We still have some unsold banner slots located in the right side of all pages on stockvault.net and for a short period of time I will be offering those at $300 per month. There are currently 4 slots available. We also offer sponsor text links on all pages as well.

The traffic this month has been at record heights with an average of 7.000 unique visitors and 27.000 page views per day. So grab this chance and order your spot today!

Visit the advertisement page for more info.

HDR stands for “High Dynamic Range”, and is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of exposures (the range of values between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques.

HDR was originally developed for use with purely computer-generated images. Later, methods were developed to produce a high dynamic range image from a set of photographs taken with a range of exposures. HDR is now popularly used to refer to the process of tone mapping together with bracketed exposures of normal digital images, giving the end result a high, often exaggerated dynamic range.

“Tone mapping is a technique used in image processing and computer graphics to map a set of colours to another; often to approximate the appearance of high dynamic range images in media with a more limited dynamic range.”

More info about HDR imaging at Wikipedia.

Examples

HDR images can be quite stunning as you can see by the examples below.

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In case you didn’t know, stockvault.net began as a texture gallery back in 2003. And through the years all of the lovely textures have followed us through upgrades and changes. Still, a rather large part of them has not been key-worded yet, and therefor, does not appear in site searches (working on fixing that issue).

Here is a list of 10 amazing grunge textures from our gallery that you might have missed.

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You like to design logos?

Check out the article by Logoorange.com about the logo trends of 2008, you might even get an idea or two.

“Logos are the ultimate mark of distinction and everyone loves them. We see logos everyday - on the highways, on consumer goods, on the Web and in the institutions and organizations we support. Read about the different types of logo designs here and learn what principles and techniques are used to create them. Discover what the future holds for logo design!”

Organic 3D

Here’s something new for 2008: we will be seeing 3d effects in logo design that will reach different places and stimulate different viewers who are craving for a new, fresh look! Polish those lenses and see 3D escalate to a higher level!

Let’s take an example. You’re seeing the Silverlight logo for the first time. Your eyes are trying to absorb every feature and then-you suddenly react. What’s your first reaction? A breathless “WOW”? Do you find yourself saying “aha”? Does the Silverlight logo design trigger a feeling in you, arousing a desire to actually want to see the product that’s behind that logo? That reaction was what the creators of this corporate logo were aiming for.

The logo designer starts with a very basic shape that is applied to a simple transparency effect. This can lead to a more complicated process, but one thing you must remember is that the end result should look as organic as possible. Take your distortion tool for a good spin! Read the rest of this entry »

Photoshop tutorials

The good people over at psdtuts.com have been busy forking out high quality Photoshop tutorials for the past few months, and have now introduced a premium membership option where you can sign up and get access to premium tutorials and source files. According to the comments on their site, the majority of their member base is very supportive of this new feature, but there are also some voices that are concerned about having to pay $9 per month for the content. Personally I think this is a great idea, and an excellent alternative to plastering the whole site with ads and whatnot.

Interesting new tutorials from psdtuts.com:

• Create a Constructivist Inspired Poster
• How to Photo Comp up a Killer Room Full of Objects
• Quick Grungy Poster
• How to Break Sunlight Through the Clouds

They also have a great inspiration post every month which includes links to tutorials, articles and yummy downloads.

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I’m mostly done with upgrading the site. We have a lot of new and exiting features such as

• RSS Feeds for all galleries, featured-, newest-, popular- and photographer images
• Image Ratings
• Faster Search and a faster loading gallery in general
• Batch Upload system for photographers
• E-mail notice when an uploaded photograph is accepted or not
• Video section where you can learn about photography and design

I’m still ironing out some layout and code details, and if you find and bugs or encounter any errors, please let me know so I can fix it.

I hope you like the new layout!

Our server is being upgraded with new hard drives which caused the site to be off line for a few hours. This weekend I will be upgrading the entire site, and there will be some downtime now and then. I also need to iron out all the bugs and errors, so please be patient if the site will not function 100%.

Thanks,
Bjorgvin

Hang on to your nuts by Bob Garas.

Congratulation Bob, the winning image is incredible. So were most of the contest submissions this year, and finally I want to express my gratitude to all the photographers that took part.

I also want to thank the guest judges for their work:
Damien van Holten of reaact.net
Darren Hester of pixelperfectdigital.com
Andreas Climent of andreascliment.com