Webshots Blog

Get excited because we’re about to unveil a brand-new Pro Shots, our professional wallpapers and screensavers section on Webshots!

We’ve been working hard to bring you a better experience for finding and enjoying the most amazing photos in the world! We’re increasing the size of the photos, so you’ll be able to see all the details before you download them. We’re creating a new search just for Pro Shots photos, and we’re making it easier for you to find related photos, too.

We’re also completely redesigning the look and feel of Pro Shots to better showcase our beautiful photos. Sleek, sophisticated and modern are just some of the words I’d use to describe it, but you’ll have to check back soon to see for yourself!

On launch day, Pro Shots will be filled with tons of new, professional photos, including our new Holiday Collection (check out last year’s) filled with brilliant photos for the season. If you’re a Premium member, you’ll be able to download every single one (in hi-res and widescreen, too)—join today so you can get your unlimited-access pass!

Let the countdown begin…

There’s something about capturing the moment of an air-bound subject that evokes a sense of joy, excitement or perhaps anxiety. For this week’s challenge, the entries included catching movement from an intriguing angle and/or fast shutter speed. Congratulations to this week’s winning entries!

#1.  Voando by anario106 - Congrats! We’ll feature your photo on the homepage tomorrow!

#2. Tailwhip by rm_blizzard

#3. How Many Jumps Do You Want? by merlin2101

#4. Polar Bear Jumping by bfryxell

#5. Jump! by mistyblu115

#6. Ben with the Cast by kiwi_ken

#7. Up, up and awaaaaayyyyy! by catsnorchids

Photo walks, a popular activity among photo-sharing communities, let us all be a part of something no matter where we are in the world. By taking a walk this weekend and sharing the pictures with us, you’re contributing to a global mural of life.

So put on your walking shoes, grab your camera and go for a walk. You’ll be surprised at the photographic opportunities that present themselves. We’d love to see all of your photos as you can submit as many as you like!

Please tag your photos with Weekend Photo Walk 104 and then post your links in the comment section. Your entries won’t be judged—this is just for the fun of it!

The Daily Pro Shots photos are now downloading to the “Daily Photos” category in the Webshots Desktop Application. We’ve fixed the issue where the photos were downloading to the other categories that they’re also a part of, such as the above photo of the kittens downloading to Kittens but not the Daily Photos.

A huge thank you goes out to our developers for fixing this, and an even bigger thank you goes out to you, our members, for letting us know!

MBA students at Case Western Reserve University are doing their final project on Webshots, and they need your help. They want to survey Webshots members to see what they think about the site, the brand and how well we respond to you.

Please take their short survey about Webshots and let them know what you really think! The students will present their findings to us and make recommendations for improvements based on your responses.

Click here to take the survey, and help out the students!

The holidays are just around the corner, so now’s the time to start making your personalized photo gifts at our new store!

Our store is powered by American Greetings PhotoWorks, our sister company, and we’re so excited to bring you one-of-a-kind designs and products created by American Greetings artists.

From now until December 1, 2009 you’ll get 25% off your entire order with coupon code SAVE25. Everything from mouse pads to holiday cards to photo books are on sale, so order today!

Photo walks, a popular activity among photo-sharing communities, let us all be a part of something no matter where we are in the world. By taking a walk this weekend and sharing the pictures with us, you’re contributing to a global mural of life.

So put on your walking shoes, grab your camera and go for a walk. You’ll be surprised at the photographic opportunities that present themselves. We’d love to see all of your photos as you can submit as many as you like!

Please tag your photos with Weekend Photo Walk 103 and then post your links in the comment section. Your entries won’t be judged—this is just for the fun of it!

Get up and get active for our next challenge! There’s something about capturing the moment of an air-bound subject that evokes a sense of joy, excitement or perhaps anxiety. For the next challenge practice catching movement from an intriguing angle and/or fast shutter speed. You may want to review some Pro Tips for help in catching your subject in action: Shutter Speed, Cropping and Burst Mode.

OFFICIAL ENTRY RULES
To officially enter the Creative Challenge, you must tag your three submissions with creative-challenge-jump. You can then view them and everyone else’s submissions on the DISPLAY PAGE (it updates about every hour). To find out more about this, read the Using Tags on Creative Challenges post.

Submission Guidelines
1. Our editors look for sharp, clear horizontal images that are at a minimum resolution of 800×600 (submissions can have larger resolutions than this). Currently, vertical images cannot fit in the homepage template. Therefore, we cannot publish vertical or narrow panoramic images.

2. Images with added text or images, including watermarks, logos, copyright symbols, graphic borders, frames and time stamps, will not be considered for first place or being featured on the homepage at a later date. Collages, however, are acceptable. Images submitted should be your own.

3. Please do not submit pictures that have already been featured on the homepage.

4. The Creative Challenge runs from 12:01 a.m. on November 11 to 12:00 p.m. on November 23 (all times EST).

5. 3 pictures per person (regardless of how many member accounts you have) tagged exactly (including hyphens) with: creative-challenge-jump

*Note:Images that don’t meet the exact guidelines can be submitted and viewed for everyone to enjoy, but please understand that we cannot publish images that don’t meet minimum guidelines on the homepage. Also, now that you’re tagging your entries, you don’t need to post links in the comments section anymore.

NEXT CHALLENGE THEME: To Be Determined
We’re sorry to say the creative challenge will be put on a temporary leave over the next couple weeks. The staff is working full-time (and then some!) on a brand new design for Pro Shots which will be going live in the next month (yay!). We’re very excited about the new site, and hope you’ll love it as much as we do .

The Challenge should be back in a matter of weeks - you may not get as much advanced notice for the next one, but I’m hopeful that we can have one for you on the 25th.

We’re happy to announce the addition of ReCaptcha on Webshots! As you know, we’ve been working on a solution for spam on the site, and several members even suggested implementing this tool, so we hope you’ll be as happy as we are to have it.

ReCaptcha is a well-known and trusted program utilized by over 100,000 websites. What does ReCaptcha mean to you?

Now, when you leave a comment on a photo, album, member message or in feedback, you’ll be asked to type in two words generated by ReCaptcha before submitting your comment.

ReCaptcha won’t stop all spam on the site, but it should help with the majority of the problem, and we’ll continue to work on the issue.

Photo walks, a popular activity among photo-sharing communities, let us all be a part of something no matter where we are in the world. By taking a walk this weekend and sharing the pictures with us, you’re contributing to a global mural of life.

So put on your walking shoes, grab your camera and go for a walk. You’ll be surprised at the photographic opportunities that present themselves. We’d love to see all of your photos as you can submit as many as you like!

Please tag your photos with Weekend Photo Walk 102 and then post your links in the comment section. Your entries won’t be judged—this is just for the fun of it!