Photografr.com

It’s been a little while since I showed some link love from Photografr, so it’s definitely time to see what people have been writing about photography in the last few weeks.

The Best Book On Camera Raw Just Got Better : Scott Kelby promotes the release of a new version of Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS3. Jeff Shewe has updated the book for the pst Photoshop CS3 era.

The Importance of Keywording Your Photos: Thomas Hawk writes about why you should add keywording to your list of tasks when processing your photographs. He also has advice on how to effectively keyword before uploading to your chosen photo sharing website.

How to Protect Your Lens: Beyond Megapixels have a great article with tips on how to protect your lens. While most of the tips are well known to photographers who know their stuff, this is a great piece for beginners.

How Well Do You Really Know Your Camera?: Brian Auer asks a number of pertinent questions to test you knowledge on your camera. If you don’t know the answer, it’s time to delve into the manual.

What’s This? I Think It’s Worth A Serious Look: John Harrington takes a look at Naked Light, a possible Photoshop alternative for Mac users. The software is currently very much in beta, but it seems like it may have potential.

Examples For Understanding Depth of Field: Another nice wee article for beginners about depth of field, and how to use it to improve your photography.

If there are any article which you think I should add to the list, stick them in the comments. Until next time. Byeeeee.

photography

Brian over at Epic Edits has posted a superb list of his 87 top photography blogs and feeds. All are those he regularly follows. This is a great resource, and definitely worth a look for readers with an interest in photography. We didn’t make the cut made it in (with a polite hint) at 87+2. Thanks Brian!

I’ll be working my way through these links over the weekend. I have to say I’ve not found one yet that hasn’t been worthwhile (or was already in my list).

Please head over to Epic Edits and have a good look through the sites listed…and don’t forget to add Epic Edits itself to your blogroll. I’ll be updating mine in the near future with the help of Brian’s photography link gold.

Garden Photographer of the Year 2008: Calling all garden photographers. Are you the next Garden Photographer of The Year? With thousands of pounds worth of cash and prizes up for grabs, this is an opportunity for entrants to have their photographs exhibited for the four summer months of 2008. [Photography Competitions]

Five Fantastic Flickr Photographers: Brian Auer encountered some amazing photographers. Out of his 100+ contacts, he finds himself being drawn to the works of a select few. These are five photographers who absolutely amaze him. [Epic Edits]

Moo, Blurb, Wallhogs & Zenfolio: Mike Swanson takes a lot of digital photos, and he  shares some creative resources he has discovered on the ‘net either by recommendation or his own research. They offer unique services, and the quality of these four products is very high. [Mike Swanson]

How To Get More Vibrant Autumn Pictures: The autumn looks more and more impressive these days, so it’s time to go shooting outdoors around the trees. Here’s a video to teach you the basics about photo enhancement needed for vibrant autumn photo prints. [PhotoAxe]

Post Processing - Ethos & Equipment: Photo Learnings covers the controversial for some subject of post-processing. Specifically, how much is too much? The two sides most often espoused are that, anything beyond small fine tunings are unacceptable, and a no holds barred, photography is art and post-processing is part of that art.  [Photo Learnings]

36 Reasons Flickr is a Photographer’s Ultimate Tool: Mention Flickr to some professional photographers and you might get a look that most people wear after sniffing sour milk. “It’s for amateurs,” they’ll tell you. Or “It’s all puppies, parties and sunsets,” they’ll say. Yet it’s still the most important photo-sharing site on the Web, a place that photographers flock to for ideas and photo users surf for images. [Photopreneur]

RAW vs. JPEG - Three Reasons to Shoot JPEG: When most of the evidence points towards using RAW, this post rightly looks at the advantages of using JPEG. Shooting speeds, printing, and storage are all cited as reasons to use the format. Tom also writes about the other side of the discussion here. [Alphatracks]

Converting Film Negatives to Digital with ScanDigital.com: John Watson looks to solve the age old problem of a converting a shoebox full of negatives. Regular scanners won’t make the cut, especially if the negatives are covered in dust and scratches. A service from ScanDigital provides the solution. [Photodoto]

Dear Google: Picasa Needs Improvements: Brian Auer look at how to improve the Picasa photo management software. Written as a fan of the software, Brian would like to see improvements in the keyword interface, the star system and  geotagging amongst other things. I agreed with every point he made. [Epic Edits Weblog]

Key Ingredients for Black & White Images: A useful post with tips for taking black & white photographs. Looking for contracts, capturing texture shapes and patters and having the patience to wait for the right light are all cited. [DPS]

Intelligent Online Image Editing with Rsizr: Using the technology blogged about here on Photografr.com a few weeks ago, Rsizr uses an extremely clever algorithm to expand and contract images without losing important detail. While not yet perfect, this is extremely important for the photography market. [Webware]

BeFunky to Cartoonize Yourself: Cartoonizer lets you upload your photographs and add cool effects to them, allowing users to create custom cartoons and personal avatars. Still in beta, this is a fun little tool. [SomeWhatFrank]

On Polarisation…(or 5 Reasons to Buy a Polarizer: From this new blog, Justin talks us through the advantages of a polarizing filter. This is a great little article, and I think this is going to prove to be a very useful site. [Photo Learnings]

Air Travel Just Got Worse for Photographers: Scott Kelby has discovered that as of the start of August in the US, all dSLR’s have to be stored in the hold of an aeroplane, rather than carried on as hand luggage taken out of bags before being scanned. [Photoshop Insider]

PictureSync to Begin Testing for Windows Version: The photo uploader of choice for many Mac users is soon to be available for Windows. Alpha testing will begin next week, with open beta testing to follow. Lightroom and MediaPro, along with Flickr, Webshots, and Photobucket will be available in the alpha version. Fotki, Smugmug and Picasa Web Albums will follow pretty quickly after that. [Holocore]

Picnik Now Officially Released: Online photo editor, Picnic, has left beta and has now been initially launched, along with a slew of new features. You are able to edit your photographs from Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, and now Photobucket. There is both a free and premium version of Picnik. [Mashable]

QlipBoard Lets You Make Movies from Your Photos: QlipBoard is a welcome free online tool that let you makes videos from still images. Also available are tools to narrate and annotate your slideshow. Once again, this is available in a free and paid version. [Download Squad]

October Challenge: Shoot in Black & White: Trevor Carpeter has suggested that we spend October getting our B&W skills honed. He is going to take all his shots over the following month in B&W, and suggests we do the same. I’m going to join in too, posting my shots to Zooomr. [TrevorCarpenter.com]

An Ode to Great Photographers: Robert Scoble’s thank-you note to photographers who have taught him how to capture photographs. Scoble is advocating spending time with other photographers, and that it is the very best way to improve your own photography skills. [Scobleizer]

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