Recently I had the opportunity to try the Silver Efex Pro plugin for Photoshop. I first heard about it on the TWIP photography podcast when Scott Bourne stated that it had a dramatic impact on his photography.

My experience with the plugin was similar. It really changed the way my black and white photos turned out. While you can certainly convert images to black and white using Photoshop, the control points in Silver Efex allow you much more control over how and where you make your changes.

I decided to try project 365 once again. This photography project involves taking at least one photo each day for an entire year. I gave it a try two years ago but didn’t quite take all 365. Still, I learned a lot from that experience and have decided to give it another try. This time I have a number of friends that are involved so that will make it a little easier. You can see my photos here.

Check out this unique art form - using only garbage bags and tape this artist creates animated animals that come alive when attached to subway grates.

If you want a quick and easy way to temporarily share files, drop.io is the answer. I’ve recommended drop.io to a number of people because it is so easy to get started. Just name the drop and it’s ready to start using. You can drop (add) files by phone, email, web, widget or fax and then share them with whoever you want via a variety of outputs. This is also a great way to share photos and videos, although you may want to upgrade the drop since the free version is limited to 100mb. From a designers viewpoint, I also like the clean, uncluttered interface to the site. There is much more to drop.io than just file sharing though. You can add voice messages by phone, send and receive faxes, receive email/sms alerts when the drop is changed and even assign a physical address to the drop for location specific content.

Animoto.com is a web application that creates MTV-style videos with the click of a button.

Users simply choose a song and images. Animoto then automatically generates a unique video for them. No two videos are ever the same.

Many of the post-production techniques that the founders used while working as producers for MTV, Comedy Central & ABC are used in Animoto’s patent-pending Cinematic Artificial Intelligence developed to think like an actual editor and director. The resulting video is produced in a widescreen format, containing the visual energy of a music video and the emotional impact of a movie trailer.

Here’s a sample video that I put together with a few of my photos.

Then with a click of a button I did this remix.

Very addictive and fun!