The Microsoft Professional Photography website has collections of beautiful images, articles to improve your skills, photography event listings, photo related software downloads and more. If you’re looking for answers to that question that’s been bugging you for quite sometime, you might just find it on their website. The layout and organization is nicely presented and very easy to find what you’re looking for all this time. There’s also a variety of opportunities to accidentally stumble across some information that will further expand your expertise as well.

There are a variety of interesting photo and file management related programs available in their downloads area. Application for managing color in Windows XP, photo assignment information to include in your Microsoft Outlook and a variety of tools for managing and manipulating images in the RAW image format.

All-in-all the Microsoft Professional Photography website is a very rich and useful resource for any budding photographers out there.

Uncover some new tips and tricks for yourself at the Microsoft Professional Photography website. You can use the information you gather on your next photo shoot, or when you’re just out having fun with your camera on that next photowalk.

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15 Awesome Pictures

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Who are these people? They were all in attendance as Barack Obama became our nation’s 44th president. What’s impressive though is the photograph that this little picture came from.

The image above is a SERIOUSLY reduced image of what is originally a 1,474 MP image that was taken on inauguration day. See the little red box I’ve put in there on the far right? That’s the approximate location of the original image above zoomed in to view.

You can see this photo in all it’s detail and glory at the Gigapan.org website.

Uncovered by Ragamuffin Soul

Images: Photosections of giant image found at Gigapan.org website

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If there’s one thing I’ve learned as I’ve continued to explore the online world of social media and blogging, the one hobby that seems to go hand-in-hand with many of the individuals involved is photography.

My boss shared the Opacity website with me and he was intrigued by the images that were caught on film of the numerous buildings and other man-made structures that have since begun their retreat back to the dust from which they’ve come.

Once a building no longer serves its purpose, and all of its functionality ceases to exist, it becomes truly fascinating. Each room is transforming into something new at its own rate, yielding to the forces of nature as it reclaims man’s creation.

The corrosion and decay paint vibrant colors across otherwise dull surfaces, lit only by natural sunlight spilling into the spaces at unaccustomed angles. Each object left behind becomes more significant than it has ever been, hinting at the life prior to its disuse. Floors collapse and walls cave in without care; if you get hurt, no one is here to help you.

This is a lonesome alien world whose dark corners and peeling walls have gotten a hold of me and many others; this affinity for derelict structures and often dangerous excitement is the core essence of urban exploring, in my opinion.

On the one side you’ve got places that most of civilization has forgotten and doesn’t see anymore. On the other, you’ve got models in a still life that can speak volumes about the civilization that’s being left behind and forgotten.

Even adding more to the thousands of words that are being spoken by these images, is the fact that many of the locations photographed are old hospitals, asylums, hospitals and morgues.

Uncover more amazing images at the Opacity website.

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Another great online application I was reminded of while at Blog World Expo 08 is picnik. I’m should be ashamed that I haven’t shared this site for you all yet. It’s a great app that does just about everything most users would want with regards to photo-editing, while all the time being FREE!

Tris Hussey showcased this little app during his "How to be More than a Blog: New Media Integration" session.

Check-out this list of features you can take advantage of in the completely free version of picnik:

• Fix your photos in just one click
• Use advanced controls to fine-tune your results
• Crop, resize, and rotate in real-time
• Tons of special effects, from artsy to fun
• Astoundingly fast, right in your browser
• Awesome fonts and top-quality type tool
• Basketfuls of shapes from hand-picked designers
• Works on Mac, Windows, and Linux
• No download required, nothing to install

Can you believe that? What else does 80% of the online population need in their editor?

The only drawback I can think of is that it’s online and not offline, so those surfers with a slower Internet connection may find the experience less than amazing. Those of us with broadband connections.

Perhaps even just as impressive is that you can use picnik to edit your photos even when they’re already on some of the most popular image hosting sites available for Internet users: myspace, flickr, facebook, photobucket, Picasa, webshots, freewebs, and of course those images you’ve already got sitting on your own computer.

Uncover the best, free online photo editing application on the web. Go have a picnik!

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Okay, it’s not technically caught on “Film” but “…Caught in Pixels” didn’t quite sound right even though it’s probably more accurate.

Regardless, the point of the Wordsplosion site is to highlight a variety of grammar, well, let’s just say what they say, it can’t be said much better or succinctly.

Wordsplosion brings you the best of the worst of the world of
grammatical errors, punctuation gaffes, misspellings, typography etc.
We call this family of textual catastrophes “wordsplosions.”

If you’ve caught some of these types of accidents yourself, you can e-mail them and share with the world too. Just send the image to images@wordsplosion.com

I’m not sure what emotion is more fitting, the humor of the mistake itself or being appalled at the lack of basic English and writing skills used by “educated” individuals.

Mark Jaquith and his wife are the folks behind Wordsplosion. I’ve become familiar with Mark through b5media and he’s a blast to be around. I don’t think I realized that he was such the self-proclaimed “grammar-Nazi” though. Wordsplosion isn’t the only interesting site that Mark has come up with. I worked with him on www.wasoverheard.com during SXSW 2008. Can’t believe I haven’t featured it yet.

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Have you heard of Photrade? I uncovered the Photrade website awhile back through another website I’d visited and an email newsletter I received about the upcoming blogINDIANA conference coming up in Indianapolis. I then realized they were also advertising on this blog here so decided to check them out.

I was quickly impressed with what you could do with sharing your photos and even making money from them as well.

Photrade is where photographers reclaim ownership of their photos. Photraders decide how, when, where and at what cost their photos are used online. We provide unprecedented protection for photos and offer a free photo marketplace where photographers can sell stock, prints and merchandise or use our Adcosystem (TM) where photographers get paid for every view of their photo, anywhere on the internet. Through Photrade, publications and blogs can access a fast-growing library of legally licensed, ad-supported photos. Reclaim your photos, start photrading.

Now they’ve expanded their offerings some more an can now provide an even broader range of border options available for your photos.

The Photrade site is currently in beta and you need an invite code to sign-up and join, but don’t worry, we’ve taken care of that for you as well. Just enter B5UTI as your invite code to let them know you heard about it here and check them out.

When you sign-up for an account look me up, I’m “bnpositive” on the site. I’d love to hear what you think.

Uncover your own photos and some money at

www.photrade.com

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I’m always on the look-out for new places to find some stock photography and other images to potentially use on some website for clients or just  get some inspiration for creating a completely new graphical element for design.

Photrade is a new website that’s currently available by invite only so I haven’t been able to really get into the site and see what it’s all about. However, after briefly browsing through their catalog it looks like they’ve got some great content.

Photrade is where photographers reclaim ownership of their photos.

Photraders decide how, when, where and at what cost their photos are used online. We provide unprecedented protection for photos and offer a free photo marketplace where photographers can sell stock, prints and merchandise or use our Adcosystem where photographers get paid for every view of their photo, anywhere on the internet.

Through Photrade, publications and blogs can access a fast-growing library of legally licensed, ad-supported photos.

Reclaim your photos, start photrading.

If anyone out there has already been using Photrade, let us know what you think. If you’ve got an invite code, just let me know as I’d love to get in there and really see what it’s all about from the inside.

Uncover more photos at

www.photrade.com

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My boss uncovered this site to me the other day.

Lost America is devoted to those areas in our country we see and forget or for many of us have never seen. The difference is that the creator uses night photography and processing to really make these “dead” places come alive to the site visitor.

In the late 80’s, he sat in on a few night photography classes and when the subject of light-painting came up briefly, he had a revelation. Here were techniques that were perfect to capture the atmosphere and mystery of these modern ghost towns. The time-exposures allow the stars to spiral in space and the clouds to smear ethereally across the sky. Through the 90s he developed and perfected his technique of simple, yet effective, hand-held lighting. Since 1998 lostamerica.com has been online in one form or another. Over the past 9 years his low cost / high impact lighting techniques have been implemented by amateur and professional photographers all over the world.

Some really great stuff if you like photography, history and unique images of things long forgotten and missing.

Uncover www.lostamerica.com on the Internet

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Skitch.com is currently available for Mac’s only. I’ll have to tell my brother about this one I guess. Watch the video below for some more details.

One component that Skitch.com seems to have over SnagIt is the Internet based sharing and social aspect of the application.

Skitch.com does all the basics you’d expect from a good screen capture utility (screen shots, iSight camera capture, annotate images, doodle on images, resize, crop, etc.) , but also combines that with integrating well into Skitch.com , flickr or your .Mac account.

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