It’s Yuletide Pimpy Thursday

Hi everybody. Brad’s on vacation, but why let that spoil a piping fresh bowl of pimpy Thursday? Here’s what happening here right before the holidays:

> Photoshop World instructor, and author of the hit Photoshop book “Welcome to Oz” (which Shutterbug had chosen as it’s book of the year)  Vincent Versace has just released, “Welcome to Oz 2: A Cinematic Approach to Digital Still Photography with Photoshop CS5.” The book comes with $250 worth of software (Focalpoint 2.0 FULL version and three NiK Software Plugins, also with the complete collection of Vincent’s own presets for the Wacom Cintiq (current and last gen) and all Intuos tablets for both left hand and right hand as well as for Mac and Windows.

> My buddy Jeff Revell over at PhotoWalkPro.com posted his “Last Minute Holiday Gift Guide” (in PDF format) and you can check out his “all under $100 gift guide” right here. By the way: Jeff told me about one item on his list—replacement lens hoods made of rubber that hold up like the Mamiya lens hood I bought for my 70-200mm, but for a fraction of the price. That was worth it for me right there.

> We taped our Annual Holiday Gear Guide episode of Photoshop User TV today, and we’ve got some really cool stuff this year, including a Polaroid-like Fuji camera for $70 that makes instant prints, to a toaster-like device for backing up your images, to the best iPad stand ever. The episode (Episode #250) should go live later today (or tomorrow if things get squirrely) over at this link. We also included a bunch of Photoshop tips in between, because…well…we’re the Photoshop Guys!

> Over 1,000 Photoshop users joined the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) during our live NAPP-a-Thon last week, and if you didn’t sign up then, we’d still absolutely love to have you join up as a member today. It’s only $99 per year, and your membership includes a subscription to the newly expanded Photoshop User magazine (bigger and better than ever, and now you get 10 issues a year, instead of just eight). Here’s the link to join the more than 70,000 other Photoshop users, just like you, around the world. (Hey, this makes an awesome Christmas gift, but what else did you expect me to say on Pimpy Thursday, eh?).

> I just heard from John Paul Caponigro that over $2500 worth of prizes will be awarded tomorrow in the South Africa Photo Safari Sweepstakes. Here’s the Web site with all the details, and you can find out more about the workshops on John Paul’s site (here’s that link).

That’s it for this Yuletide Pimpy Thursday. Hope you have a great day (and hope you’re enjoying your vacation, Braddo), and we’ll see you here tomorrow for Pimpyless Friday.