Barney L.

Anyone in the graphic arts who wants to share their more private artistic work comes to deviantart and it really is a great website that is free for all artists. Photographers, poets, graphic artists... everyone is welcome. The forum can get a bit unruly at times but overall it is a great community

I will second this website being one of the best around for both shooting tips as well as the community. It is a great community of photographers who are all very helpful in sharing tips. Even if you are not local to the bay area, they are always available to help. I like how it is a smaller community and not overrun with spammers like on other sites.

I have been looking to hire a website designer for a new photography website to show off my photos and I was quoted about $1500 just for the design. Foliolink has a great deal of giving you a customized website for a fraction of the price and giving you hosting the only catch is that you need to keep hosting with them. Still not a bad deal and you can set it up within hours.

For those who have a basic understanding of videography and want to learn more, this is the best place to go for that. They have great articles and forums with active users with a vast amount of knowledge.

The price tag to convert your camera to an IR camera is fairly steep... $400 for my old canon DSLR. The images however are amazing once they convert it. They calibrate it to a standard 50mm 1.8 lens and if you shoot wider you might want to send in your lens for calibration along with it. I usually shoot stopped down to f11 so it is not a big deal but I have heard of others who shoot at f2.8 and such needing calibration. You could also order the filter and have a local shop do it for you, but these guys do a great job and this is all they do so I would use them over a local shop. I would not recommend the DYI guide unless you are really really good. Nice they provide that though

Best part of kidzui is not having to keep watching what your kid is surfing all of the time. Even sites like youtube can be dangerous for them. The few bucks a month is worth MY time not to have to keep looking at their computer screen.

I use this website to sell my photos and for anyone who either needs stock photos or wants to make some extra $$$ this is the best site out there. Don't expect to make a fortune, but you can expect to make some money proportional to the amount of work you put into it. It does take time to make some money so do not be discouraged if at first you are not collecting a big paycheck.

I wish I knew about this website before the superbowl! Thanks guys for finding this site and I will be ordering come season next year. Prices don't seem to be much more than the cheapy online stores

With everyone buying digital cameras these days and doing photography, it is nice to have websites such as this one to remind us about the artist part of photography. I feel like many people these days use digital cameras to capture the moment and are forgetting the art. Spend a few minutes taking a look at this site and I assure you that you will appreciate it :)

I never heard of this site until I saw it here on sitejabber. I used it to book a vegas trip and it was much better than searching on expedia or other travel sites as it figured out the best rock bottom price.

Photosig and DPreview are the 2 photography communities that I visit the most often. The best part of photosig is high level of photography that can be seen on the site. Sometimes you will see photos that are not so great though most of the time the photos are quite remarkable. It is a great mixture of professionals and amateurs. The contests are pretty fun too.

This is the 2nd year anniversary of this online magazine. The best part about this site is the dedication of the community. It is a combination of very advanced amateur photographers and professionals. I highly recommend joining this site to learn more about photography in general. By reading the constructive critiques of all of the photos, you can learn a great deal about how to take a better photo.

I used to use istockphoto but the problem was the sheer amount of photos on that site it was tough to stand out. Shutterstock is a great alternative and I have got more money off of my photos here than istock.

If you take photos with a digital camera and do not currently edit your photos, you are really missing out on doing real photography. Now Google lets anyone edit their photos for free and version 3 of Picasa is very solid. Google does a great job of making free software applications and giving it to the world and stamping their name on it. Adobe used to own the market in photo editing but the problem is that their software is very complicated to use for the average user and extremely expensive. Adobe released a cheaper version for the average user and that often gets bundled with your shiny new camera. Google's Picasa is not nearly as feature rich as the adobe CS4, however, for the average user this is all they will ever need. I don't even bother with MS word anymore and just use google docs. The same is true for picasa for the average person editing their photos. Download it now, it is FREE.

Because of the nasty economy right now Newegg is offering some pretty killer deals on all types of egear. Great time to be a consumer if you have any money.

I have been using pqdvd for years back when they just starting out in the video converting business. There are dozens and dozens of similar products out there on the internet, but pqdvd is one of the best and their product works. They are also a reputable company and won't screw with your CC or personal information. I highly recommend this company for that reason.

My personal favorite site for the latest and greatest gadgets and toys. They also have great articles for photographers as well. This and wired are my 2 resources for staying up on all of the latest advances in consumer technology. The articles are well written and they have advice on buying everything from cell phones to new laptops.

I have suffered from years of sleep problems. The solution turned out to be this type of bed. When you watch those late night TV informercials, they do seem too good to be true, however, I did buy a Grand Bed and found it was one of the best purchased I have ever made for my sleep health. I cannot recommend these beds enough to anyone who has sleep issues. The only disadvantage is that once you get used to this type of bed, it is hard to travel and sleep on the old style mattresses.

Pictureframes.com for giclee and canvas prints - Like many professional photographers, I have tried a dozen different online printers and have almost always been disappointed with them. At my studio I use an Epson 4800 and when I order prints online, I compare the results to what I can reproduce in my own studio. Now, I painstakingly go over each print and it takes me quite a bit of time to get it right all of them time. For special prints, I am willing to take this time, but I often get overwhelmed and need to outsource my printing needs. The only company I have found that is both worth it in terms of cost and quality is pictureframes.com. Here is why I chose them

1. They offer a HUGE selection of papers and you can order a sample of all of them to see which ones you like
2. ICC profile and their colors are spot on... if they are not, you just call and they will reprint it for you.
3. Wide selection of canvas styles.
4. They even offer professional framing with a large selection of frames.
5. I almost never order digital B&W prints due to their lack of depth, but their B&W prints really have to be seen to be believed, you will not be disappointed.

And subscribe to their email list, they will spam you, but you will like the coupons and savings they give you.

Smugmug has been my choice for photo hosting - I started off using smugmug to mostly just share my casual photos with friends and family and they all found it very easy to view my photos. I had another professional site where I advertised my services as a photographer, but it was too much trouble to always upload my images so family could see the special events shots. I typically printed my own photos and sold them to clients as I wanted complete control of the entire process. But then a collague of mine told me he was using the smugmug professional services so I checked it out and here is what I thought...

1. The sample websites they show are very well done and it is exactly what many photographers need.
2. Setting up a custom site is not entirely easy and unless you are very web savvy you will need some help.
3. Print prices are fair, not cheap, but fair... quality is pretty good and they provide ICC profiles and calibration prints.
4. They do NOT offer prints on canvas which I think is a mistake if they offer professional printing services.
5. They do offer the ability to sell photos via downloads, which is great.
6. they offer both HD video 1280 x 720 and DVD quality videos on your website, which is perfect as that is often what catches new client's attention. Also great for consumers wanting to show off their photos in a professional slide show video.
7. Easy to upgrade from power user to pro
8. The standard account is NOT FREE... so for the average consumer I do wonder if this is a good deal when other similar services are free. It is advertising free, but I'm not sure the average person cares and would rather have it be free.
9. Complete privacy control over your photos.
10. Unlimited storage for all accounts

I think if you are semi pro or thinking of going pro, then smugmug is a great place to start. If you are purely casual photographer, then you might want to consider some of the free sites out there if you want to save that $40.