Friday, October 30, 2009

The Brtish Heart Foundation has just launched its first annual digital photography competition. “The theme is Red for Heart and the winning images will be showcased as part of our annual campaign, National Heart Month, in February,” says National Campaigns Executive Julia Scodie. “The competition is open to all ages and there are some fantastic prizes to be won, including the opportunity to shadow a Getty Photographer for the winner of the Student category.” There will also be an exhibition of the finalists as part of the National Heart Month launch outside the London Eye, and a selection of the winners also be published in the Independent on Sunday Newspaper. To find out more head to the website below.

Website: Red for Heart Photography Competition

Moblog and The Leeds Guide have announced a photography competition,and are inviting people to submit their favourite images of Leeds to their blog. The competition is running until December the 2nd and The Leeds Guide will be printing selected images over the next few weeks until then. An overall winner will be chosen in December who will win a Polaroid PoGo (pictured), a 6-month subscription to the magazine and a Moblog T-shirt. To learn more, and to enter your images in the competition, visit the website below.

Website: The Leeds Guide

Akvis Software has released Noise Buster 7.0 for Windows and Macintosh. Akvis Noise Buster reduces both luminance and colour noise in digital images without blurring the edges of objects. Soe of the improvements in the newest version of the program include a redesigned interface, support for 64-bit files, compatiblity with Adobe Photoshop Elements 8, Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6, more intuitive working with the Preview Window and the Before/After tabs, and more. Akvis Noise Buster sells for $49. Registered users can upgrade the software for free.

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As we wrote earlier this week, Jessops.com is celebrating its 10-year anniversary with a series of special offers - here are their weekend deals. Today, you can make a saving of £75 off the Camlink Spotting Scope, or a more modest £20 off the Nikon Coolpix P90 digital superzoom camera, plus you can design your very own mug with your favourite image for half price. On Saturday you can pick up the Camlink TPPRO24A Pro Tripod for just £40, down from £70 when you order yours online, or buy a Nikon D3000 kit at a £30 discount. On Sunday, Jessops.com visitors can get the Fuji J30 for £99 instead of £129, or the Jessops 8-inch digital photo frame for £49 instead of £99. Finally you can upload your favourite image onto a professionally finished canvas for half the price when you order yours online this Sunday.

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Online photo service Snapfish by HP today announced it is partnering with Walmart and Duane Reade, the “uniquely New York” drug store chain. The partnership makes Snapfish the largest print-to-store web destination in the USA. Customers can now pick up “lab-quality” photo prints or photo cards ordered on Snapfish.com in one hour from any of the 3,350 participating Walmart stores - and beginning 14 November,Snapfish customers also will be able to pick up prints from any of the 200 Duane Reade locations in the greater New York City area.

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Epson today announced four new fine art papers, including Hot Press Bright, Hot Press Natural, Cold Press Bright and Cold Press Natural. All of the new fine art inkjet papers are optimised for use with Epson UltraChrome ink technology. Hot Press Natural is a 330gsm paper that provides a smooth surface, whereas Cold Press Natural is a 340gsm product offering a textured surface. Both feature a warm white point that will produce a museum grade finish. Hot Press Bright and Cold Press Bright papers offer a bright white point. The papers will become available in a wide range of sizes through Epson resellers in November. Cut sheets (A3+ and A2) will be available at launch, with rolls available early 2010.

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Kodak have reported grim third-quarter 2009 results, including a 35% revenue drop at its Consumer Digital Imaging Group.. The group’s third-quarter sales totalled a mere $535 million, leading to a $89 million loss for the quarter, compared with a profit of $24 million a year ago. The year-over-year variance was driven by lower intellectual property licensing royalties of $157 million. Excluding the impact of intellectual property royalties, segment earnings improved. This was driven by improved profitability in consumer inkjet systems, including a 128% revenue increase in consumer inkjet printer hardware and ink and lower costs as a result of the company’s move to a more efficient product platform; improved operating performance in Digital Capture & Devices; and reduced research-and-development expenses across the segment. Kodak’s total losses from continuing operations amounted to $111 million, compared with earnings of $101 million in the year-ago period.

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Thursday, October 29, 2009

Nikon has released a new free iPhone app called Learn & Explore. You can scroll through galleries of photos and view educational videos, learn about photography techniques and browse a glossary of photographic terms. Nikon’s Learn & Explore iPhone app can be downloaded from the Apple iTunes App Store.

Scrapblog has announced QuickMix, a service that helps users create quick, easy, personalised scrapbooks in minutes. Users simply select a pre-built “kit”, provide their photos, and QuickMix instantly produces a unique digital scrapbook tailored to the photos themselves. Users can select photos directly from their Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, Smugmug, MySpace and Webshots accounts through one-click integration to these sites, or upload photos directly from their computer. QuickMix users have full access to all the capabilities of the complete Scrapblog application as well. Through Scrapblog, users can tweak their scrapbook using the application’s online design tools, or add new elements including stickers, backgrounds, music, video, and more. When trying QuickMix for the first time, users will earn 150 free credits to use in the Scrapblog Marketplace where they can choose from recommended premium sticker packs and background packs specifically designed to match their QuickMix scrapbook kit.

Website: Scrapblog

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Joby, the company known for its Gorillapod range of products, has announced a photography contest. You may submit up to three photographs by sending an e-mail to (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and either attaching the files or linking to the images if stored on the Web. The longer dimension of each photo must be at least 1000 pixels. Some processing with Photoshop is OK, but heavily processed or completely fabricated images are not eligible. The entry deadline is 31 December 2009, 11:59pm PST. The grand prize winner will receive Joby’s entire Gorillapod line, and will have his/her photo published in Popular Photography magazine. N.B.: by submitting an image, you retain ownership of the image, but grant Joby an unrestricted licence to publish, promote and reuse the image in perpetuity.

Website: Joby Photo Contest

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