DxO Labs Press Release

NEW DXO OPTICS PRO V3.5 SOFTWARE NOW AVAILABLE IN STORES AND ONLINE

Enhanced optical correction possibilities and greater processing speed are the hallmarks of this free new upgrade which also adds support for the Canon EOS 5D

New York, NY—November 17, 2005 – DxO Labs announced today that DxO Optics Pro v3.5 Digital SLR and lens automatic image quality enhancement software is available for download at the company’s e-store (http://store.dxo.com) and via selected resellers. 

DxO Optics Pro v3.5 incorporates DxO Optics Engine v2, a more powerful edition of DxO Labs’ award-winning optical correction engine extending the software’s capabilities for automatically removing unwanted color fringes including “purple fringing”; preserving greater image detail through improvements to DxO’s Lens Softness removal capabilities; as well as preserving up to 40% more image area when eliminating geometric distortion. Other improvements include an enhanced user interface as well as dramatically increased batch processing speed (by up to 100%) on multi-processor computers.

Altostorm Software Press Release

Make Your Panoramic Photos Straight!

Altostorm Rectilinear Panorama, a slim plug-in for Adobe Photoshop and any other compatible image editor, features an innovative image correcting technology to eliminate any geometric distortions in panoramic photos

Altostorm Software, a developer of image processing software, today announces the release of version 1.2 of Rectilinear Panorama. Designed as a filter plug-in for Adobe Photoshop, and other compatible image editors, Rectilinear Panorama gives you a pain-free ability to correct different types of geometric image distortions, including lens, perspective and panorama distortions. Along with panoramic images, the filter can process non-panoramic ones, be they scans or digital photos. Thanks to the unique image transformation technology and definition system of visual distortions, Rectilinear Panorama helps you recover original object shapes almost hands down, leaving the need for manual configuration of settings behind the scene.

Adobe have released a new version, 1.0.3, of Adobe Bridge. The Adobe Bridge 1.0.3 update delivers improved product reliability. This update is recommended for all Adobe Bridge customers.

Website: Adobe Bridge (Windows)

Website: Adobe Bridge (MAC)

Ulead Press Release

Ulead Announces All-new Pocket Series Software for Quick and Easy DVD Creation.

Consumer-oriented creativity applications offer simple and direct method to make high-quality DVDs of photos and video.

Taipei, Taiwan – November 17th 2005 - Ulead Systems, Inc., a 16-year industry leader in video, image and DVD software, today announced the release of Ulead® Pocket Slideshow and Ulead® Pocket DV Show, the first applications in a new series of consumer-oriented DVD creativity software. Ulead Pocket series software is designed to appeal to novice or first-time users by presenting a dramatically simplified, single-purpose, approach to burning digital photos and video onto DVD for viewing on TV.

“Imagine being able to turn digital photos and video into playable discs as easily as putting your camera into your pocket and taking out a finished DVD,” said Dr. Eldon Liu, president of Ulead. “That’s our goal with the new Pocket software series. Users just follow a few simple onscreen instructions, much like using a kiosk or cash machine, to produce a high-quality DVD.”

onOne Software Press Release

onOne Software Releases Free Genuine Fractals Plug-In Reader for Adobe Photoshop

Free plug-in allows all users of Adobe Photoshop to open and view Genuine Fractals files saved using the .STN file format which significantly reduces the file size of scaled images.

PORTLAND, OR - November 15, 2005 - onOne Software today announced the immediate availability of a free Genuine Fractals Reader plug-in for Adobe Photoshop. The Genuine Fractals Reader plug-in allows any user of Adobe Photoshop CS or CS2 to open and view an image that was scaled using Genuine Fractals and saved with the .STN file extension. The .STN (pronounced “stingâ€) file format, available only through Genuine Fractals, allows users to significantly reduce the file size of their scaled images without sacrificing image quality. The latest version of Genuine Fractals 4.1, released last month, is an image scaling plug-in for Adobe Photoshop that uses a patented, fractal-based algorithm to increase the size and resolution of images with a better retention of detail than other scaling methods available in Photoshop.

Pixmantec Press Release

Pixmantec Partners With ETCETERA Consulting To Provide Sophisticated Color Profiles For Canon And Nikon Digital SLRs

Copenhagen, November 15, 2005: Danish digital imaging specialists Pixmantec ApS are pleased to announce the immediate release of RawShooter | Color Engine. A plug?in for both existing and forthcoming RawShooter RAW workflow applications,  RawShooter |Color Engine provides discerning photographers with an excellent alternative to the standard RawShooter profiles. Designed in cooperation with color expert Magne Nilsen of ETCETERA Consulting, RawShooter | Color Engine seamlessly integrates into all RawShooter applications. Built using an advanced architecture, RawShooter | Color Engine delivers a level of sophistication that has yet to be seen in DSLR profile management and thus has the potential or exciting enhancements to come.

A new Beta version of Adobe Camera Raw has been released by Adobe for both Windows and MAC platforms.

Support for the following cameras has been added in this update.

• Canon EOS 5D
• Canon EOS 1D Mark II N
• Olympus E-500
• Olympus SP-310
• Olympus SP-350
• Olympus SP-500UZ
• Pentax *ist DL
• Pentax *ist DS2
• Sony DSC-R1

Website: Adobe Camera RAW 3.3 (Windows)

Website: Adobe Camera RAW 3.3 (MAC)

Epson Press Release

Make This Year’s Thanksgiving Celebration a Family Best Seller With Epson’s Storyteller Photo Book Creator

For as Little as $20, Easily Turn Your Thanksgiving Photos Into a Hardcover Coffee Table Book That Will Last for Generations

LONG BEACH, Calif., Nov. 10 /PRNewswire/—For many families, Thanksgiving is the one time each year when several generations will sit down together at the dining room table.  This year, you can preserve the spirit of your Thanksgiving feast and other festivities for years to come with a new tradition—creating and printing a coffee table book of your holiday photos in your home while the family is still gathered together with Epson’s StoryTeller(TM) Photo Book Creator.

Epson’s StoryTeller kit gives you everything you need to turn your digital photos into your family’s unique holiday story to create a beautiful, hardbound glossy coffee table photo book in the convenience of your own home. Starting at $20, StoryTeller is available in 5” x 7” and 8” x 10” sizes with glossy photo paper to print the inside pages, a glossy book cover, a hardbound book that you can easily assemble, and easy-to-use software that lets you enhance and place dozens of photos on up to 20 pages per book.  And, StoryTeller works with letter-size printers made by all major printer manufacturers.

Apple Press Release

This November, Apple will host a series of free seminars to showcase Aperture, the first all-in-one post-production tool for photographers. Join us and find out how you can harness Aperture and Mac OS X Tiger to give you a complete workflow for today’s digital environment.

Designed for Professional Photographers
Built from the ground up for pros, and featuring a RAW-focused workflow, Aperture makes RAW as easy as JPEG, letting you import, edit, catalogue, organise, retouch, publish and archive your images more effectively and efficiently than ever before. From capture to output, you work directly with your RAW files, never having to first convert them into another format before viewing, adjusting, organising or printing them.

Aperture BoxAperture’s colour-managed workflow and flexible design tools will help you easily create stunning prints, customised contact sheets and Web pages as beautiful as the images you capture. Fine-tuned to maximise the advantages offered by Macintosh hardware and Mac OS X Tiger, Aperture offers breakthrough speed and quality — whether you’re working with RAW, JPEG or TIFF images.

ArkiPix I/S Press Release

ArkiPix I/S is now offering an update of their image archive management software ArkiPix in version 2.3

With this new and highly improved ArkiPix 2.3 for PC - photographers, companies and digital photography enthusiasts will find a wide range of functions for archiving, importing and searching for photos.

The new ArkiPix 2.3 includes a new slideshow option and now allmost all RAW formats are supported.
The Web and download page function has been updated with new features and has been optimized for better workflow

The Plugin Site Press Release

November 8, 2005 - The Plugin Site (www.thepluginsite.com) just released Version 1.01 of LightMachine, a Photoshop-compatible plugin for performing all kinds of light adjustments in photos. It combines shadow/highlight, virtual lighting and color-based correction tools for performing sophisticated corrections without the need for time-consuming selections and layer stacks.

LightMachine lets you selectively correct photos taken under bad light conditions or with inadequate camera settings and achieve results that rival photos taken under the best circumstances. Additionally it can achieve special effects like glows, sunsets, high key and selective b/w effects, replace one color with another and simulate polarizing filters. LightMachine works in dozens of graphics applications including Photoshop, Photoshop Elements,  Paint Shop Pro, IrfanView, PhotoImpact, Photo-Paint and Fireworks. LightMachine can be applied to 8bit and 16bit RGB images.

Redfield Plugins Press Release

Transform a Digital Photo into a Picture with the Most Realistic Hand-drawn Look - Sketch Master Plug-in 1.19 Has Over 30 Image Editing Controls and Options to Render Results that Cannot Be Achieved by Any Known Filter or 3rd Party Plug-in

Redfield Plugins announces today the release of Sketch Master Plug-in 1.19.

Compatible with all currently popular image editors, this plug-in enables rapid transformation of a photo into an image that looks as if it had been drawn with traditional art tools such as lead pencil, ink-pencil, crayon, charcoal, to name a few. The final output image is a blend of three layers - strokes, lines, and background, each of which is created based on specified settings. Unique to this plugin is the ability to alter stroke direction on different planes, having control over outline characteristics and the flexibility of adding your own stroke and background textures.

theimagingfactory Press Release

NoiseReduction Pro is a Photoshop plugin for reducing several types of luminance and color noise in digital images. Based on an extremely fast, split 5 level redundant wavelet algorithm, this plugin is without a doubt the quickest offering of its kind. Incorporating a resizable, live preview window and interactive controls, the plugin allows for easy determination of the optimal parameters.

Photographer Petteri Sulonen has reviewed the new Pixmantec RawShooter Premium 2006 RAW conversion software that was announced last week.

“Is it worth the sixty-five I paid for it under the special introductory offer? Most definitely: the new features that make it possible to adapt it to exactly my needs, taste, and photography are worth it, over the already excellent product that is Essentials. Is it worth a hundred? Now, that’s a tougher call. With the inaccurate color, I’ll have to answer “maybe, depends on how picky you are.” I would probably have bought it even at the full price, but I can see that someone pickier would have felt let down. However, if they did get color on the nose, it would be worth a hundred and fifty. I like the workflow and the controls so much that RSP will be my “default” converter anyway—but I really hope that the color problems will be addressed in future updates.”

Website: Petteri Sulonen - Pixmantec RawShooter Premium 2006 Review

Corel UK Press Release

Corel Wins Best Software Award at RetailVision Europe Fall 2005 - Attending Retailers and Distributors Vote Corel as Winner

Maidenhead, UK - 3 November 2005 - Corel Corporation is delighted to announce that it has won the ‘Best Product: Software’ award at RetailVision Europe’s awards ceremony. Corel® Paint Shop Pro® X was voted top in the software category by leading retailers and distributors in the European PC and consumer electronics marketplace.

Held during the RetailVision Europe Fall 2005 Event, 18 - 20 October in Dublin, Ireland, the “Best of RetailVision Europe Awards”* recognise vendors’ technology innovation and channel strategies. More than 130 attending retail channel executives from across Europe voted on the winning products from over 60 entrants.

Allume Systems Press Release

New Personal PHOTOSUITE Makes Organizing, Enhancing, and Sharing Photos as Easy as Taking Them!

Allume Systems’ Personal PHOTOSUITE Helps You Get the Most Out of Your Photos by Allowing You to Share, Manage, and Create Calendars, Postcards and Photo Album and More

ALISO VIEJO, Calif., Nov. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/—Allume Systems, Inc., a division of Smith Micro Software Inc. (NASDAQ:SMSI) , today released Personal PHOTOSUITE(TM). Personal PHOTOSUITE provides intuitive tools with powerful features for organizing the steady stream of photos familiar to every digital camera owner. Beyond simply managing photos, Personal PHOTOSUITE helps users enhance their photos, add Smart Captions(TM), then share their photos via Email, Print, the Internet, or even Video CD’s. Personal PHOTOSUITE’s Wizards will guide users through each step of creating impressive Albums, whimsical Greeting Cards, personalized Calendars, dazzling Web Pages, slide shows that sizzle, and more! Whether users choose to use their own printer or take advantage of ordering prints on line, with Personal PHOTOSUITE professional looking results are just clicks away.

Microsoft Press Release

Microsoft and Pinnacle Systems Unveil Ultimate Holiday Gift for Digital Photo and Video Fans

New Software Package, Digital Image Suite PLUS, Addresses Rising Consumer Trend in Editing, Organizing and Sharing Digital Photos and Videos

REDMOND, Wash., and MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Nov. 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/—Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Pinnacle Systems Inc. today introduced Microsoft(R) Digital Image Suite PLUS, a complete set of intuitive digital photo- and video-organization and editing tools that combines Digital Image Suite 2006 with Pinnacle Studio(TM) version 10 in a single, affordable package. With comprehensive and easy-to-use tools, Digital Image Suite PLUS
offers consumers at any skill level everything they need to enhance, preserve, organize and share their growing libraries of digital photos and video clips for years to come. The new software package is available today in most retail outlets where Microsoft and Pinnacle products are sold.

ReaSoft Development Press Release

Image Converter Supports Over 340 Image Formats, Processes RAW Files From Any Digital Camera.

ReaConverter 4.0 is a professional image converter for designers, digital artists and photographers.  The program supports virtually every known image
file format, popular and obscure, a total of over 340 different kinds of image files.  In addition to that, the program supports RAW files for all popular digital camera brands (CRW, CR2, DNG, DCR, NEF, RAW, RAF, X3F, ORF, SRF, MRW, BAY, PEF) and works with PostScript based files (PDF, EPS, PS, AI).

Besides converting images from one format to another, ReaConverter is capable of performing batch image editing operations - rotating or resizing images, adjusting brightness or contrast, applying various filters, stamping images with a watermark to multiple images with one button click.

Microsoft have released a Color Applet for the Windows XP Control Panel, which allows you to manage ICC color profiles and ICM 2.0 color settings across the system.

Using the Microsoft Color Control Panel Applet, you can:
• Install and uninstall ICC color profiles
• Inspect, rename, and compare two different color profiles
• View a 3D graphics plot of color profile color gamuts
• Associate color profiles with devices such as printers, monitors, and scanners
• Apply custom color gamut adjustments to one or more displays on the fly
• Set up display calibration reminders at intervals you specify

Website: Microsoft Color Control Panel Applet

There’s a great article about the newly-launched Apple Aperture over at Rob Galbraith which looks beyond the marketing blurb.

“Based on what we know so far about Aperture, its most direct competition would seem to be be Capture One PRO. There are many ways that the two programs are similar in design concept (though they of course look very different), and both contain a similar range of adjustment tools. Phase One’s RAW conversion application does some things that Aperture doesn’t, including offering tethered operation with certain camera models. Plus, it has the ability to use custom camera profiles. On the other hand, Aperture has image management and image output capabilities that don’t exist in Capture One Pro, and Apple has done more to capitalize on the architecture in Mac computers for maximum speed of operation.”

Website: Rob Galbraith - Bringing Aperture into focus