The MPC Feed @ Washington College

As a designer, it’s not always possible to take the time and generate your own textures for all of your graphics. Thankfully, there are tons of convenient stock textures that others have freely contributed to the design community! These folks have gathered 99 of their favorites in this gigantic list!

Tags: canvas, Design, Free, metal, paint, paper, Stock Images, textures

Are you familiar with iStockPhoto.com, a popular website for buying and selling stock photography? iStockPhoto also has a”Steel Cage Battle” section to their forums, where designers battle it out over several days. As part of the rules, designers must incorporate portions of the opponent’s most recent design into their next visual attack. (For an example of a steel cage battle, check out these images, created by the MPC’s Brian Palmer and Instructional Technologist Nick Smerker. Images also shown below)

Now for the point of this post… iStockPhoto is getting ready to hold it’s yearly Battle Royal. This is 85 days of design battles, head to head with other designers, until only one designer remains. First prize? $5000.00!

How can you get involved? If you don’t already have a free account with iStockPhoto, go get one. Don’t waste time, because I think there is a day or two waiting period before you can post to the forums (to help prevent spamming the forums), and the Battle Royal is part of the forums. Better yet, if you email me, I can “invite you”, which will get you 3 free credits for downloading stock images, video, audio, flash, and vector images.

The battle begins this Thursday, July 17th, and runs for 85 days. So even if you just wanted to follow along with the design mayhem, that would be fun too. You’ll be seeing some of the world’s best designers in action, always good inspiration for your next Photoshop project.

Have fun, and good luck!

Images from the battle between Nick Smerker and Brian Palmer:

Round one:

Nick’s first attack:

Brian’s response:

Round two:

Nick’s response:

Brian’s response:

Tags: Battle Royal, design competition, iStockPhoto, Photoshop, Steel Cage Battle

Here are several Photoshop tutorials to produce some amazing effects. Enjoy!

Tags: Adobe Photoshop Tutorials, Digital Imaging, Effects, Photography, retouching

Are you an incoming first year or transfer student!  Do you have an interest in filmmaking and/or photography?  Don’t miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity.

Registration is now open for the Filmmaking and Photography Pre-Orientation Session, but seats are limited to only 12 participants!  Go to the Forms and Resoruces page, scroll down to Pre-Orientation Forms, print out the Pre-Orientation Registration form, and mail it in today!

Why should you attend this particular workshop?

• You’ll learn a TON of great info about photography and video production
• Classes are taught by award winning staff, including a workshop by Paul and Holly Fine, with 75 regional & 10 national Emmy Awards, 4 Peabody awards.
• We’ll be working individually and as a team to create a film that will be featured before all the pre-orientation sessions at the Prince Theater, as well as be entered into other industry competitions, featured on the WC homepage, WCMC.tv, iTunes U, Youtube, etc.
• You’ll get your hands on high end equipment, both items in our loaner pool, as well as professional gear that we don’t lend out.
• You’ll learn skills that will directly apply many academic assignments during your 4 years here, and may give you an added edge over your classmates.
• You’ll get to meet other like minded people who you’ll surely want to team up with in the future for MPC challenges or independent projects.
• When else during the year can you dedicate 4 solid days to anything without it conflicting with your academic or social calendar?

Tags: Boot Camp, Filmmaking, Paul & Holly Fine, Photography, pre-orientation, workshop

Metacafe.com has teamed up with podcaster Israel Hyman, who has been production Izzy Video podcasts for some time now.  Metacafe has a collection of videos that address many topics, including:

• Directing
• Shooting
• Lighting
• Sound
• Editing

Tags: Izzy Video, podcasts, Tutorials

If you are a Photoshop user, but like me often find yourself hopping on a public computer or at a friends house, and wishing you had Photoshop to make basic image edits, you’re in luck!

There are lots of free online image editors. Here are a couple I recommend:

Splashup.com

Adobe Photoshop Express 

Tags: free utilities, online image editing, Photoshop Alternatives

David Hobby, former staff photographer for the Baltimore Sun turned full-time blogger, runs a website called Strobist.  David has taken countless hours of his life to develop several free off-camera lighting tutorials for photographers.

The first set that I’ll mention is Lighting 101.  These tutorials get you started, understanding why you’d want to utilize off-camera lighting, what are some key components, and how to use a DIY approach to build lighting gear for cheap. In future posts I’ll dig deeper on the Strobist blog for more great content.

Strobist is an invaluable resource for digital photographers, one of the very best collections available on the web. …oh yeah, and everything is free!

Tags: , digital photography, DIY, education, off-camera lighting, strobist, Tutorial

Established only 4 months ago, This Week In Photography has quickly climbed to #4 for all Photography podcasts on iTunes. Pro photographers discuss the latest equipment and trends in digital photography. Get a behind the scenes look at the folks who develop the software you use and author the books you read.

Tags: Audio, Photo, Photography Podcast, TWIP

Chase Jarvis is an amazing Seattle based photographer who, in his mid thirties, is both a Nikon and Hasselblad Master Photographer. This short video “Frames” shows every frame of a 4-day photo shoot, pausing on a few featured images. Chase has several videos online that show a glimpse of the man behind the curtain, so to speak. These tutorials and demos have helped countless aspiring photographers advance their skill. I highly recommend checking out his website for inspiration, and his blog and videos for education.

Tags: Chase Jarvis, commercial, fine art, Hasselblad, Photo shoot, Photographer, Tutorial

Wanna play a funny prank on your roommate? Download this image of a broken LCD screen, and bring it up full screen on their computer. Turn off their screen saver, and then unplug their keyboard and mouse. When they return to their computer, put on your best “I didn’t do it” face

Tags: broken LCD, prank, roommate