It would be FREE, you’d only need to register to be able to post on the forum.

But, before I go through the hours it takes to set-up and moderate, I’m wondering if there is any interest?

Please post a comment – yes or no.

If yes, approxametly how many times a week/month would you check in on the forum?

Would you be interested in leading a photo walk or joining one if we created them?

Thanks! Any feedback will help.

Professionals spend big bucks and a lot of time keeping their monitors calibrated correctly – and while you may not be ready to go there – to get the best photo possible you should check your display.

For today only - the site giveaway of the day is giving away free software to calibrate your monitor. Download it and open it to register it before midnight and give it a try.

Here’s a description of the software:

Atrise Lutcurve 1.3.1 Personal
 ”This program will help you to calibrate your LCD or CRT displays without any hardware devices for 6500K gamma 2.2. All aspects of the critical areas are covered, such as viewing environment, colour temperature and gamma, along with fine tune capability. Reference images and real time graph displays provide for accurate adjustment at every stage.”

Grab it and install it today before midnight! Click here to go to Giveaway of The Day

Wondering where your next photowalk will take you? The National Scenic Byways Program encourages you to explore the country.

With photos, podcasts, routes to explore your sure to find your next photo journey.

Check it out here – it’s free! America’s Byways

PS: If you’d like to use iStock service, contact me and I’ll send you an email link for 3 FREE credits to use towards your first purchase.

Wondering How to Select the Right Tripod and Head?
FREE Online Webinar
Friday, November 14, 2008
2pm – 3pm EDT
  They’re even giving away prized during the webinar – you might find yourself the recipient of a free tripod!
Here’s more information from their press release:
During this session David & Will present: Selecting the Right Tripod & Head: Getting the most out of your rig!

1. How to determine your needs based on your equipment (hint: weighing it won’t help!)
2. How to determine the true strength of a tripod.
3. Exploring Carbon Fiber: Beyond “lighter & stronger
4. Tips for carrying, setting up, and maintaining your rig.
5. Different styles call for different setups.
6. During this Webinar, you have exclusive advantages:
   Interact one on one with our special speakers (ask questions and get the answers you need).
7. Automatic Chance to Win one of these Prizes: Manfrotto Tripod & Head” valued up to $315 or a “Gitzo Tripod & Head” valued up to $550

Important Note: 2 winners will be announced at the end of the Webinar, so you must attend the Webinar in its entirety, from beginning until end to qualify for a chance to win.

To register for the free webinar click here

For more information about the Bogen webinar, including guests and giveaways click this link

The weekend show includes:

• Photography seminars with professional photographers
• Meet & get advice from the Canon Explorers of Light & the Nikon Pro Team
• Talk to the experts from Nikon, Canon, Delkin, George’s Camera, Nelson Photo and more
• Meet photographers from different fields including wedding, nature, portrait & commercial
• Huge selection of digital camera equipment at great discounts

Did I mention admission is Free?

More information about the show can be found on The Photo Expo West Website by clicking here

Where:

Del Mar Fairgrounds

Directions: http://www.sdfair.com/index.php?fuseaction=maps.home

Professioinal photographer Harold Davis will show why night photography has become so popular among digital photographers. He’ll teach exposure techniques for night time photography and explain how to post-process them.

Harold will be available for Q&A at the end of the presentation.

I can hardly wait! I’ve had mixed success with night photography. I love the results, but want to learn more about how to improve the shots and reduce noise (my new arch enemy) caused by long night exposures.

More information or to sign up: click here to sign up for the night photography webinar

About Harold Davis
Harold Davis is a photographer and author. His photographs have been widely published, exhibited, and collected. Many of his fine art photography posters are well known, including some recent alternatively processed digital flower images published by New York Graphic Society.

The author of more than twenty books, Harold has written (and illustrated with his photographs) Digital Photography: Digital Field Guide (Wiley), The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite and the High Sierra (Countryman/W.W.Norton), 100 Views of the Golden Gate (Wilderness Press). He is the lead author of a new series of books about digital photography from O’Reilly Digital Media.

    Picasa also integrates seamlessly with Picasa Web Albums for sharing your photos online — with just one click in Picasa 3, you can sync albums from your PC to the web, so that any changes or additions you make on your PC are automatically reflected on your web gallery. 

New tools in Picasa 3 help you make professional-looking edits without any technical knowledge, including:

• A drag-and-drop photo-collage tool gives you total freedom over layout and content
• A powerful retouching brush to wipe out scratches and blemishes, and repair old photos.
• A slide show movie maker that uploads to YouTube with a click
• Auto red-eye removal
• Smart auto-cropping that guides you on how to zoom in on your subject
• A  Photo Viewer to quickly inspect and manipulate images while in the Windows file system
• Auto Watermarking option when uploading to Picasa Web Albums.

As always, Picasa automatically finds and sorts the photos on your hard drive, and lets you drag and drop photos into folders or add custom tags.  It leaves your original files undisturbed on your hard drive, so you don’t have to worry about overwriting or altering your originals — you can go back a year later and undo any edits you’ve made.  And you can always download all your photos out of Picasa Web Albums.

Picasa 3.0 is available for free download at http://picasa.google.com/, and Picasa Web Albums is available for free sign-up at http://picasaweb.google.com/.

To enter, click here

Not a photo contest, just enter to win.

Enter now!
Contest entries drawn mid-October 2008

http://www.usa.canon.com/app/html/CenterCourt/index.html