I was thinking of making Christmas cards this year instead of buying a load as usual, using my photos; as a starting point. Does anyone know of any software, preferably free for a poor student(!), that allows you to do this easily?

I've tried making cards using MSWord but have issues priniting to the edge of the page - is this a separate problem? (I've tried making page margins "0" which doesn't solve it)

Thanks!

Has anyone here ever made their own photography book? You know, the pretty coffee table kind that features photos rather than words. On one hand I'd like to know if there are any realistic DIY solutions... On the other hand I'm wondering how plausible it would be to do something on a little grander scale.

Any advice or input you could share? I've had an idea for a while that is starting to become more than just an idea.

Here's a crazy idea, and I'm kinda thinking out-loud at the moment.

I was cruising away on one of my CafePress shops, and noticed the "Wall Calendar" option. Anyway, I thought maybe it'd be an interesting idea to have a photoblogs.org 12-month calendar featuring works from some of the amazing photographers listed on this site. We could sell them cheaply through CafePress and either split up proceeds among the featured photographers or donate them to photoblogs.org.

I know I'd want one for my wall! I'd be happy to put it together if there's enough interest. What do you think?

Hello, Photobloggers, Beerzie Boy, FILE Magazine editor here. Once again, many thanks to the members of Photoblogs.org who have submitted or participated in FILE. FILE is a collaboration, and without the participation of folks like you, it would wither on the vine.

The point of this post is that Brandon and the editors of FILE Magazine have been discussing a partnership and would like your feedback about what we are thinking.

Basically, what we are thinking of is a partnership in which members of Photoblogs.org could have a setting where they could flag their own site as "I'd like to have my photos featured on FILE Magazine." If someone has that flag set, we would have permission to use photos from their site and feature them on FILE. We would scan these sites for photos that fit into FILE's stylistic approach and post them, and eventually, we may syndicate the photos and post them on Photoblogs.org. All photos selected this way would be protected and credited just as regular submissions to FILE are; for more information on how FILE handles submissions, visit our Submissions page.

This would save us a lot of effort in our solicitation/selection process. While we always -- and gladly -- accept submissions from all photographers, we also spend a lot of time investigating photoblogs and web sites. When we see something we like, we politely request to include it in The Collection. In addition, this would move us towards achieving one of our main goals for FILE, namely, to have a stable of regular collaborators. The benefits for you are that you get a chance to participate in what we feel is a very exciting project with very talented individuals (the photographers, not us), and naturally, you may gain a wider audience for your work.

We already have had several Photoblogs.org members as contributors and are eager to include more. We think that this might be a good way of developing that relationship.

What do you think? We are open to ideas, feedback, criticism.

I've noticed that the following comment comes up fairly regularly on this blog:

I wish there was some way of promoting the less visited sites on Photoblogs.org. Maybe you should have a list of random sites?

Just to recap, these are some of the features and solutions that have been offered to help with this so far:

• Recently Added Photoblogs have a place on the Photoblogs.org homepage. This shows us the newest of the new sites.
• Top Newcomers have a place on the homepage. All of these sites are no more than a few months old.
• Hot Photoblogs have a place on the homepage. Some of the least-known sites regularly appear in this list.
• The Top 100 List was expanded to also show the Top 200 and Top 500 sites.
• There is a special feature on this blog where any of the contributors can spotlight sites of interest. Thanks to several kind contributors this happens quite a bit.
• Cameron was kind enough to create an entirely new Photoblog Ring site that is geared towards random navigation.

It looks like we've done everything short of actually adding the Random List to the homepage. If that's what the people want, though, maybe I should just add it?

Since this is such a recurring issue, I think it's important for us to try to answer these questions:

• Why does this same issue continually pop up?
• What can we do to make Photoblogs.org a place where this is no longer such an issue?
• How can we achieve this without negatively impacting any of the existing useful features on Photoblogs.org?

So awhile back in another unrelated post someone posed the question " How do you choose your favorites?" And since there has been the recent conflict in linking to photoblogs.org coding and the voting exploit I thought I would open this up to you guys.

How do you choose your favorites?

I try to keep my favorites under the 100 mark which is often fairly difficult. Earlier this week I actually removed a handful of favorites (either cause I wasn't really visiting their site anymore, or because they have stopped or suspended their blogging for the moment. Usually these people are moved to the watchlist) and added a few others. Admittedly I don't have a lot of time to go hunting around to find new sites. But when I do, I follow a couple of steps.

a) check the various lists on photoblogs.org (top lists, hot list, new list and newcomer lists).
b) visit sites of people who commented on my blog.
c) visit sites that show up on my referrals (both blog stats wise... or checking the list of people who have me blogrolled)
d) visit the sites of "good" commenter who have commented on other blogs. (when I say good, I mean people who have something to add to the conversation, although I have been known to leave pretty lame comments from time to time, more because of lack of time)
e) I will also look at other peoples profiles and visit the sites of people who have recently voted for them.

*note that d and e are an interesting way to find sites. Also if these people are leaving comments and adding favorites recently, you can easily deduct that they want to make an impact on the greater photoblogging community. These are the sites that I hope to visit...

So now I am at a new site that I have never been to before..

When I visit a site for the first time I will not only look at the current page. I will click back at least two or three posts and leave comments if I see something I like. Earlier in the week I visited a site and ended up clicking back through their entire archive, leaving comments along the way. And I ended up being adding them to my favorites. (fyi that site was Gotham Pixel, I see a lot of potential here).

To answer the question... how do I choose
a) a handful of sites are close friends. Their photography my not be the best, but I like their site anyway (plug the BF's site here)
b) another small group is some standard photoblogs that I have been looking at prior to this voting system on photoblogs.org (people like Heather
c) Then the rest fall under personal preferences.

Things I look for

- a nice layout, nice and clean and easy to navigate. If the layout is awful (like really bad) but the photography is good, I'm sorry I can't be bothered. There are so many other sites I can look at which are more visually appealing.
- Nice bigger sized photos. I think the trend in the community is to go bigger... 600 x 400 is a nice size, bigger is definitely a bonus, but when you get smaller than that, you start to lose out on the details.
- Consistently good and interesting work and subject matter.
- If the work is good then I will come back and visit again, pretty simple.

NOTE: what I won't do is add you to my list of favorites in turn for you to add me to your own list. That's just lame. If you want you can direct me to your site and I will decide for myself if I would like to return

What I have come to realize during my time blogging and photoblogging is that I will never appeal to everyone, so I really should stop trying to appeal to everyone and just appeal to myself. (which is easier said than done.)

Hi my name is Rannie Turingan from Photojunkie.ca. If you like my work and my site, why don't you add me as a favorite? If you don't that okay too.

How do you choose yours?

Being a digital photographer, you don't have the luxury of the power of black and white film like Ilford.
That means you have to convert it to black and white yourself (unless your camera has that build in as a feature).
What I'm curious about is, what do you do when you convert your shots to black and white?

Are we talking a plain black and white gradient layer over the image, or is it just desaturated or something else?
What do you believe gives the best result/authentic feel and look?

There are basically two ways photologs are usually constructed:
(1) one photo per entry (most photologs)
(2) multiple photos per entry, such as my own or rion.nu or bastish.net, to list but a few.

Until May I'd stuck with the one photo per entry construct, but then I decided that I would prefer to post multiple photos per entry, especially if they shared the same theme or were taken at the same time - a series.

But it seems to me there are some difficulties, such as when you want to contextualize each photo separately, it can get a bit messy.

And also individual entries seem more 'commentable', if you like. That's what I find anyway. That people are more likely to comment on separate individual photos rather than a whole series.

What do you think?

Lately there has been a burst of activity on Photoblogs.org. This is both very exciting and also a little bit of a concern for me.

As it stands, I am the designer/programmer, tech support, customer support, press contact, business contact, and referee for this site. I've enjoyed being in this multifaceted role, mainly because I'm learning quite a bit and meeting lots of very interesting people.

Lately, though, I've been getting several emails from people who are concerned that I'm not being as responsive as I should be to their needs. I can fully understand their point-of-view... After all, they're right. So now I'm turning to you for advice.

Photoblogs.org isn't a business for me. It's a hobby. It's something that I do in my spare time because I enjoy it. And since this spare time is limited, I'm finding it more and more difficult to keep up with the demands that Photoblogs.org requires of me.

So... What are my options here? Any suggestions?

I don't want to get into the big Digital vs. Film debate, because really, everyone has their preferences. But I wanted to get a better feel for who is shooting with what?

I know a lot of people have ditched ther film cameras to go all digital. And I also know people who have gone from digital to shooting all film.

a) Do you shoot with Digital, Film or Both?
b) Did you get interested in photoblogging because of your digital camera? Did you switch to film afterwards because of it?
c) Which do you prefer?

Personal I like having options and I find you can get different looks and feels depending on if you use digital or film. So I have both a digital and film SLR as well as a variety of other film cameras.

What do you shoot with?

Cheers
Rannie