Double up on SanDisk Ultra II Cards

Calumet and SanDisk have teamed up again to bring you two speedy 2GB memory cards for the normal price of one. Until May 31, you can get two SanDisk Ultra II 2GB in your choice of CF or SD formats for $29.99!

Because serious digital photography requires speed and reliability, these cards are optimized to heighten the performance of your pro gear. Both the CF and SD cards boast minimum write speeds of 9MB/s and read speeds of 10MB/s. In your camera, they improve capture and recycle times for rapid-fire shooting and ultra-fast viewing. When transferring files, download speeds increase dramatically, shortening your post-production. And even with that swift performance, their minimal power consumption won't sap valuable battery life.

Each card also comes backed by a lifetime warranty to ensure you get the support you expect from the SanDisk name. Stock up now—this valuable offer ends May 31, 2008, or while quantities last! Limit five specials per customer per format.
Double up on SanDisk Ultra II Cards »

Frame your images - free

8bf.net

Thirteen plugins designed by Jim Clatfelter and free to download from his page 8bf.net:

Frame Works, Foto Frame, Texture Frame, Transparent Frame, Marble Mask, Single Hue, Textures, Simplifier, Edge Art, Blot and Smudge, Good Vibrations (which makes waves, rumples, etc), Transparent Vignette, and Custom Filter (a convolution filter with many adjustable settings).

Available for Windows.

Deep Paint does a job for you

Deep Paint 2

Once a retail product from Right Hemisphere, Deep Paint 2 is an application that can function as a photoshop plugin.

It lets you convert a photo to a painting, manipulate brush and canvas properties, and simulate acrylic, oil and watercolor paint.

The product was discontinued because of the graphics industry's recent transformation in focus from 2D to 3D. Though increasingly tough to find, it can still be downloaded as freeware.

Available for Windows.

Paint Engine

Paint Engine

Offered as freeware by Fantastic Machines, Paint Engine is probably the quickest way to make a photo look like a painting in photoshop.

You can toggle brush type and stroke type, as well as other controls.

Fully functional beta version available for Windows.

The Best Things in Life are Free!

AutoFX Dreamy Photo

Free plugin by Auto FX Software that give photos a soft, dreamy quality. Toggle functions include blur, blend, ghosting, tint color, soften mask, zoom, and zoom offset. Documentation also available. Email address needed to activate.

Available for Windows and Mac.

Reusable Paper?

The future, reusable paper
At the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Las Vegas, Steve Hoover, vice president with Xerox Research Center Webster, shows off a technology being developed in the company's labs that enables people to reuse a piece of paper.
PLAY VIDEO

Free Audo Editor

Free Audio Editor 2008

Like its name attests, Free Audio Editor 2008 is a multi-functional program that allows you to record, slice and mix audio.
The program includes more than 20 sound effects and filters. You can record new audio from your microphone or any other input source, insert noise or silence. It displays a waveform image of the audio files and allows you to visually edit it (Cut, Copy, Delete Silence, Paste, Paste From File, Mix, Mix From File).
Version 3.8 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.
License: Free
OS: Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista
Check it out

Corel Painter Tutorial

Auto-Painting a Photo with Varied Strokes

By Cher Threinen-Pendarvis

The Auto-Painting tools in Corel Painter X allow you to transform photographs into paintings by applying automatic strokes that incorporate stroke style, pressure and direction.

Learn more

Lightroom 1.4 update has bugs

Lightroom 1.4 update has been temporarily removed from the Adobe web site, because of several bugs that were discovered after the update was released.

Adobe recommends uninstalling Version 1.4 and installing Lightroom 1.3.1.

Additionally Lightroom 2.0 is now available for public beta. It includes multiple monitor support, the ability to make localized corrections and improved organizational tools.

The beta will only operate for 30 days if you are not yet a Lightroom user.

http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2008/03/important_lightroom_14_and_cam.html
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/

Make a Photo into a painting - GMX for Windows

GMX - PhotoPainter (for Windows) turns photos into artistic paintings of various styles, e.g. pen and ink, crayon, oil, watercolor, pastels and many others.

There is also the option of rendering the output at any resolution without quality loss.

The Autosketch option analyzes the image for flow directions and automatically adds brush strokes according to more than 40 parameters. But you can also draw the strokes yourself.

http://www.gertrudisgraphics.com/gmx.php

Free Color Tool

Need to rid a complexion of that red hue? Here is a tool that may work and the plugin is free!

FoksMarx recolorLE (for Windows) is a feature-reduced free version of the commercial recolorST plugin.

It can be used for color equalization, color enhancement, removal of color stains and bleaches and also for artistic color effects.

http://www.foksmarx.com/?recolorLE-en