PhotoZoom Pro 2 now available

BenVista have released PhotoZoom Pro 2.2 for both Windows and Mac OS X. Benvista have added improvements and additional features to PhotoZoom Pro 2, which was originally released in August 2006. PhotoZoom Pro 2.2 uses the S-Spline XL resizing technique, which is unique to the PhotoZoom software range. Having used previous versions of this software I can attest to its usefulness and capabilities.

PhotoZoom Pro 2 comes as both a standalone application and as an export plugin for Adobe Photoshop. The plugin version is compatible with Photoshop CS3 and both it and the standalone version are Universal Binaries for Mac OS X.

PhotoZoom Pro 2.2 can be downloaded directly from Benvista, it is also available as a free update for registered PhotoZoom Pro 2 users.

Image Stack Feature WOW...

Photoshop Extended, looks to be a pretty cool tool ... John Nack and Martin Evening have come up with a cool video which demonstrates how to use the feature to remove undesired people from scenes using a series of images and the3 new image stach feature. I was impressed, extremely so... visit here for the movie and here for the full article... thanks for this one to prodig.

Adobe Photoshop CS3

Adobe announced their new CS3 configurations. Adobe Photoshop CS3 will ship in two versions and included many new features. The new "Extended" version has all of the features of the standard version of Photoshop CS3, but also features capabilities for 3-D, motion graphics, image measurement and analysis. Both editions are available as stand-alone applications or as part of the Creative Suite 3 Production bundles.Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended will begin shipping in April 2007 for estimated prices of $649 and $999, respectively.

Outback Print Launched

DOP (Digital Outback Photo) have launched a new site called Outback Print. In their own words...

Like many photographers we do all the work to get a good print. The new site will be able to focus more and in depth on the complex subject of printing.

We also invite all readers to help us with useful information to make this site a central place on Fine Art Printing for Photographers. There is a lot to learn and many techniques to share. Let's go to work!

If DOP is anything to go by, it should be another must visit web site for serious photographers and artists.

Perceptual and Real Colour

I just wanted to say a big thank you to DOP who pointed out an excellent post by Howard Grill. The post, which is titled "What is Real?" talks about the way we perceive colour. Howard discusses an onsite workshop given by Alain Briot and Uwe and Bettina Steinmueller at Antelope Canyon. I won't go into any more detail, it's worth a read.

Digital Outback Photo Post Zion Portfolio

DOP have posted a portfolio of photographs taken with a Canon EOS 5D and 1Ds MKII. Zion is one of my favourite places in the world and it is certainly one of the most beautiful, and as the subject matter of this portfolio, it's definitely worth popping over to check out the photos. The images in the gallery were processed using a combination of Lightroom, LightZone, Photoshop and several plug-ins.

Lightroom Review At Digital Camera Review

Ben Stafford has posted a brief review of Lightroom over at Digital Camera Review. The review echoes what many photographers and other professional users are saying. I just received a copy on the 20th, and am looking forward to fully putting it through it's paces. I'm impressed so far with whay I've seen, look for a review soon.

Andromeda Offering Discounts

Long time Photoshop Plug-in manufacturers, andromeda are offering discounts on their Plug-ins bundles for Photoshop. Pop on over to Andromeda to find out more about their offers and to sign up to their newsletter. I'm hoping to see some updates to their excellent software suites.

Lightzone Discounted For Lightroom, Aperture & iPhoto Users

The title just about says it all, Lightcrafts have decided to discount their cool photo editing system for users of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, and Apples Aperture and iPhoto Software. LightZone Basic and LightZone 2.0 can be downloaded at LightCrafts.com. LightZone Basic is available at an introductory price of $99.95 for Lightroom and Aperture users until June 30, 2007. LightZone 2.0 is offered at $249.95.

Camera Bits Announces Photo Mechanic™ 4.5 Update

Version 4.5 of Photo Mechanic, has enhanced support for IPTC Data. A user can choose to encode IPTC characters as either Unicode (UTF-8), or with a specific character encoding (e.g. Mac Cyrillic) depending on their preferences or their location.

According to the their press release, the new features in Photo Mechanic 4.5 include:

New resizable IPTC/XMP dialogs that also include additional IPTC and XMP fields such as Location, Scene, Subject Code, Intellectual Genre, Rights Usage, and Contact Info fields.

Ability to arrange photos in an arbitrary order, including across multiple folders.

A five star rating system, compatible with other applications such as Adobe Bridge, in addition to the existing color class labels. Plus a Remap command to convert color class labels to star ratings or vice-versa.

A new Live Slide Show command to watch a folder for incoming photos and display these in a slide show.

Optional sharpening of thumbnails and previews within Photo Mechanic and for JPEGs exported with HTML.

A new Show Map command to plot a photo with embedded GPS coordinates in a window using Google maps. *

Customizable multi-line thumbnail labels.

Tabbed contact sheet windows with the ability to move tabs within a window or to other windows (Mac only; the Windows version already has a single tabbed window).
A new tool for converting IPTC metadata between various character encodings (e.g. from Mac Roman to Microsoft Latin1+Euro) or to Unicode (UTF-8).

A new Ingest Progress window that combines all active ingest processes.

Preliminary support for Microsoft Windows Vista.

Version 4.5 of Photo Mechanic is available as a free update for users who purchased licenses for Photo Mechanic on or after March 1, 2006 (or March 1, 2005 for educational licenses). Upgrades to Version 4.5 from older 4.x licenses will cost US$90. New licenses for Photo Mechanic cost US$150. For more info visit www.camerabits.com.

DOP Article On Getting Highlights and Shadows Right

DOP have published an excellent essay by George Barr on a technique for maximising detail in the highlights and shadows of your images. It works well with images that appear to have blown out areas. Visit outbackphoto to view the essay, you wont regret it.

New Releases From Lightroom and Photomatix

Lightcrafts have released Lightzone Version 2.3, which centres on integration with Lightroom, Aperture and iPhoto. One of the best new features is the new black and white tool which has a number of enhancements over the old tool and also retains luminosity values independant of any filters used. I'm not certain how this works but I'll look into it for more clarification. For more info visit lightcrafts.com

Photomatix have released Version 2.4 of their HDRI Pro tool. Form more info visit http://www.hdrsoft.com/ ... The update includes a numbers of improvements and bug fixes.

Post PMA Camera Reviews

Although the period during PMA and Focus on Imaging 2007, was rich with new product releases. In-depth reviews have only just started to appear for a majority of the models announced. Some of the reviews look very interesting, However I'm still waiting to see an in-depth review of the new Sigma and Canon models.

Around The Web - March 2007

It has been another quiet day in digital imaging land, However instead of trying to find news I figured I'd share some more of my favourite photo amd imaging based websites.

The Online Photographer - An excellent, well written and informative blog on the art, craft and science of photography. One of the best in the world.

Night Photography Blog - From Andy Frazer, it is one of the best sites specialising in nocturnal and low light photography. Some interesting and informative articles.

Lightroom Killer Tips - a Blog from the NAPP and Adobe promoting education and information on the excellent RAW Image and Photography Workflow application from Adobe.

OS X 10.4.9 Update Adds New RAW Support To Aperture.

Apple have included a slew of improvements and additions to OS-X which adds the following support to Aperture:

Adds support for the RAW image formats of these third-party cameras: Leaf Aptus 17, Leaf Aptus 22, Leaf Aptus 65, Leaf Aptus 75, Leaf Valeo 11, Leaf Valeo 17, Leaf Valeo 22, Leica Digilux 3, Nikon D40, Pentax K10D, Pentax K110D, Pentax K100D, Panasonic Lumix DMC-L1, Samsung GX-1L.
Improved Spot & Patch results: The update contains changes to Core Image that improve the visual correctness of images using Spot & Patch adjustment.
Reduces issues of temporary "black" Viewer: Mac OS X 10.4.9 addresses several issues that could cause the Viewer to temporarily turn black when displaying adjusted images.
GPS metadata is preserved when image versions are exported.
Incorporates all RAW file format compatibility and other imaging issues originally addressed in Digital Camera RAW Support Update 1.0.1. This update improved RAW file format compatibility for the Canon Digital Rebel XTi / 400D / Kiss X Digital, Nikon D80, and Pentax *ist DS. It also addressed the following issues: Handling of large Canon RAW files (.CRW); DNG compatibility on Intel-based Macs; Lines sometimes appearing in images exported from Aperture.

Visit Apple for more information, the Mac OS X 10.4.9 update is available via the operating system's Software Update mechanism, or as standalone updaters for Intel and PowerPC computers.

Printing Photos On Chocolate

Imaging Resources Dave Etchells reported on a technology demonstrated at PMA which facilitates the printing of photos on chocolate and candy. The idea isn't new, but chocolography have perfected the process, which uses FDA approved food dyes. As novel an idea as this is, I've personally been involved in far more interesting technologies involving chocolate and candies, namely Holography. Back in 1995, I was involved in a company in Toronto which was involved in creating holographic images on Chocolate... Yes, Hologram carrying chocolates. Cool or what?

DxO Optics Announce Standalone FilmPack

DxO announced a stand-alone version 1.1 of FilmPack at PMA 2007. This software adjusts digital images to match images shot on certain kinds of film. DxO ensured that FilmPack performs exact transformations based on specific cameras. I'm going to give it a try, I'm wondering if their using something like colormetric based remapping... Pop on over to DxO and try it out.

ArcSoft Release Cut-It-Out

ArcSoft released their Cut-It-Out Photoshop Plug-in for Creating Selection Masks. Cut-It-Out is a new plug-in that allows users to remove objects in digital photos from their backgrounds, creating a mask. The plug-in, is easy to use, fast and also very accurate. Cut-It-Out is avaialble for US$99.99, visit ArcSoft for more information.

ACDSee Pro 2.0 Open Beta

ACD Systems have announced their intention to release an open beta of ACDSee Pro 2.0. The beta of version 2 is promising; improved handling of RAW files, batch processing, and much, much more.

PMA 2007 Show Picks

The PMA 2007 show has proved to be an interesting event in that it really didn't seem to break many major milestones. However there were a few gems on show.

On the Hardware front, we saw a New D-SLR from Canon - the 1D MKIII, which features exceptionally fast shooting speeds, an immense image buffer, a Live View LCD, the EOS Integrated Cleaning System, a lens magnification factor of 1.3x and other features a photojournalist would kill for. Pentax Showed a 645 based D-SLR which would make most studio photographers salivate, but provided no firm date on delivery. Sigma showed their new Foveon chip based SD14 DSLR, another technology worth further investigation, equally interesting was the DP1 point and shoot they showed, which features the same sensor as the SD14. Canon also introduced the 9500, and A3 printer with 10 pigmented inks and another 24" printer with 12 pigmented inks.

On the Software front, Adobe showed the release version of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, which is winning fans all over the place with its designed for photographers workflow capabilities. Adobe also announced that there will be two versions of Photoshop CS3, one for existing users and an enhanced version for scientific and advanced imaging applications.

All told, it appears that there were some new products that were well worth the trip to Vegas ... maybe next year, I'll actually attend.

Better Light Introduce 416 MP Digital Back

BetterLight have demonstrated the 416-megapixel Super10K-HS model at PMA in Las Vegas. The Super10K-HS is not so much a digital camera, but more of a "scanning back" that work with large-format cameras and lenses. The Capture devices are seen as being aimed at recording paintings and other intricate and highly detailed stationary artworks. The recording of anything at the full resolution of 416-megapixel resolution takes upwards of two minutes meaning that the camera is only suited for controlled and vibration free environments. The 10,200 x 13,600 pixel result will provide a finished image size of around 794MB. At a starting price of $22,995, I'm surprised it's so low. No doubt this price doesn't include the camera body, glass and vibration free platform.

Sigma Announce DP1 Full Spec Compact

The DP1 has the same 14 megapixel FOVEON X3, APS-C sized image sensor which is used in their SD14 DSLR. It also has hot-shoe for attaching a dedicated external flash and new external viewfinder. It also has a 2.5-inch, 230k pixel resolution LCD monitor, CF slot, and is described by Sigma, as the "world's first full-spec compact.." If it perform like other foveon based cameras, I just might consider this as a replacement for my point and shoot Canon IXUS 750.

Microsoft Set To Release HDPhoto Plug-in For Photoshop

Microsoft announced that they are releasing plug-ins for Photoshop that add support for the company's new and intriguing image file format, HD Photo. The plug-ins will be available for both Windows and Mac versions of Photoshop CS2 and CS3 and will initially released in beta form, with a final release due sometime in May. The HD Photo plug-ins will be available free of charge. HD Photo support is already included as part of Windows Vista. According to Microsoft:

HD Photo supports a wide range of features including:
Multiple color formats for display or print
Fixed or floating point high-dynamic-range image encoding
Lossless or high-quality lossy compression
Efficient decoding for multiple resolutions and subregions
Minimal overhead for format conversion or transformations during decode

HD Photo delivers a lightweight, high performance algorithm with a small
memory footprint that enables practical, in-device encoding and decoding. It
delivers compression quality comparable with JPEG-2000 and more than twice the
quality of JPEG.

Worth a look at least, but what it will offer beyond other high spec file formats, remains to be seen.

Adobe Announce New Versions of Photoshop

Adobe announced that it will expand its digital imaging product line, offering two editions of Adobe® Photoshop® CS3. Photoshop CS3 will be available in a version for designers, imageers and professional photographers. Adobe will also offer Photoshop CS3 Extended, a new edition of Photoshop which has everything in Photoshop CS3 plus additional capabilities for integration of 3-D and motion graphics, image measurement and analysis. Photoshop CS3 Extended is also intended to simplify the workflow for professionals in architecture, engineering, medical applications and science. For more information visit this page at Adobe.

PMA 2007 Underway

The 2007 Photo Marketing Association Show is underway in Las Vegas. Coverage of PMA can be found at the following sites among others. It lookis like another interesting year ahead with news from Leica, Canon, Adobe and many others... Enjoy.
Digital Outback Photo PMA 2007 Show report
DP-Now Live from Las Vegas
dpreview's PMA 2007 Live Report
imaging-resource's PMA 2007 Coverage
The LetsGoDigital PMA 2007 Show report
PMA 2007 report at the Luminous Landscape
PhotographyBLOG PMA 2007 Show News
Steve's Digicams PMA 2007 Show report

Tenbuno Monitor To Debut In May

The Tenbuno 1280×1024, 19" LCD monitor is unique in that it also features a secondary 8.4" LCD panel which is hinged at the top of the larger display. The smaller display features a maximum resolution of 800 x 600. I know that having a second monitor is useful and here is a configuration that could work well for imaging tools. As the display also rotates, it might work well in portrait mode too.

Myself, I'd also use it to watch Digital TV and Movies, or maybe even to hold my instant messenger chat windows. They should call it the Double Decker when it finally arrives in the UK...

Nikon Cancels The Release Of Their Recently Announced View Pro Software

Nikon decided to cancel the release of their high-speed image management and browsing software, Nikon View Pro.

Despite our preparations to release the software on schedule, the environment
surrounding image handling is undergoing major changes. We decided to suspend
the release based on our judgment that the new software’s performance would not
be optimal for the new environment. We are currently developing a new generation
of image management and browsing software for download from our website, and
plan to begin offering this before the end of 2007.

I look forward to seeing what Nikon Come up with...

LightZone 2.2.1 released

Light Crafts have released Version 2.2.1 of their LightZone image editing and RAW conversion software for Mac and Windows. This latest version fixes a bug that prevents the saving or exporting of images to disks other than the system/boot disk.

Image Trends Announces DustKleen & SensorKleen

Image Trends, announce two new software products for removing and cleaning dust and artifacts off scanned and digital images. DustKleen, is an automatic dust removal program with manual controls for images scanned from film and prints. SensorKleen is a semi-automatic SmartBrush™ which removes artifacts created by dust and debris on images captured with DSLR's. For more information visit Image Trends Inc..

Pixmantec RawShooter Migration Tool

Adobe have posted that they are to release the Pixmantec RawShooter Migration Tool sometime today (5th March 2007). On this page Adobe have posted;

Please note that the first step in transferring your RSP settings to
Lightroom-compatible XMP settings is to import those images into Lightroom at
their current location. Lightroom will then generate XMP files that the settings
migration tool will update.

They've updated the page indicating that the migration tool has been delayed to ensure quality standards. A new release date should be be posted by March 9th.

Adobe to Unveil CS3 on March 27th

Adobe revealed on their CS PR Blog, that they will be announced on March 27th at an event in New York. The event will be webcast live at 3:30pm ET. Adobe will reveal the feature set and suite configurations. This will, according to Adobe, be the largest software release in Adobe's 25 year history.

AKVIS Retoucher v.2.5

AKVIS LLC have announced the release of their AKVIS Retoucher plug-in v.2.5 for Windows and Macintosh. version 2.5 includes compatibility with Windows Vista, a new installation and activation method on Macintosh. The upgrade is free for registered users. For more information on Retoucher and all their products, visit Akvis.

The 123 of Digital Imaging 4.0

Vincent Bockaert announced a new version of the excellent 'The 123 of digital imaging Interactive Learning Suite'. This e-reference is a must have for all digital photographers. goes This new version features a new UI and also covers Adobe Photoshop Album 2, Photoshop Elements 2, 3, 4 & 5, Photoshop 7, CS, CS2 as well as Nikon Capture 4.4 & NX 1.1. With the download version available for US$44.87 and a CD-Rom version for US$49.99 it's well worth addding to your library. Visit 123di.com for more information.

Kata UK Appointed UK Distributor Of Visible Dust

Kata UK have officially been appointed the UK distributor of Visible Dust. Visible Dust is a two part digital camera sensor cleaning system. The first part, the Artic Butterfly, removes dry debris from sensors, which will be the case on about 90% of cases. The second part is a swab system, which is coupled with safe, non-flammable, non-alcohol based cleaning agents.

For more information visit http://www.visibledust.com/ - VisibleDust, Inc is a Canadian Biotech company which offers the most extensive DSLR Sensor Cleaning line on the market.

As well as handling Kata's own line of camera bags and accessories, Kata UK also handle the product lines from Gitzo and Camera Armour.

Online Version Of Photoshop

Adobe is planning to release a web-based version of its popular Photoshop image-editing application within the next six months. Adobe’s CEO, Bruce Chizen, indicated in an interview with CNET, that the web-based Photoshop service is set to be free and marketed as an entry-level version their more sophisticated image-editing tools. Revenue from the Photoshop service will most likely be derived from online advertising.

PMA 2007 coverage

Looks like things are Hotting up for PMA 2007. Several Sites have launched their PMA show coverage pages. Check out their links, closer to the date of the show, which runs from March 8-11, at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
dpreview's PMA 2007 Coverage
imaging-resource's PMA 2007 Coverage
The LetsGoDigital PMA 2007 Show report
Steve's Digicams PMA 2007 Coverage