Jul 14

iStockPhoto.com Royalty Free ImagesAre 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:

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Jul 10

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

dimension.jpg

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Jul 03

Are you an aspiring motion graphics designer? Here is some inspiration from 2 accomplished designers to get your creative juices flowing:

Eden Soto - http://www.edensoto.com
Demo Reel

Vitamin Devo - http://vitamindevo.com
Demo Reel (2004)
Mini Reel (2005)
Flash demo for his DJ work (2005)

Vitamin Devo

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Jul 03

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?

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Apr 27

Javascript Dropdown MenuThere are lots of scripts out there for making a dropdown menu in a website. Most of them are poorly coded or are too complicated for beginners to easily use. This one is clean and simple.

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Apr 24

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
Splashup

Adobe Photoshop Express 
Adobe Photoshop Express

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Apr 22

TWIPEstablished 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.

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Apr 15

Photoshop Lady provides tutorials from all around the world in her blog, added daily.

http://www.photoshoplady.com

Apr 15

Create slick SVG text versions of your graphics with this online utility.

Make your own textorized graphics here.

Turn this:                                         …into this:

bsp_8499.jpg text.jpg


Apr 15

Need to pull a public domain video from YouTube to edit into your next documentary? You can do this and tons of other online and offline conversions with the links found here:

http://shorterlink.com/?V7H7WP

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