The Open Clip Art Library has seen impressive growth in 2010. Month after month, artist registrations trend higher, rich new features make their way into the interface, and the Library’s collection adds a steady stream of new and remixed clip art (now at over 35,000 unique images). October’s release is as feature-packed and content-heavy as any that have come before it, and the Librarians are proudly presenting Open Clip Art Library 2.6, backing up a brand new version of it’s web platform, Aiki Framework 0.5.

Among the many enhancements Open Clip Art Library has received through this Release, cgbug’s enhancements to user profiles are instantly gratifying. Avatars make their triumphant return, as logged in users can now associate their Community alias with their most inspired creation that has been uploaded to OCAL! Along with avatars, the “Edit Profile” section (found within each logged in user’s “Profile” tab) allows artists to adjust personal information like: email, artist name, and homepage.

The User Profile Management is a great example of Community members beginning to take an active role in Open Clip Art Library’s development. Librarians continue to advocate Community involvement with a new Community Help section (appearing on the sidebar of many pages within the site) in which the 10 most requested features on OCAL’s Launchpad appear.

Alongside these excellent new elements, a brand new Halloween-themed Clip Art Package is out! This ghoul-tastic concoction celebrates the Holiday with 158 brand new themed creations from members of our Open Clip Art Library Community (including the graphic above, by netalloy). The images are available on a per-image basis, as well as in a single compressed file.

For more on OCAL’s latest as well as details about Aiki Framework, please visit the Official Release Announcement.

This Open Clip Art Library Release Announcement is sponsored by Worldlabel.com, a multifunctional label manufacturer.

It’s a new calendar month, and that means it’s once again time for The Open Clip Art Library to continue it’s mission of regular upgrades. September 2010 sees the Release of The Open Clip Art Library 2.5. This feature-rich upgrade continues along the path of it’s predecessors, but the latest key design implementations set this release apart.

The most up-front addition to the OCAL experience is also the most powerful of the 2.5 feature set. An Activities Box has been placed front-and-center for all site visitors to make use of. This new section is a key element to increased Community contributions, as users will find up-to-date links relating to the most recent goings on in The Open Clip Art Library domain. In this way, the Activities Section serves as a platform for Community projects and Contests to grow and prosper like never before!

In the weeks since it’s implementation, the statistics, alone, provide an exhibit A of sorts. Site registration is up 1,100 over the month prior, while last month also saw over 1,100 new image uploads (bringing the total to an unbelievable 34,160 – as of this writing).

One in every ten new clip art uploads went into this month’s coinciding clip art package, making this Fall 2010 Collection the most successful and content-heavy Package to date! All 120+ Community-created images can be downloaded in a single Zip. Users are also free to browse each themed collection, via their individual pages. Looking ahead, October will see the next Holiday Release, as Halloween 2010 takes over The Library. To be included in the package, artists will have until October 3 2010 to upload related work and tag it appropriately (using the key term halloween2010).

Keeping pace with OCAL, Bassel Safadi’s Aiki Framework updates to Version 0.4! This latest release includes features-a-plenty and several key bug fixes involving the SQL in the admin panel. The latest stable build can be acquired via the project official press release.

This Open Clip Art Library Release Announcement is sponsored by Worldlabel.com, a multifunctional label manufacturer.

The Open Clip Art Library has spent much of 2010 actively pursuing higher ground and greater methods of user contribution, beginning with the March Release of Version 2.0. Since that landmark release, the OCAL team has been on a regular iteration schedule, geared toward simplifying the user experience and fixing bugs.

More recent openclipart.org releases have begun adding incentives for content creation, in the form of themed package releases. To date, said releases have resulted in a wide array of content that forms a spectrum of seasonal work.

For the next release, scheduled on August 2nd, the Librarians are changing things up a bit, by calling for Sports-themed content from the Community. These new works will be included in the coming release and featured, as the latest downloadable package. Artists wishing to step up to the plate and contribute their original works are encouraged to register (if not already a member) and upload the SVG(s), tagging them with the keyword “sports2010“. Deadline for user submissions is Sunday, August 1st.

This Open Clip Art Library Package Announcement is sponsored by Worldlabel.com, a multifunctional label manufacturer.

The Open Clip Art Library enjoys yet another of it’s scheduled monthly updates, with revision 2.3. With over 32,000 vector graphics currently calling it home, OCAL has grown into one of the largest and most prevalent sources for freely available graphics on the web. Version 2.3 aims to begin building on this solid foundation, by increasing user interaction and content submissions.

The Spring 2010 Clip Art Package brought together a diverse group of artists and pointed them in a similar thematic direction. Over 11,900 individual downloads have proven the themed package format an effective way of presenting similarly-grouped work to the Community. As in the June Release, Open Clip Art 2.3 brings along with it, a compact, user-generated, themed package of clipart.

Familiar ground is tread, in the latest Themed Package Release, as Community artists, like laobc, rg1024, and pianoBrad have focused their attentions on the Summer Season. Summer2010 is packed with useful scenery elements, like rg1024′s beach ball (below),

along with the abstract, seasonal imagery of laobc’s “Sunshine in the Country” (the header for this article).

Any wishing to utilize this smoldering collection can do so individually (by searching for the key term or tag “summer2010″) or by downloading the entire package.

Also continuing this month is a logo design contest, initiated by the organizers of the Free Culture Research Conference. Artists still planning on submitting an entry should mark this Friday (July 9th) as the deadline for that submission. Three more judges, Jonathan Zittrain, Leonhard Dobusch, and Michelle Thorne, have been added to the esteemed panel that will judge and announce the winner on July 11.

For more information on all things related to this Summer 2010 Release, have a look at the official press release.

This Open Clip Art Library Release Announcement is sponsored by Worldlabel.com, a multifunctional label manufacturer.

This release is unique to previous iterations, as members of the OCAL Community have begun contributing to a new Themed Clip Art Package. Each subsequent Open Clip Art Library Release will now include a batch of unique work, created by some of the Community’s amazing graphic artists!

This month’s package called for Spring flavored clip art, and our Community answered with some dynamic and elegant work that can be downloaded in it’s entirety or individually, using the key term spring2010.

As always, The Open Clip Art Library is reaching for higher ground with a new release targeted in one month. Any artists interested in contributing to a summer package release should register and upload their work tagged with “summer2010.” The Librarians send out a special thanks to all involved in this incredible Spring 2010 Release and look forward to the fun and creative new work underway for the next one!

For more information, please have a look at the official press release.

Clip Art of the month is sponsored by Worldlabel.com, a multifunctional label manufacturer.

The Open Clip Art Library grew from a project between Jon Phillips (of Fabricatorz) and Bryce Harrington, in early 2004. From humble beginnings, it has evolved into a massive collection of over 24,000 scalable vector images, all created by 1200+ artists from around the world.

The Open Clip Art Library is an increasingly useful and powerful platform, through which, all work uploaded to the site is dedicated to the public through Creative Commons’ “Public Domain Dedicated”. Anyone can download and use the entire SVG library for any purpose, including both free and commercial works!

OCAL now boasts an easily navigable collection, made possible by new thumbnail previews. It has now become much easier to search and download clip art that suits any situation. The new site layout includes an updated theme, from Andy Fitzsimon, that emphasizes user interaction by placing more importance on the portal to upload created work, as well as displaying selections from the ever-growing collection.

Behind the scenes, members of Fabricatorz, including, among others, Bassel Safadi, Michi, Ronaldo Barbachano, and Brad Phillips, have helped push The Open Clip Art Library onto the Aiki Framework. This new PHP + MYSQL platform allows programmers to easily create and work with content management systems from the web.

Please help support the new Open Clip Art site launch by registering (if you haven’t already) and uploading artwork of your own!.

Read the entire Announcement 2.0 here and at the Fabricatorz post.

Clip Art of the Month for February 2010 will focus on Content regulation.

Whether one stands in favor of Apple’s products or against them, it’s impossible to deny Jobs and Company’s impact on our technological lives. Last week saw the unveiling of what Apple believes will become a “third category” of mobile computing: the iPad. The iPad aims at simplifying the user’s computing experience by merging elements of Apple’s existing laptop and phone releases.

In the new millennium, computing platforms have trended toward more open source solutions. While it may offer the end user a more simple and streamlined experience, the iPad also seems to assert Apple’s intention to focus on technology as a controlled gateway for proprietary consumption.

Images by Frector, adam_lowe, Minduka, flomar, and Tranberry (all above) demonstrate Apple’s influence on modern design and why it cannot be ignored. The reception of their latest product has been decidedly mixed. How will the introduction of the iPad affect the Open Clip Art Community? What ramifications might this have as open source computing progresses? Time will tell. In the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts and continue supporting Open Clip Art Library by using and contributing vector artwork.

Clip Art of the month is sponsored by Worldlabel.com, a multifunctional label manufacturer.

Going back through 2009 submissions will provide a point of reference as we search for these answers.

When used effectively, gradients can add new dimensions to vector-based imagery. The landscape designed by hrum (pictured above) combines multiple gradient layers into an effective piece of art.

Photorealistic techniques became very popular design choices for the Clip Art Community in 2009, and Chrisdesign provided an excellent example with his longsword.

Near the end of the year, placidoaps merged traditional vector graphic lines with tactical uses of gradients to give his rendering of a penguin both character and depth.

The Open Clip Art Library accepts vector art from anyone, anywhere, so help make visual landmarks in 2010 by contributing! Check out other 2009 works by Simanek and klaasvangend to get inspired.

Clip Art of the month is sponsored by Worldlabel.com, a multifunctional label manufacturer.

When you open a photo using the Open button, Fotoxx automatically sets the folder in which the photo is stored as the working directory. You can then use the Previous and Next buttons to open other photos in the directory. The Index button opens a simple photo browser that you can use to view your photo collection as thumbnails and browse it using the available navigation buttons.

The main toolbar provides quick access to Fotoxx’s image editing features. The Tags menu, for example, contains commands that let you assign one or several tags to the currently viewed photo (the Edit Tags command) and search photos by their tags (the Search Tags command). The Basic EXIF Data and All EXIF Data commands allow you to view useful photographic data stored in the photo, including camera model, exposure, ISO value, shutter speed, etc.

The Retouch menu offers commands that can help you to tweak your photos. The Red Eyes command lets you quickly fix the red eyes problem that often occurs on portrait photos, while the Brightness/Color command can be used to adjust brightness and color settings. The latter command combines several functions in one dialog window, and you can use it to tweak color balance, saturation, and brightness. Better yet, you can adjust these and other parameters only for specific parts of the photo by either adjusting the curve with the mouse or using the preset buttons. All adjustments are applied to the photo in real time, so you can immediately see the results of your tweaking. Of course, you can always undo the changes or reset the sliders by using the appropriate buttons.

Fotoxx also includes tools essential for basic photo editing, including Trim (Size -> Trim) for cropping photos, Rotate (Size -> Rotate) for rotating photos, Sharpen (Sharp -> Sharpen Image) and Reduce Noise (Sharp -> Reduce Noise) for improving image quality. None of these tools are particularly sophisticated, but they get the job done with a minimum of effort. The only niggle here is that the Trim tool lacks a cropping with aspect ratio, which would have been useful for quickly cropping photos to fit a specific photo paper size.

Fotoxx also includes the Unbend Image tool (Bend -> Unbend Image) which can come in handy to adjust perspective on the photos — a problem that often occurs on pictures of tall buildings. But the crown jewels of Fotoxx’s tool set is the HDR and Panorama features. The former is a sort of poor man’s HDR tool that allows you to combine two photos with different exposures into a single image with improved visibility of detail in both the darker and brighter areas . The entire process of creating an HDR image is fully automated: select the directory containing source images, and Fotoxx takes care of the rest. Usually, the application does a pretty good job of combining the images, but it also gives you a chance to tweak the final result by adjusting the brightness settings.

The Panorama feature makes Fotoxx a decent tool for stitching multiple images into a panorama. But before you can make use of this feature, you have to adjust two parameters: lens_mm (focal length) and lens_bow (barrel or pincushion distortion). You can do this either manually or let Fotoxx try to guess the optimal values. No matter which way you choose to go, make sure you read Fotoxx’s manual that provides a detailed description of how this can be done. The good news is that you have to set the lens parameters only once. After that, creating panoramas couldn’t be easier. Select the two images you want to stitch together, and use the mouse to align them. Press the Proceed button, and Fotoxx stitches the images. Add other images and repeat the procedure.

Fotoxx is like a pocket knife: it won’t replace your ordinary tool box, but it can be an indispensable tool for quick fixes here and now. Even if you find the basic editing tools in Fotoxx a bit limited for your taste, the Panorama tool alone makes it a good addition to your digital photography tool box.

By Dmitri Popov