Facebook Meets LinkedIn for Digital Artists

Visual artists have been subjected to the digital run-around, jumping between Freelancer.com,  iStockphoto.com and half a dozen other sites to meet all their communication and marketing needs. But a new social networking platform, Filter Foundry, has set out to become a one-stop digital shop for creative professionals of every stripe.

Filter Foundry, which launched a beta site at DEMO in September, helps tie together content and ideas from the worlds of gaming, advertising, entertainment, photography and dozens of other visual industries. Users can create online portfolios of their creative work, attend prerecorded or real-time “studio sessions” to learn about the latest digital tools, search for work and hire others, all while keeping up on the latest in the digital-visuals world.

What’s more, each user has a wall that can be used as a digital light box. They can review a variety of images simultaneously or create a public gallery for potential buyers to peruse.

Currently, Filter Foundry has more than 10 million photos, videos and illustrations available to be licensed as stock assets on websites or within printed materials. Membership is free, but premium features are available for paid subscriptions, which begin at $9.95 per month for 10 GB of storage.

Initial site users include illustrator Harald Belker, who has worked on films including Transformers, Spider-Man and Armageddon, and design firm Astro Studio , which has done work for Apple, Yahoo! and Microsoft.

Filter Foundry is the first site to be introduced by Filter Platforms, a Los Angeles-based developer of social marketplaces for professionals. The company plans to create similar platforms for other industries too.