Birthday Celebrations

Separated by 380 years, this week marks the birthdays of the original bad boy artist, Caravaggio, who among other things is credited with using an early form of photography in his groundbreaking work into Chiaroscuro, and the venerable Adobe® Photoshop® application, also capable of a little chiaroscuro, turns 20 years young. Lifehacker is celebrating with a list of favorite Photoshop tricks and tips.

Lurzer's 200 Best Illustrators Worldwide

Store 44 Illustrators Carlos Araujo and Giulio Iurissevich are both featured in Lurzer's 200 Best Illustrators Worldwide

Congratulations to our 10 contest winners who are receiving a free copy of the book: John J, Scott N, Gordon W, Nancy M, Christine O, Elisin T, Dan S, Danielle S, Britt B, and Mary B.

The Photographer: Graphic Memoir about Docs in Afghanistan

Boing Boing has a review of "The Photographer: Into war-torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders", a collaboration between photographer Didier Lefevre, graphic novelist Emmanuel Guibert, and designer Frederic Lemercier.

Animated Mural

Italian artist Blu and his crew put together this excellent stop motion video called MUTO. Captured in a series of stills, the characters in the mural move across the walls and streets of Buenos Aires. Must see not-TV, for sure. I also enjoyed his sketchbook series entitled, Four Suicides. Paperwork. It's a killer. Found on Gizmodo.

Copyright Tools

Copyright Navigator: A Digital Annotated Concept Map of the Fundamentals of U.S. Copyright Law by Professor Lionel S. Sobel is a pretty awesome interactive flowchart that lays out the fundamentals of copyright law, and how it pertains to things like enforcement and fair use.

Ready to register those works of art? The United States Copyright Office has the step by step instructions and required forms for copyright registration of various flavors, including visual arts, literary works, performance art etc..

Creative Commons has a new "Termination of Transfer" tool based on the US Copyright Act that assists artists in reclaiming copyrights given away long ago. 35 years, to be exact. via boingboing.

Here's an interesting article in The Wall Street Journal about some new tools that can scan the web for violation of copyright. Attributor and Copyscape are the key players right now.

UPDATES 5/2/08

Attributor just raised 12 million and has the support of Condé Nast.

Photoshop CS3 Beta Available

The Unofficial Apple Weblog is reporting on the availability of Photoshop CS3 Beta. Think Secret says that it could be available as early as this week. via TUAW:

UPDATE: It's here! Download Photoshop CS3 Beta