Site Announcements

Upcoming Aritcles

ed — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:02:43 -0500

The following is a list of the upcoming articles and the dates that we aim to publish them.

Hope you look forward to it as much as we do.

Subject	Category	Publication Date
Album Selected	User Album of the Month	Completed
Studio Portraiture	Digital Photography Tips	Completed
Perspective	Basic Photography	08/08/08
HDR	Camera Technique	10/08/08
Screen Normalization	Image Editing	10/08/08
Winner announced	Pic of the Month	Completed
Basic Photography	Book Review	15/08/08
Nikon D700	Camera Review	15/08/08
EXIF	Basic Photography	-
Backing up images	Camera Technique	-
Adjusting image contrast and brightness	Basic Image Editing	-
Retouching portraits	Advanced Image Editing	-
File Types	Basic Photography	-

ed vs The White Screen of Death

ed — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:33:42 -0500

Quite a dramatic title, isn't it?

Well, it's true.

Those of you who attempted to log in on Saturday, would have been presented with a blank screen, which, due to a database error, meant that no-one could log in.

That's no-one, including yours truly.

And the fact that I could not log in also meant that I was unable to fix the problem!

Quite a conundrum, I tell you.

Anyway, after hours of struggling and some help from my secret elves at my hosting company, I finally managed to defeat the "White screen of death" (which by the way, is it's real name, just to a google search for it and see for yourself.)

Everything should be back in place now. If you notice anything unusual, please let me know and I'll try to fix it.

Links to useful features

feloescoto — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 08:32:48 -0500

Hello, I just noticed that there is a block that displays the latest
blog entries and forum posts, but there isn't a 'latest comments' in
the case of images.

There is a 'Recent posts' link, but it will not call your atention so fast.

The idea of posting the latest images in the header was really good and useful.

Also, I could not find a link to the 'Private messages' or a 'Send private message' when I go to your profile.

Regards.

Host your own Blog

ed — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 09:59:39 -0500

Fancy writing your own blog? Ever wanted to keep an online diary to tell people what you and your camera get up to?

Now is your chance!

All of Illustrated Photography's loyal users will now be able to host their own blog.

To host your own blog, all you need to do is register and log in. Then, from your own profile page, click on the "Apply for Role" tab, and apply for the "Blogger" role.

Once this is done, a site administrator will approve your request (this may take a day or two), and viola, you have your own blog.

You will, similar to blogs already listed on the site, also be able to add pictures etc to your blog.

Hope you enjoy it!

Portfolio of the Month - Is yours good enough?

ed — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 22:30:14 -0500

Howdy Snappers.

Some of you may have noted a small change to the site's front page.

Where we used to have a "Pro Portfolio", we now have a "User Portfolio of the Month".

What will basically happen here, is that the editorial board will get together once a month (or thereabouts) to choose one of the outstanding albums to be displayed on our front page.

If you would like on of yours selected, upload as many good images as you can. Just remember that you can create sub-albums, so you can devide your images into categories, which would make it more likely for you to get chosen.

Good luck and see you on the front page soon.

Illustrated Photography is changing

ed — Thu, 29 May 2008 13:26:21 -0500

Our regular visitors will notice major changes at the magazine this month.

First and most importantly, we have decided to publish more regularly. Instead of following a monthly cycle, as was the case in the past, we will make new content available on a weekly and even daily basis.

This will mean that there should always be something new on the site when you pop in for a visit.

More regular updates

For a schedule of upcoming articles, keep an eye on the magazine?¢‚Ç¨?°?É‚Äû?É¬??¢ÀÜ?°?É‚Äò?¢ÀÜ?°?¢ÀÜ‚Äö??¢ÀÜ?°?É¬´?????¢ÀÜ?°?Ç¬¥??Ç¬¨?Ç¬®?¢‚Ç¨?°?É‚Äû?Ç¬¢s front page, which will have a link to a list of planned publication dates for various sections.

To allow us to make best use of the advantages of internet publishing over traditional newsstand magazines, we will also regularly update certain articles, and you may see old articles, which have been fiercely revamped and rewritten, make a second appearance on the front page.

Things in the photographic world change rapidly, and since the advent of digital capture, our craft has been evolving at a feverish pace. Because of this, many books and articles are out of date within days of hitting the shelves. The internet allows us to update articles as it becomes necessary to do so, meaning you will always be certain that everything you read on our site is bang up to date.

For instance, a few short months ago, HDR, or high dynamic range photography was a fairly novel idea, and very few photographers were using it on anything but an experimental basis. Since then, however, we have seen its use in landscape photography rocket with spectacular results, meaning we will have to update our landscape photography articles.

But we have more in store than a simple change in our publishing cycle.

The other big change in the site lies in the way we interact with users.

More Features for Users

In months past, the vast majority of content was created by our editorial team, all of whom have many years of photographic experience under their belts.

From now on, however, we will be relying more and more on you, our users, to provide features for the website, while still providing you with the top-class editorial content you have come to expect from our staff.

We have, for instance, made it easier to post pictures to your very own online albums, and each month we will feature one of the exceptionally good ones on our front page. This will, if possible, be accompanied by a photographer profile, and should you wish, a link to your own home page.

We have also launched a brand new digital photography discussion forum, where all our readers can get together to talk about their favorite hobby. This has been a major success, and the debate in many of the sections has been vibrant, sometimes even heated. Readers have particularly liked the ease with which they can add pictures to their forum posts. Have a look at Picture paints a thousand words for proof.

These are not the only changes we have planned. We will, in future, also allow all our regular users to post blogs, should they want to, and there will be major changes to user profiles, so that you can tell the world in general as much about your photography as you want to, but more on this to come.

For now, though, enjoy the current edition of Illustrated Photography magazine

Welcome to our redesigned forum

ed — Sun, 18 May 2008 21:00:56 -0500

Hello everyone.

As you can see, our forum has undergone a major redevelopment during the last week. Gone is the stale old design along with the confusing interface.

We?¢‚Ç¨?°?É‚Äû?É¬??¢ÀÜ?°?É‚Äò?¢ÀÜ?°?¢ÀÜ‚Äö??¢ÀÜ?°?É¬´?????¢ÀÜ?°?Ç¬¥??Ç¬¨?Ç¬®?¢‚Ç¨?°?É‚Äû?Ç¬¢ve dragged the site kicking and screaming into the user-friendly twenty-first century.

Although, to be fair, most of the kicking and screaming didn?¢‚Ç¨?°?É‚Äû?É¬??¢ÀÜ?°?É‚Äò?¢ÀÜ?°?¢ÀÜ‚Äö??¢ÀÜ?°?É¬´?????¢ÀÜ?°?Ç¬¥??Ç¬¨?Ç¬®?¢‚Ç¨?°?É‚Äû?Ç¬¢t come from the site, but rather from our design team, who sat up till well past their collective bedtimes to get the whole shebang up and running.

Apart from the brand spanking new layout, we have also added a handful of new features, including the categories, which we hope will elp to guide and inspire the conversation. (We will be reviewing these in the next few months, so let me know if you have any ideas for possible changes.)

The feature we are most proud of, however, is that you can now pload images to use in the forum. This has opened a world of possibilities, as users will now be able to ask each other for advice, ith answers based on real pictures, or ask the forum their opinion of ertain images.

It?¢‚Ç¨?°?É‚Äû?É¬??¢ÀÜ?°?É‚Äò?¢ÀÜ?°?¢ÀÜ‚Äö??¢ÀÜ?°?É¬´?????¢ÀÜ?°?Ç¬¥??Ç¬¨?Ç¬®?¢‚Ç¨?°?É‚Äû?Ç¬¢s quite easy to get a picture into a forum post, all you need to do is upload the image to your gallery, then, once you?¢‚Ç¨?°?É‚Äû?É¬??¢ÀÜ?°?É‚Äò?¢ÀÜ?°?¢ÀÜ‚Äö??¢ÀÜ?°?É¬´?????¢ÀÜ?°?Ç¬¥??Ç¬¨?Ç¬®?¢‚Ç¨?°?É‚Äû?Ç¬¢ve started the comment or topic, click on the icon which looks like a tree (with G2 written at the top). From there you will be able to select any of the images in your gallery to attach to the post.

But, as we all know, a forum is only as good as its users, and it will be YOU that will make or break our new toy.

We hope you like to play with it as much as you do.

Happy posting.

The Illustrated Photography Team

Illustrated Photography under attack by Hackers!

ed — Sun, 11 May 2008 22:14:59 -0500

Yep, it's true folks, we've been targetted by some bloke trying to sell the world more Viagra.

I guess he was sore because his email campaign backfired, or something.

Anyway, the site was pretty much down for two days while me and Guru salvaged what we could from the database.

In the end very little was lost, (which is thanks entirely to Third's religious backup regime) but it did mean that we had to spend hours and hours getting things back up to speed, so if you tried to visit the site over the weekend, and were greeted by pretty blue pills, we offer our most sincere appologies.

Then again, you may just have been persuaded to part with some of your money, which would explain the big smile on your face.

Regards to the missus.