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.

I have to admit while I enjoy several regular podcasts I never imagined searching for photography related ones but it seems that there are quite a few. There's a handy roundup at Creativepro, link thanks to Andy.

Has anyone been listening to any of these, have any other recommendations? Perhaps a photoblogging related podcast is called for... does anyone have a nice speaking voice?

Operation Photo Rescue

Got PS Skills?  Then help Katrina victims recover their damaged photos.

Link from Faisal.

There's an article in USA Today about the short but successful history of Flickr, including interviews with Flickr co-founders Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake.

Check it out.

A New York court ruled this week that a photographer who took pictures of subjects on the street without their knowledge and then made hundreds of thousands of dollars selling those images did not have to get the permission of his subjects because the intention of the work was art, not commerce. The ruling reaffirms that people in public spaces cannot assume any privacy privilege, even if, as in this case, the subject was an orthodox jew, who regard portraits as graven images and disgraces the man in his community.

I know this is good news for a lot of street photographers out there who include people in their images, such as Travis Ruse (who brought this to our attention), but I can't help feeling that there's something intrinsically wrong about being able to 'abuse' someone's image in a case like this where, because of the subject's beliefs, the use of the image was a particularly strong violation. It was deemed by the court that profit was not the aim of the photographers work, and so there was no unauthorised commercial use, but nothing else was taken into consideration.

I agree with the idea that people are 'fair game' when they're in public, but at the same time I think there is an onus on the photographer to create their own boundaries. There is already enough suspicion and aggression towards street photographers in these times, a high profile case that says we can take your photo and get rich exploiting it isn't going to help.

Story link.

"I will make sure you will never be able to place an order on the internet again." "I'm an attorney, I will sue you." "I will call the CEO of your company and play him the tape of this phone call." "I'm going to call your local police and have two officers come over and arrest you." "You'd better get this through your thick skull." "You have no idea who you are dealing with."

These are all direct threats that I received today from an individual who identified himself as Steve Phillips, the manager of PriceRitePhoto in Brooklyn, New York when I called to inquire about my order with them. My crime? Telling him that I planned to write an article about my unfortunate experience with his company regarding the camera order I had placed with him yesterday."

Read the full article over at Thomas Hawk's blog.

I rather think the abusive salesman at PriceRitePhoto had no idea who he was dealing with when he tried to strong-arm Thomas Hawk. A compaint is on file with the New York Attorney General's office and outraged internet users have flooded the company with phone calls, emails, and even DOS attacks. None of these tactics are at Thomas' direction of course, but it's easy to understand the indignation when you read about the way Thomas was treated by this store. Not only was he repeatedly threatened, but the salesman even had the affront to call and harrass Thomas' boss!

It is simply unbelievable that a company could behave like this, and expect to make money doing it. It makes you wonder how many people have been pressured into spending far more money than they wanted to by unscrupulous companies like PriceRitePhoto. It really is a staggering story. If crooked salesmen are trying this pressure scam on the kind of people who would buy a Canon 5d, people who you would think, like Thomas, are well aware of what accessories they need or don't need, then I hate to imagine how many less well informed people have been taken in when buying consumer electronics over the internet.

If it wasn't for the overwhelming response of the blogging community, who have risen to challenge this assault on one of their own with such energy and commitment, this would be a sad sad story. It's wonderful to think of this bully being put so firmly in place by the defiance of ordinary people, an uplifting tale from the digital trenches.

Now it seems that picking on Thomas Hawk will be the last thing this company does.

For a play by play on developments check out Thomas' original post and the commentry on Digg.com.

Is it possible to take digital images and place them onto slides? Has that technology been created? I'm entering a high school thing and they want slide images and I don't have any good photographs on film (yet), so I was wondering if any of you knew if there was a process to put digital images on slides...

Thank you!

Well after months of anticipation Our Media
is finally here. Ourmedia.org is an open source media project that
allows it's users the ability to store any kind of digital media on
it's servers with no charge for unlimited bandwidth or unlimited
storage forever. Wow!

The project is backed by the significant backbone of Brewster Kahle's Internet Archive and was founded by a wide group of bloggers, scholars, and other digital media advocates and enthusiasts.  Technology veterans J.D. Lassica and Marc Canter were two of the original members of the project and have taken the lead roles in getting the effort off of the ground. 

The Advisory Board
of Our Media reads like a who's who of the technology elite, Larry
Lesig, Brewster Kahle, Dan Gillmor and Doc Searls among others all sit
on the Board. It is an interesting effort of Lesig's Creative Commons
in action but even more than this it is, "cool, it's free, more media
for me!"

Lassica describes it this way, “the biggest hurdle
people face today after creating a really cool movie or taking some
really amazing photos is: What now? Where do I put it? How do I share
it? We say: Put it here and we’ll store it, safeguard it, and let you
show it off. Free. Forever.”

From the press release:

"The
effort, begun last June, has been largely accomplished as an
open-source effort, with no income, no expenses and a central group of
50 volunteers working in a public wiki to build the site. Ourmedia,
which will soon become a not-for-profit 501(c)(3), has partnered with
the Internet Archive and Creative Commons, both non-profit outfits in
San Francisco, and Bryght, an open-source content publishing company in
Vancouver, Canada."

This project represents a fantastic opportunity for the digital media enthusiast on two fronts. 

One.
This will be another great place - a digital library - to acquire more
digital content for your ever increasing digital appetite and your ever
growing digital library.

Two. This will be a great place for you
to store any of your own media that you have created. It will be a both
a safeguard and backup for your important works of art, video, audio
and photos and it will be an easy way for you to promote these efforts
if you would like to share your vision with everyone else.

“"Imagine
being able to tap into the richest repositories of freely shareable
works in the world and create image albums, slide shows, video
jukeboxes and media libraries with a few mouse clicks,"” Canter said.
“"We’re on our way there. But we need others to pitch in and help.”"

So stop by Our Media today and lupload/download some new digital media.  It's all you can eat and it's all free.  I've already uploaded some of my photographs and will upload many more in the days ahead.

stealsouls.com

Steal Souls is a new site to help photographers sell and promote their work.

Quoted from the newly-launched site:

This is a call for entries for steal souls, an online photography sales
and promotions site. We're looking for all of those rising-star
photographers out there who want a chance to sell a limited run of one
of their photos.

We'll be selling 10 photos, each by a different artist.
Each of the photos will have a limited run of 25 prints. Photos will be
professionally printed on high-quality paper by a professional photo
lab, and shipped in flat card folders.

When you submit a photo to us, it will be reviewed by our
hotshot team of mature, intelligent, attractive judges. If it is chosen
to be included in our catalog, you will receive money! We'll buy the negative from you, then give you a portion of the proceeds from each print sold.

See the site for more details on the initial Call for Entries.