Pixamba today launched the Pixamba Media Management platform, an affordable digital asset management service, specifically designed to help microstock photography users to manage their portfolio of licensed stock images effectively. With an entry price point of $4.99 per account for 3GB space, Pixamba’s service provides a range of features for microstock users, including centralised digital media storage and management, advanced fast search functionality, automated ‘Buy & Stock’ feature and original metadata retention, advanced version control, automated indexing, media rights tracking, fast image uploads, and more. Pixamba Media Management Service is available immediately. To sign up or trial the product, visit the website below.

Website: Pixamba Media Management

A new website, Stockphotorights.com, aims to unravel the complexities and expose the potential legal pitfalls of image use online. Set up by Getty Images, the site has been launched in response to a new survey which has identified a lack of understanding among some image users. Almost half of the respondents (48%) said they did not fully understand legal protection or indemnification, for instance. The need for a one-stop online resource for information surrounding licensing issues was identified by many of the image users surveyed. Stockphotorights.com was developed to act as this online resource for image users to better understand the complex issues surrounding image licensing. The content featured on Stockphotorights.com includes frequently asked questions, case studies, an image licensing checklist, a short educational video, a rolling feed of relevant news, informative links and a forum where users can discuss related topics.

Website: StockPhotoRights

Over 1,000 historic BT Archive images from the 1860s onwards can now be downloaded thanks to Telefocus - the new BT Archives Image Gallery. The gallery offers an insight into the history of telecommunications through images. David Hay, BT’s head of heritage and corporate memory, said: ““As the world’s oldest communications company and guardian of the UK’s telecommunications legacy, we recognise and attach great value to our long and rich history. We are particularly proud to encourage greater accessibility to these fascinating images through Telefocus. In doing so we are opening up BT’s heritage to a whole new audience”.

Website: Telefocus

Olympus Europe has released a new online publication, entitled “PEN - The Magazine”. The first issue features six Olympus Micro Four Thirds camera users from all over Europe, including Tarjei Krogh from Norway, Britt Schepers and Eline Spanjaart from the Netherlands, Eduard Gimenez Cerda from Spain, Chris Mettraux from Switzerland and Björn Scheele from Bavaria. Aimed at popularising the new Olympus PEN E-PL1, the first issue of “PEN - The Magazine” offers interviews, photographs and videos plus links to the Flickr galleries and Facebook accounts of the six featured PEN users.

Website: PEN - The Magazine

Photo sharing service Jalbum has just announced a new collaboration with world-renowned photographer Jack Hollingsworth. In a series of events, the Jalbum community of photography enthusiasts will gather around a common theme, lead and tutored by Jack Hollingsworth. Each event will include a blog post introducing the subject, a competition element and a user group on Jalbum.net where anyone can participate. The first theme is close-up photography.

Website: Close-up with Jack Hollingsworth

German publisher teNeues Verlag has launched a microsite for internationally renowned professional photographer Michael Poliza. The microsite offers exclusive, never-before-seen photographs from Poliza, author of such titles as Eyes Over Africa and Antarctic. The new teNeues site allows fans to interact with him and enter a contest to win one of his books.

Website: Michael Poliza

MagCloud is a new self-publishing web service and on-demand printing tool from HP that enables photographers to create, and sell, their own self-published magazines. With no minimum orders or start-up costs, copies are base-priced at 20 cents per page. Users simply upload a PDF of their magazine, set their price at or above the base-price, and then MagCloud supports the ordering, printing, and shipping process. When the issue is published, people can buy it on the MagCloud website. Every magazine is printed at the time of purchase using HP’s Indigo technology. This approach eliminates wastes and overruns. Interested PhotographyBLOG readers have been offered a 25% discount off the base-price for the first issue published, reducing the cost to 15 cents per page.

DigiLabs has announced that with the release of its new photo creativity software, My Photo Creations, it will enable end-users to enter the self publishing market and increase sales for licensees. Currently, DigiLabs’ end-users can create and share flash photobooks online with friends, family, colleagues, customers, etc. Now viewers of these shared books will be able to purchase a printed copy of the book, right online, thanks to the new “Share and Sell” feature. “This new functionality will offer our licensees a simple and easy way to enter the self-publishing market,” says Nader Anvari, Chief Marketing Officer for DigiLabs.

Website: DigiLabs

GhostRighters today announced the availability of its new business services for professional photographers. GhostRighters specialises in helping photographers become formidable competitors in the markets they serve by providing as much writing and marketing support as they need. The company’s goal is to increase a photographer’s exposure, help them retain their current customers and find new ones, build an effective and communicative brand that is not only widely known, but widely respected, sought-after and praised.  This new service offers 3 distinct areas of assistance: GhostWrite, GhostMarket, and GhostWeb. Within each of these categories, a number of offerings are available including press releases, newsletters, blog design and blog postings, print and online advertising campaigns, email blasts, website design, logo and business card designs, and more.

Website: GhostRighters

The Library of Congress’ extensive Prints and Photographs Online Catalogue (PPOC) now has a new look and new features. PPOC offers access to 1.25 million digital images and to more than 600,000 records describing the collections in the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division (P&P). The new catalogue brings the pictures to the forefront of the web pages. The original version, established in 1996, was more text-oriented and in need of an upgrade.Visitors can now browse by alphabetical lists of subjects, formats and creators across the entire catalogue as well as for individual collections. Colourful banner images highlight the “learn more about it” essays for major collections, such as the early colour photos of the Russian Empire by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.

Website: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalogue

NachoFoto is a new, real-time image search engine that enables a user to search most recent images of anything that is currently popular on the Internet. NachoFoto’s patent pending technology uses semantic text-analysis to calculate recency factor and image density of a webpage which determines recency and relevancy of an image on a webpage for specific search terms. “The fact that NachoFoto has better results is undeniable,” said Dr Christopher Brooks who is currently Computer Science Department Chair at the University of San Francisco. To try out the new service, just follow the link below.

Website: NachoFoto

Lynda.com has released 12 courses covering the products in Adobe Creative Suite 5. Course topics include Photoshop CS5, Dreamweaver CS5, Flash CS5, Illustrator CS5, InDesign CS5, After Effects CS5, Premiere Pro CS5, Flash Catalyst CS5, Fireworks CS5, Encore CS5, and Bridge CS5 tutorials. Lynda.com now has over 24 hours of Adobe CS5 training available, with more being released in the coming weeks.

Website: Lynda

A new e-learning site for photographers, called DSLRU, has just been launched. DSLRU is a new type of website whose premise is to provide high-quality content at a reasonable price. Ten courses starting at $0.99 are available for purchase.To celebrate its launch, DSLRU has teamed up with Nik Software for a raffle, offering a chance to win Viveza 2 or Silver Efex Pro. The rules are simple: purchase any non-free course before 14 May 2010, and you’ll be entered 20 times into the drawing for each course purchased. The winners will be contacted by 21 May 2010. Check out the website below for more information.

Website: DSLRU

iStockphoto, the micropayment pioneer in stock imagery, has just turned 10. iStockphoto kicks off the celebrations with a 10th anniversary microsite, including detailed timelines and iStock history, and asked site members to upload self-portraits for the “Faces of iStock.” More than 3200 people have participated from 89 countries. “The stock multimedia business model has transformed in the last decade, and although the model has changed, make no mistake, the demand for artistic stock is strong,” said Kelly Thompson, COO. “With the decline of print, publishers who embrace new technology and understand its potential will not only survive, but flourish. As the leading e-commerce platform for affordable royalty-free stock imagery, video and sound, iStock is uniquely positioned to help these pioneers change the way people consume media.”

Website: iStockphoto 10th Anniversary Microsite

Manfrotto is launching a new online tutorial platform called the Manfrotto School of Excellence. Allowing users to log on and access the experience and know-how of the world’s most famous photographers and videographers, the Manfrotto School of Excellence will offer a series of free training sessions of varying difficulty (from beginner to advanced level), designed to add to the knowledge of all enthusiasts, amateurs and professionals alike. Launching at the end of March, this learning opportunity will focus on the most popular areas of photography and video-work today - portraits, still life, news photo/videography and documentaries - for fashion, advertising and the traditional publishing trade.

Website: Manfrotto School of Excellence

Epson America has launched a Web site sweepstakes – “Experience the Excellence $50,000 Scavenger Hunt”. Visitors to Epson’s Experience the Excellence Web site can enter to win instant prizes and gain entries to win the $50,000 grand prize by participating in the scavenger hunt. To participate, visitors can click on the Scavenger Hunt game board to see each game piece, then click on the clue to collect one of twelve tokens on the Designed for Excellence Web site. A wide range of instant win prizes are available for all entrants, including gas cards ($25 value), Starbucks gift cards ($25 and $10 value) and Apple iTunes gift cards ($10 value). An Epson prize pack, which includes the Epson Artisan 810 premium all-in-one printer with Epson inks and specialty paper (over a $400 value), will be awarded monthly for the duration of the sweepstakes.

Website: Experience the Excellence

CanvasPeople.com is a website where you can order custom prints of your digital photos. The service comes complete with framing and artistic technique options, and you get the first 8x10” print free, and the second at half price. Note tha your photo will be wrapped around the sides of the canvas stretch bar, so make sure nothing truly important is on the extreme edges of your shots. For more information, visit the CanvasPeople website.

Website: CanvasPeople

PhotoXpress.com has just been re-launched, offering 10 times more images than before. Image downloaders now have the option to upgrade to either a PhotoXpress Lite or Premium subscription. With a PhotoXpress Lite subscription, users can download over 15,000 royalty-free images per month, for $9.99/month. The new Premium Library has nearly 6,000,000 high-quality, royalty-free photos, and the site offers a number of other new features such as bulk download, advanced search options, a Lightbox Dashboard that enables users to save and sort images quickly, and a drag-and-drop feature that interacts with images and the Lightbox Dashboard.

Website: PhotoXpress

Polylooks, Deutsche Telekom’s online photo agency, is offering microstock photographers a bonus of €0.25 per image for photos they sell exclusively via Polylooks. The offer will run from today until 30 April 2010 and is valid for the first 100,000 images which are accepted by the Polylooks team. Photographers will also get the higher payment of 50 per cent of the net sales price per sale for images offered exclusively via Polylooks rather than 35 per cent for non-exclusive photos.

Website: Polylooks UK

ImageRights today announced the availability of its first service, a low-cost, easy to use solution designed to help protect the copyrights of photographers and stock photo agencies. Targeted to the estimated three million worldwide commercial photographers, ImageRights is applying visual search and image recognition technology to track the use of photographs and illustrations across the Internet, enabling rights holders to discover and ultimately recover fees for the unlicenced use of their works. Users upload their photographs and illustrations to the system, and the ImageRights service will provide a weekly report detailing any image matches that it has found on the web. The report provides contact information for the infringing sites, enabling users to follow-up with those persons or companies directly. Subscription fees start at $4.95/month.

Website: ImageRights