Like any GIRL, I VERY much enjoy stumbling across PRETTY and NEAT things….and I JUST found this GREAT site that is exactly that, PRETTY and NEAT! It’s also LOADED with cool info and MUCH more!!

It’s called DESIGN AGLOW and it’s a web based design & inspiration magazine, store and website JUST for PHOTOGRAPHERS!! They do all kinds of features in their site & magazine about various photographers, lighting stuff, promo & packing stuff, studio visits, posing ideas, inspirational tips, interviews with photogs and MUCH MORE!!

They offer actions, cool mat designs, templates, marketing stuff and much more in their store!! You REALLY should check this fun and INSPIRING site out!! Their online magazine looks VERY cool and is loaded with GREAT info and TONS of EYE CANDY!!!!! CHECK IT OUT!!!

I had the today show on this morning and they did a feature on “5 websites that will change your life”, now I’m not sure if I would go THAT far on these….but I DO think they are cool!! I really liked THREE of them!!

The first is LEMONADE.com. It’s a ecommerce site and basically, you endorse certain products and feature them on your site, blog, myspace, facebook, etc and BY DOING SO, you get a CUT of the profit, up to 5-15% of the profit!! Soo cool!!! CLICK HERE to CHECK IT OUT!!!

The next is ASK SUNDAY. AskSunday.com is like a virtual personal assistant that will do tasks for you…. like make your doctor’s appointments, set up dinner reservations, or call you when you need to wake up even if you are on a trip around the world.

They will find concert tickets for you, call and make your hair appointment, even search Craig’s List for you if you are looking for something and don’t have time to keep looking for it!
They will get a rental car for your or find bus schedules if you are in a city and don’t know how to locate that info on your own! They will even do birthday greeting calls for you, make PDF files for you, give you recommendations for restaurants or really anything, even find something you lost!

It’s either $29 a month or $1 a task! Not bad!! CLICK HERE to check out ASK SUNDAY!!

Lastly, EXPERT VILLAGE features thousands of HOW TO video’s on a variety of topics!!! In just looking at the main page, I saw video’s on how to roast pumpkin seeds, to how to parallel park a car, to how to fix a wobbly ceiling fan, and MORE!! They have over 2,000 videos that are actually by experts or consulted on my an expert! Pretty cool, aeh!! CLICK HERE to check out EXPERT VILLAGE!!

A good friend of mine who is a local photographer sent me an email with THIS LINK:

http://www.photographybay.com/2007/09/18/canon-5d-mark-ii-coming-november-2007/

COULD IT BE that the 5D Mark II is on the horizon??? I must admit, I have heard rumors…but I also heard that they were ONLY rumors and no proof of this SO CALLED camera had been seen anywhere!! So, the info that this site provides is MUCH more than I have seen or heard…so this is EXCITING!!! Of course, standard operating procedure for CANON calls for a new version of the 5D somewhere in 08 or 09, most likely after the 40D is off and running….so if this late 07 stuff is true, then we could have something great on our hands!! I think that the recent 5D price drop was also a little hint that the announcement about a new 5D was coming…or at least I was hoping it was!! I’ll be the first to tell you that the IMPROVED AF is a MUCH needed thing….and the 14 bit RAW and sRAW thing will be pretty cool, as well…and the dust reduction sensor will be SOOO helpful!!! The 3 inch screen, increased FPS and 16 MP won’t hurt, either!! Funny, my friend GARY told me several years ago about how the world of RAW files would change….and would expand into several forms of RAW files, RAW that was more like JPEG, etc….(even though he’s ANTI raw!) now it’s unfolding before our eyes!! Here is another link discussing the news….

http://www.photographybay.com/2007/09/03/the-next-canon-5d/

KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED, folks!! I didn’t think that it could get ANY better than the 5D and it just looks like it might be possible!!

I have previously gushed about my unfailing love for PHOTOMECHANIC!! Well, friends, this program gets BETTER AND BETTER every DAY!!! They JUST released an UPDATE and somehow , that magical update just made the program FASTER than before, which I didn’t think it could get any faster! The gist of the program is file viewing, tagging, renaming, keywording, etc….but what makes is SPECIAL is that it will view hundreds of RAW files at ONE time in LIGHTING fast SPEED and allow for FASTER rough editing than ANY program out there! No kidding!! For rough editing, I open up a wedding or session in PHOTOMECHANIC and put one finger on the right arrow and one finger on the 1 button and quickly thumb through, tagging my keepers with the 1 button, giving them a color class rating.

Once I’m done, I select all of the non rated images and throw them away…and VOILA….I’m ready to send the folder over the LAVALU!! (if you are wondering what LAVALU is, do a search for it on this blog and you will get the full SCOOP!) I have tried a thousands methods of rough editing…and this is BY FAR the fastest method I have EVER tried and that is mainly because you can FLY through the images without any down time AT ALL and if you are ruthless with your editing, you can easily rough edit an entire shoot in 30 minutes. If you have PHOTOMECHANIC, go UPDATE IT and if you DO NOT have PHOTOMECHANIC, THEN GO GET IT!! Oh…and if you are JPEG shooter….then WOW…you can fly through the files even faster and apply cropping to them within PHOTOMECHANIC!! Can you tell that i LOVE this program??

While I’m not an official LIGHTROOM user, I know PLENTY of people who ARE….so this is for you guys! I heard about this SUPER cool LIGHTROOM KILLER TIPS blog!! The tips are well, KILLER!! ha!! And…if you read an earlier post, you know I took a short trip to the JPEG DARK SIDE and it was VERY TEMPTING…and IF, I said IF I were to ever CONSIDER changing…I would SURELY be using LIGHTROOM!! CHECK OUT THE KILLER TIPS!!!! You can even get it on a PODCAST!