[Doug Nelson]

It's been a good week. We passed the 250 member mark, and our post count is now into 5 digits.

After a period with no Restoration Challenge submissions, two got sent in...so I put them both up: one here and an especially challenging one here.

Our new, improved Gallery is online and proving to be very popular. It's made possible by your donations, so thanks to you all.

[Doug Nelson]

We're getting very close to the 300 member mark, and we've had a lot of good discussion this past week.

I want to encourage everyone to do 3 things:

• Rate threads
• Read through older threads and revive them if you think they're worthwhile
• Add terms or definitions to our new Glossary

I'm always looking for good Challenge suggestions, but we really need good Retouching Challenge material. PM or email me if you think you have something.

And, of course, have a new Restoration Challenge and a new Manipulation Challenge

[Doug Nelson]

We blew past the 300 member mark the same day I posted that last Update. Lots of good conversation this past week.

Here are some tips for your User CP

• Check to make sure you have it set to show all threads, not just the newest ones
• Check to see if you have any unanswered Private Messages
• Turn on the Private Message "Popup Alert" so you don't ever miss one

3 new Challenges this week:
A rather nifty Restoration Challenge, a rather odd Manipulation Challenge, and a rather belated Gallery Challenge

I've been a good boy and haven't mentioned it in awhile, but donations have completely dried up, with nothing at all in over a month. And me sitting here with all these plans...

[Doug Nelson]

I think the Olympics might be stealing some of our member's attentions. It's been a little quiet this past week.

But, we have two new Challenges, both appropriate for Valentine's Day:

A romantic Restoration Challenge, and a particularly heartwarming Manipulation Challenge.

[Doug Nelson]

We had a lot of great activity this past week, more than making up for the lower activity I was whining about last time.

Evidently our last Restoration Challenge was just too darned hard, so there's a more typical Restoration Challenge this week. Plus it's really cute

I'm very excited about this week's Retouching Challenge. This is probably our closest Challenge yet to what a real, commercial retouching job would be like. Material for good Retouching Challenges is rare, so I hope everyone gives this one a try.

I particularly enjoyed writing my last Review. This time it's a video on restoration by Katrin Eismann. She was different than I expected. Plus it was a great way for my MTV-generation brain to absorb information.

[Doug Nelson]

Well, I don't know how your week has gone, but I've been busy as all getout with a new site design. I'm only halfway done, so let me know if you see anything "unusual".

Two new Challenges this week: Retouching and Restoration.

Everyone is excited about the recent Photoshop 7 announcement. If you're planning on buying or upgrading Photoshop, you can help RetouchPRO at the same time. Just use these links:

Windows upgrade
Mac upgrade
Windows full version
Mac full version

RetouchPRO will get a small commission for each purchase.

[Doug Nelson]

I'm just a glutton for punishment. I'm still working on the redesign, we're getting more Challenge attempts than ever (YAY!), yet I still deside to put up not one but two new Restoration Challenges (here and here).

Challenge attempts are up, but everything else is down: Archive contributions, favorite bookmark entries, donations, tutorial submissions...just about everything on the menu (or "that darned floating menubar" as we now call it).

I'm particularly looking for material for either a masking Challenge or a masking tutorial (I haven't made up my mind yet). Send me thumbnails, and I'll let you know if it's what I have in mind. For this I'm really looking for perfectly good pictures, no restoration needed, but would be hell to mask. (Don't forget you need a release or at least explicit permission if it's a picture of someone living)

Oh yeah, our Gallery is doing really well. Don't forget to check it out, leave comments, and post something of your own for us to gawk at!

[Doug Nelson]

A new record, four new Challenges, in just as many categories:

Restoration, Manipulation, Retouching, and Gallery

Either do them real fast, or take your sweet time, because I'm going on vacation for 2 weeks starting the end of this week. I'll check in on the forums every once in awhile, but there will be no site updates and I won't be reading my email. If you have something urgent to tell me during that period, leave a PM.

[Doug Nelson]

Ok, I'm back from vacation, and caught up with Challenge postings, so if you've sent in a Challenge entry by the time of this posting and it's not up yet, email or PM me.

It's been awhile since we had some new Challenges, so here are three to make up for it: Retouching, Restoration, and Manipulation.

I almost had a truly stupid naming theme going, but I couldn't think of a fittingly-themed name for the Manipulation Challenge. So I reserve the right to rename that one once inspiration hits (that could be awhile).

In order to clean up page design, clarify things, and most importantly save me time, I've put up some new entry guidelines

[Doug Nelson]

Lots of new friends. We'll possibly have over 500 members by the time you read this.

Two new Challenges this week: Restoration and Retouching. They have a common theme of "naturalness".

The new Challenge entry guidelines are helping me out enormously, though it's clear not everyone noticed them.

Ed's donation drive makes me feel like a public television station, but I guess we do have a lot in common with PBS. Our operators are waiting

The cooking chat and movie chat are getting a following, and are really pretty fun.

[Doug Nelson]

Two new challenges: Restoration and Retouching.

Ed's Donation Drive is almost over. I'm really pleased with the number of participants so far.

Plus, we've added another way for you to show your support in more than one way: a t-shirt that you can wear to announce your support, plus buying them provides needed fundage for improvements. And you can give them as gifts so people will understand why you've been so busy lately

[Doug Nelson]

Ok, my cold is over, I've had wayyy too much caffiene, and the donation drive success convinced me to lighten up a tiny bit on the server space and bandwidth reigns.

So, here we go <inhale>:

We have a new Restoration Challenge, a new Retouching Challenge, a new Manipulation Challenge that I think sounds particularly fun and maybe even useful if you have children, and for the first time in I don't know how long we have a new Challenge category: Photo Art.

In support of our new Challenge category, we have our first new forum in awhile, this one devoted to Photo-Based Art techniques.

We also have four new Reviews, including the first winner from our new Review Contest, T Paul (congrats, T).

If this contest works out (ie: brings in a lot of new reviews) we might try repeating it in other areas (yes, that is a hint).

<exhale>

So, is that enough new-ness for you? I suspect I forgot something, and I'm positive I've crossed up some new links somewhere, so let me know via PM if you find any.

[Doug Nelson]

Lighter week, but no less impressive.

Two new Challenges this week: Photo Art and Retouching.

But the real news is we have 9 new tutorials this week! Thanks to Jak for her efforts. Keep'em coming, and let's hope others follow your example (follow your example as in submitting tutorials of their own, although let's also hope they follow your examples in the new tutorials because...oh, nevermind).

No review contest winner this week due to no entries.

[Doug Nelson]

Ok, lots of new stuff this week:

We have an excellent new Photo-Art tutorial by Jim Caffrey. We also have two new reviews, one of which is from this week's 'contest' winner, Barry Fairclough.

We have a new Restoration Challenge, a new Retouching Challenge, and a new Photo-Art Challenge. I'm still waiting for more entries on our last Manipulation Challenge, so I thought I'd give it some more time.

And we have a cool new feature. Thanks to an amazingly effective collaboration from our moderators, we now have a very helpful site-map to help everyone understand the scope of the site and each section's relationship with other sections.

I've narrowed down the list of new webservers for our site. We'll be moving in a month or two, but here's a gentle reminder about making donations and buying a t-shirt or coffee cup to help us get to the biggest, bestest webserver available.

[Doug Nelson]

This week we have a much needed new Pen Tool tutorial by Ron Lemire. We also have a new review from this week's 'contest' winner, Greg Couch. And finally, we have a new Restoration Challenge, a new Manipulation Challenge, a new Photo-Art Challenge, and a new Gallery Challenge