Step Back in Time

I found a superb vintage action today online called 'Hand Coloured Vintage Photo' I thought that some of you may be interested in giving it a try. You can download it here and see my example below. To attain the colour result you must run and complete the ageing first.

If you are unfamiliar with PhotoShop Actions, you may want to take a look at this tutorial which is a basic introduction.

Eye Spy

Following on from my previous post regarding the security of images, here's a neat little way of keeping check of your images and where they are being used online.

Tin Eye is a reverse search engine that hunts down where your image is being used on the web. Although still in development and unable to check every single web page, it does work. I myself search every now and again if an image of mine has received a lot of hits on Flickr from unknown sources. Just a couple of weeks ago I found a European online magazine using my Stonehenge image without my consent, I wrote a strongly worded e-mail to them and they apologised profusely and removed the image.

Sign Your Name

With the advent of change relating to copyrighting of images published online (and not for the better) we really need to make sure our work is protected. If you are UK based and have not heard about these changes yet please read this article.

There are steps you can take to prevent theft of your images online, but in my opinion none of them are full-proof. That said, digital watermarking does provide some peace of mind. Digimarc (a plugin for Photoshop) have recently upgraded their application and it is definitely worth looking at. I currently use it and find it quick and easy to use, the basic account starts at around $49 per year.

I'm no Tweeter!

To tweet or not to tweet, that has been the question on my mind now for quite sometime.

Half of me thinks yes what a great idea, I can use it as a subtle marketing tool and the other half of me thinks I don't want to randomly chit chat rubbish with people.

As for celebrity tweeting, it gets me so mad! I like to think of my celebs as detached individuals, untouchable, sometimes elegant, sometimes clever or whatever I choose them to be in my own mind, but honestly, miscellaneous ramblings from celebs about what they had for breakfast, yada, yada, just makes them look and sound stupid with too much time on their hands and further more breaks the illusion and mystery for me.

So although I haven't entirely ruled it out, I shall not be tweeting anytime soon. However, thanks to a friend I have just discovered spnbabble. Now this to me seems a far better prospect. Maybe not as big yet, but geared for marketing, not twaddle! Check it out and see what you think. You can follow me on there if you so wish under the name DigitalExpressions.

United Arab Emirates

A small selection of my United Arab Emirates images are now available to buy from my Red Bubble site. Click here to go staight to the photo set. A superb trip full of architectural wonders and of course plenty of sand.

If you are ever visiting make sure you don't miss out on a dune bashing trip definitely exciting and the landscape is magical.

Talking Italian With 30 Words

I was recently approached by a company called 30 Words asking if they could use an image of mine in their newest addition to the product range.

30 words are superb and compact range of language guides for travelers. They are small enough to fit in any pocket and contain over 800 key words and phrases. The accordion design of the vocabulary pages makes looking up a phrase or word very easy. Best of all the guides are very durable, they are waterproof and tear-resistant and should survive even the most arduous adventures.

I think they are a cracking idea and I will certainly be trying the Italian version out later this month! My Riva Del Garda image (below) features on the back of the Italian edition and you can find out more about 30 Words by visiting their website and their blog.

I personally wish them every success for the future!

Windows Live Sky Drive

I apologise if anyone has encountered difficulties in downloading the free texture and tutorial I posted links to yesterday. MediaFire, where the files were stored seemed to be very slow at loading and intermittent. I have now resolved matter by moving the files to my public folder on Windows Live Sky Drive.

If you don't already have a Windows live I.D. you may find it a very useful tool, for accessing your hotmail, photos, files and much more. With sky drive you get 25GB of storage making it a very useful tool for sharing files.

To find out more about Windows Live Click Here