print made: the cost? £16.99 plus post postage. The print days to arrive and the quality was immaculate.
I have also tried their new Photobook service. Amazing quality large format books in just a few days and only £19.99 plus postage.
Tilt-shift Lens for Your Digi-camera
http://www.dennisonbertram.com/hackmaster/2005/02/tilt-shift-pc-lens.htm
Got an old medium format lens lying around the house? How about making yourself a tilt-shift lens for your digital SLR using a sink plunger and a camera body cap?
Good-Tutorials.com - 9447 Adobe Photoshop Tutorials
http://www.good-tutorials.com/
Useful Tutorials has hundreds. You will get some popups but ignore them. Digging around on this site is worth it.
Filmloop
www.filmloop.com
Filmloop is another photo sharing community but with a different method of delivery. User subscribe to loops of the favorite images/photographers/friends enabling them to see a constrant stream of images on their dektops. If you are not yet a broadband user, this service may not be for you.
Picasa
www.google.com/picasa
I can't recommend Picasa highly enough. It's free. Whilst it's phot-editing tools are primitive by photoshop's standards, it is as a library that Picasa comes into it's own. When installed and configured (and this takes just a few minutes), Picasa will search and index your image files (even those in RAW format) and show you them in a neat clean user interface.
The only thing I would change? I don't like the folder view very much but it doesn't get in the way.