This is something I mentioned to a few people at the London

Photobloggers meet-up a couple of weeks ago. We were talking about photo stitching software and I mentioned

a few pieces of software that do a great job of making 360-degree QuickTime panoramas.

The first thing you're going to need is PanoTools - I downloaded the version found

href="http://www.ptgui.com/download.html">here. After you've entered an email address you want the first

option: 'Download and install Panorama Tools (version 2.7.0.9/nh1)'. I don't use this software explicitly but

the other software I use needs bits of PanoTools to function.

Next, get yourself a copy of the Photoshop plug-in PTLens. This

corrects barrel and pincushion distortion from a wide range of lenses, and you should correct all your images

before trying to stitch them together. This is a really useful tool, I use it on most of my wideangle shots anyway, regardless of whether I'm stitching them.

Once that's done, I use a free tool called

href="http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html">AutoStitch to stitch the images into one

giant image. This software is fully automated: you just give your images and it works out how they all fit

together. You'd be surprised by just how good a job it does, especially for an automated stitcher.

The final stage is to turn this image into a QuickTime movie, which I do using

href="http://www.panoshow.com/panocube.htm">PanoCube. One tip for using this: your input image must be 2:1

aspect ratio. If your 360-degree image isn't tall enough, copy and paste it into a 2:1 image in Photoshop, and

position it with the horizon halfway up the picture. Leave black borders top and bottom where necessary.

I appreciate a lot of people using this will be Mac users, in which case you can probably use Apple's

QuickTime authoring tools for the last part.

These tools require a bit of trial and error to use properly, and I won't bore you with a step-by-step

tutorial (I don't have the time, apart from anything else!). After a few attempts you'll be pretty pleased with

the results. I've posted one of them on my site so far, and hope to do more when I have the time:

Radcliffe Square

Remember: always shoot in manual exposure and white balance modes so your images are all equally exposed, it

makes the final product much smoother. If you need some inspiration, try these sites for starters:

• The Virtual Tour of Oxford
• 360 Days photoblog

James | jcoglan.com

John Wallis of thin sliced time has volunteered for a new effort here at blogs.photoblogs.org: promoting better photography through careful reviews of his work. With proper constructive criticism — specific examples to support points, and perhaps highlighting shots elsewhere which achieve greater success, we hope John can improve. And if others thnk hard about what's said, we should all be able to benefit.

John's site is here.

(John hereby wins free access to The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page...)

Frank

Because of all the talk around here of changing the way photoblogs.org works, I think it's time for me to make a confession.
OK, I hope this doesn't piss anyone off, but I'm hoping the fact that this little experiment of mine backfired in a good way is enough to make it an interesting story.

My Pea Brain... Thinking.
A few months ago I was a little obsessed with my ranking here and even though I was doing pretty good by many standards, it was frustrating to see the work of some other blogs that were kicking my butt. I mean, I'm a professional. How dare people put those sites with graffiti and cat pictures in their favorites and NOT mine. (I'm kidding a bit here as I realize that my stuff isn't everyone's cup of tea, and come on, who doesn't love a cute picture of a cat? I know I do). Well, I thought to myself, why don't I put up an anonymous photo blog, fill it with mundane subject matter, and see how well it does?

The Method.
Well, I didn't quite conduct the most scientific experiment. I only (at first) put up pictures that I thought were kinda boring and made sure I had a few cat pictures and plenty of flowers in there. If I shot something specifically for the blog, I only shot it horizontal and only shot ONE frame. I tried to comment at other blogs with my other identity and in keeping with the spirit of the experiment, I only commented on pictures I liked and never tried to leave comments just to leave them in hopes that they would be reciprocated with a vote, I also only added about 40 or so favorites to my list to keep it similar to my main blog. Other than that, i just sat back to see what would happen.

The Results.
As you'll find out, I don't really even care what the results are anymore. Anyway, Here it is. After five and a half months of Brooks Blog being listed here, I'm (as of writing this) number 234 with 81 people considering me a favorite. Not bad.
Now the OTHER blog. Fauxtoblog has been listed for two months and has 37 people voting for it. This doesn't really tell us anything other than we're probably about even and the fact that Brooks Blog is always in the top 500 list, gets it a bit more attention.

The REAL Results
Here's the kicker folks. about a month into the experiment, I started to enjoy putting something other than studio portraits up in a blog. I started to look around when I was outside to find something to shoot for the blog that didn't suck. I started to look through slide sheets of old pictures for stuff to scan. In short. I really like the other blog now and plan to link the two together so people can see the other me. I've even toyed with the though of deleting the images at the beginning that were obviously not worthy. I was still putting up shots that don't quite cut it just to make sure it was new every day, but for the most part I've started to think more quality.

The Wrap Up
Those of you who have seen me comment on your blog as Fauxtog and those who have commented on Fauxtoblog please remember that I always commented when I felt moved by the picture or had something to say. If I've commented under both names (check my IPs) you may have noticed the similarities in the types of things I say about a picture. I never critique and never leave a "nice picture" comment. Well, maybe if I was in a big hurry, but rarely.
So, do you hate me photoblogs.org? I hope not. I'm having fun with two photoblogs now and I hope you all visit the lesser known Fauxtoblog to see the other me. I swear that last part is not part of another experiment.

It appears I need to explain that making favorites anonymous is just the first step in a much larger plan for Photoblogs.org.  Here's a basic outline of that plan.  (Of course, things are subject to change, but this is what I'm thinking right now.)

1. Make favorites anonymous. (done) Edit: If you read #5, you'll learn that they'll actually be coming back later, but they'll just be called "bookmarks" instead.  They're anonymous now ONLY as a temporary measure.
2. Remove the Top 10 from the homepage and replace it with an "Editor's Choice" section which basically spotlights a particular blog every week or so.
3. Create a "forgot your password" feature.  (Yes, finally.)
4. Make it so that favorites are no longer part of the ranking process.  The order of the Top 100 will be decided by other means... and keep in mind, the Top 100 will still exist, but it will only be on a back page of Photoblogs.org.
5. Create "bookmarks".  These will be similar to favorites/watchlist, but will act much like del.icio.us (complete with tags).  Edit: Bookmarks will take the place of favorites.  Bookmarks will be visible to everyone.  Bookmarks will have RSS feeds associated with them.
6. Create a system that cleans out old user accounts if they are not in use for a certain number of days.
7. Get rid of favorites/watchlist *completely*.  (People will need to migrate their favorites and watchlist over to bookmarks or they'll lose them.)

When will all of this be done?  I'm not saying.  Frankly, it just depends on how much effort I'm able to put towards programming in my spare time.

Now, I've been giving this a lot of consideration, and I've come to realize that answering Photoblogs.org-related emails takes up a very large portion of my free time.  I get a ton of email every day and answering it makes it hard for me to do any programming.  So here's another question to you all...

How should I deal with all the email?  Should I just ignore it?  Should I create a Photoblogs.org mailing list where I can rely on you all to help me answer repeated questions?  (I'd like to find a solution that doesn't require a huge amount of time for me to implement, but also attempts to answer people's questions.)  Edit: Photoblogs.org will never have a prebuilt forum package such as phpBB, vBulletin, or YaBB on it.  Eventually Photoblogs.org *will* have a forum, but it will be very tightly integrated with the site and not just a 3rd party add on.  So, in the meantime, we really need to come up with a solution to the email problem that *isn't* a forum.

Do you get enough constructive criticism in your comments?

Do you give enough constructive criticism when you comment?

I ask because one of my major disappointments with comments is the low frequency of comments that really tell me how I can improve. I have regular visitors who sometimes comment with positive thoughts, and I guess I can interpret their silence on other shots as "this didn't move me enough to comment," but how often do you really hear advice — or give it — that will help someone's photography?

I get about 300 visits a day. much of it for the political commentary, but it's rare that I get more than two comments on a shot. What am I supposed to do widdat? What are you supposed to do with all of your silent visitors? (I am grateful to those who take the time for that much, don't get me wrong...)

And since so many people say they've registered their sites here so as to get better, it's Clara Peller time!

So in this thread, I'm asking for volunteers of both stripes: those who want to open themselves up to concrete, detailed criticism; and those who are willing to mete it out. No pay for either group, although everyone gets free access to the best resource for Samuel Johnson quotations on the web, for a year, The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page.

(The free access is a joke, it's free to all, but the sentiment is sincere: let's all work together to increase our art and skills.)

What I'm thinking about is a different kind of spotlight: one that doesn't celebrate excellence so much as draws everyone's attention to a photographer that could use help.

Frank
PS, I'm not so arrogant as to avoid constructive criticism, so count me as a volunteer for the former.

I was under the impression that you could always have >100 favorites before, but that in such cases you would be faceless in your favorite's list.

I'm leaving comments open on this until Brandon asks me to close it.

Frank

In case you haven't noticed, all of the favorites are now anonymous. To quote from Brandon "Photoblogs.org needs to be more about photography and less of a popularity contest". It also means that you can now have more than 100 favorites, should you be inclined to do so.

This is just FYI. I'm leaving the comments closed. I'm sure that an appropriate entry will appear once Brandon has finished making his changes.

Hello, Philly photobloggers!

For anyone I haven't already e-mailed privately, we're planning a meetup at Jack's Firehouse on Saturday June 4th at 1:00. We'll grab a late lunch, some beverages of choice, great conversation, then head across the street for a shooting tour of Eastern State Penitentiary. After that, who knows? Wherever the evening light looks best.

Please join us if you're in the area. If you need more details or just want to say hello, e-mail me offlist. alec[at]aleclong[dot]com. Hope to see you there.

This is a can of worms that has been sitting on the back shelf at Photoblogs.org for several months.  I've been hesitant to talk about it, because I'm not sure where things will lead... but recent events are making this a more pressing issue that needs to be dealt with.  In particular, here is an email exchange that I had yesterday with a person whose site I removed from Photoblogs.org earlier that day.  I certainly don't make a habit of posting email conversations to blogs, but I think this particular case warrants it.

After you've read the conversation, I'd like to ask your help in answering the following questions:

• How do you think I should deal with this particular person and this particular incident?
• How do you think I should deal with the larger problem of people manipulating the Photoblogs.org rankings?

Throughout all of this please keep in mind the following things:

• Photoblogs.org isn't run by a staff of paid professionals.  I am really the only person behind-the-scenes.
• Photoblogs.org is a hobby for me.  I already have a great day job, so I can only work on this site in my limited spare time.  (You can read more about this in an older blog post.)
• Photoblogs.org is a free service.  No one is required to pay to be listed here.

Alright, here is the email conversation.  If you have any questions, I'll try my best to answer in the comments below.  (I know one of the big questions is going to be:  "How were the Photoblogs.org rankings manipulated?"  I'm sure we'll get to that in the comments.)

On May 19, 2005 3:53 PM, J. Fervers wrote:

Hi Brandon
why did you remove my blog?
http://dirtblog.vectorwood.de
with about 400 favs?
what the fuck is going on?
i am really pissed.
Regards - Jan

On May 19, 2005 4:10 PM, Brandon Stone wrote:

Your site has been removed because several people marked it for removal.  Specifically, the majority of people specified the following reason:

"Appears to abuse Photoblogs.org ranking system."

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Cheers,

Brandon

On May 19, 2005 4:31 PM, J. Fervers wrote:

Hi Brandon
that's not fair. i never did anything which was not correct. you can't remove this side without checking personal if the reproaches are correct, thats no sign of competence. i think it's the peoples enviousness and nothing else. i am making good photos, i have enquiries from agencies like photonica and more and no photoblog ever had so much favs in such a short time. how much people was it which marked the blog for removal? do you usually remove sides when for example 10 have marked this blog? i will check 10 peops and then kick out your photoblog for example. thats 100% bullshit. put it back to the system or i will start making trouble too, i never did anything abusing the ranking system. quite pissed - Jan

On May 19, 2005 5:05 PM, Brandon Stone wrote:

If you feel that you are being treated unfairly, I suggest we move this conversation to blog.photoblogs.org.  I believe a public discussion about this specific incident will not only be beneficial to you and me, but also to the entire community.

Also, please be aware that I won't hesitate to publicly post this email conversation.

On May 19, 2005 5:13 PM, J. Fervers wrote:

Ok, i think this is a good solution. let's go.

On May 19, 2005 5:27 PM, Brandon Stone wrote:

Alright.  I have a dinner appointment tonight, so I won't be able to move forward on this today.  I'll make the post to the blog sometime tomorrow morning, though.  (Right now it is around 5:30 pm my time.)

-b

On May 19, 2005 5:39 PM, J. Fervers wrote:

Enjoy your meal!
I am really curios how the people will react i think i have a lot of fans.

edit: I fixed the word-wrapping problems with the emails

There's a new Seven Pages feature that you should check out when you have the chance. It features Peter Baker from the great Treemeat. This one is slightly different in sizes and design (just a tad) from the previous ones, so be kind .

Obviously, check out Peter's site; he has some great shots (check out his archives), and visit his Photoblogs.org profile .

Check out the feature by clicking here, or you can download the PDF.