Thanks to all who responded to the Squarespace Freebie Friday post. And our random winning commenter is...

dawn!

She wins a one year pro account! We'll get in contact with you directly to give you your prize.

Thanks again to all who participated!

Thanks to all who responded to the PhotoShelter Freebie Friday post. And our random winning commenter is...

Martine Cotton!

She wins a one-year subscription to a PhotoShelter Basic Personal Archive account! We'll get in contact with you directly to give you your prize.

For everyone else who didn't win, PhotoShelter has decided to give away a PhotoShelter Personal Archive Standard Account -- 3 months free -- $29.99/month thereafter. Includes 35GB storage, 20GB/month hi-res bandwidth, Seamless Customization Available (for integrating with your web site), $50 ecommerce activation fee waived.

Anyone who reads this blog post can take advantage of the discount by visiting this page. And if you'd like to learn more about this you can take their tour.

Thanks again to all who participated. See you again soon!

As you may have noticed Photoblogs.org has a new sponsor and now a new Freebie Friday with Squarespace, Inc. Squarespace has been around for years, offering high end solutions for creating blogs. And now these clever people have made a version specifically for photobloggers. Check out photographers.squarespace.com to see what they've got.

Part of what interests me about Squarespace is that it's a blogging company making a photoblogging tool and not just a photo sharing tool. This means that their journal features are solid, including great XML and XML-RPC ping settings, spam blocking, and comment control options. It also means that they have a lot of components that fit nicely with a photoblog; ie. forums, forms, static pages, and some solid gallery display features for large collections or user generated submissions.

At the moment Squarespace photoblogs do not offer social networking components or photo printing and selling, but I've been told that these features are in the works. For creating a serious photoblog Squarespace is a great choice, because of all the customizable features, versus a venue like Flickr that is more focused on the social aspect.

The Freebie

Squarespace is giving away a one year pro account worth $12 a month so you can create your own online portfolio or photoblog.

How to win?

The prize will randomly be awarded to one lucky commenter, so go to it!

Deadline

Be sure you make your comment by the evening of Thursday, February 28th in order for it to be counted!

Last Week's Winner

Also, we'll be announcing last week's Freebie Friday winner in the next few days, so stay tuned.

It's time for another Freebie Friday! This week we've got some goodies from one of our newest sponsors, PhotoShelter. Over the past week or so I've been talking with them about how they help photographers store and sell their photos online. I decided that I wanted to work with them because they've got some solid tools and they really seem to value photography and care about the photographer. This isn't just another stock agency.

Up to this point their main product has been the PhotoShelter Personal Archive. It's a way for you to store and backup your photos remotely on their servers. (If you want, you can even backup an entire terabyte!) Now here's the twist... Once you have your photos safe on their servers they have tools that allow you to sell your photos directly from your online archive. They do all the e-commerce stuff, so you don't have to. They've already got over 20,000 photographers using that service to power their websites and online galleries.

Then just recently in 2007 they launched The PhotoShelter Collection. This is a stock photo marketplace for pros and amateurs that actually lets photographers keep 70% of every transaction. (In a lot of places you won't even see 40%.) I also like the fact that they defend the value of the individual photographer's work by providing guidance and not allowing any images to be priced less than $50. It's free to join and submit images. (All submissions go through an approval process to keep up the quality.) And over the course of 2008 they're going to spend $1 million to attract buyers, so this will be an interesting space to watch.

The Freebie

The team at PhotoShelter will raffle off a complimentary, one-year subscription to a PhotoShelter Basic Personal Archive account.

How to win?

Search The PhotoShelter Collection and find one of your favorite images. Copy the link to this image and paste it in a comment below. Everyone who submits a link to their favorite PhotoShelter image will be entered into the raffle. Stay tuned for the winner, and PhotoShelter will provide some extra Personal Archive discounts for everyone else, too.

Deadline

Be sure you make your comment by the evening of Thursday, February 21st in order for it to be counted!

Over the past week we had our first Freebie Friday, which was sponsored by David and Libby over at Chromasia. They were kind enough to give one of our readers a free One Year Subscription to their new Photoshop Tutorials Area.

Everyone who left a comment on last week's blog post was added to the Magic Salad Bowl of Wonder...

After shuffling things thoroughly, we picked the lucky commenter...

Congratulations to Brad McGonigle... You are the newly appointed luckiest commenter on this blog! (We'll contact you shortly with details on how to claim your prize.)

And David hasn't forgotten about those of you who didn't win... He decided to give you all a 25% off discount coupon that will be good until December 31st. Nice!

Also... Do you have something fun that you'd like to give our readers for free? We're interested in doing more Freebie Fridays in 2008, so get in touch with us and we'll talk.

Introducing the first, of hopefully many, Freebie Fridays! There are so many amazing photographers in the photoblogging community, from the newbies to the seasoned pros, and each one has something to offer. Well, we’d like to spread the word about what some in our community are doing, and give one lucky PBO Blog reader the chance to try it out for free!

Who out there with even a remote interest in photography has not heard of Chromasia? The mastermind behind the sweeping Northern England landscapes and gorgeous portraits is David Nightingale, a former psychology teacher who quit his higher education position to run Chromasia full time along with his wife, Libby, earlier this year. David is known for his immense skill using Photoshop, and since he was often being asked how he worked his magic, he decided to share his knowledge through his tutorials.

Chromasia’s tutorials are based on David’s expert knowledge of Photoshop, and aim to teach even the novice how to create amazing imagery. There is a free section that covers the more basic tools and applications, which serves as an introduction to the more advanced subscription-based section. The subscription-based tutorials come with downloadable PSD files with detailed instructions on everything from Curves and Levels, to Toning, Black & White and even creating dramatic skies. The paid subscription also includes membership to the forums where members can share images and ask & answer questions.

David and Libby, are offering a discount coupon of £25.00 to one of our readers. The coupon can be used towards the annual subscription of £25.00, or it can be used as a discount towards the £75.00 lifetime membership fee.

Update: Just to clarify... They are giving away a free full 12 month subscription, but if the winner wants to upgrade to the lifetime membership, you will have that option.

All you need to do is leave a comment below. Next Friday, we will randomly select a winner from the comments and you will receive this generous gift from Chromasia!

Leave your comment and Win!

Update: Winner announced here.