Pixmantec Press Release

ANNOUNCING THE ULTIMATE RAW WORKFLOW TOOL - $59.00 OCTOBER ONLY!

Copenhagen, October 28th 2005: Danish digital imaging software specialists Pixmantec announce the release of the latest addition to their Photographers’ Toolbox applications for the camera RAW format, RawShooter | premium 2006. Building on the incredible success of the FREE RawShooter | essentials 2005 product (now with several hundred thousand copies installed worldwide), RawShooter | premium 2006 provides unsurpassed RAW workflow functionality and professional image quality at an unbeatable competitive price. In addition to a state of the art feature set, RawShooter | premium 2006 adds camera RAW support for several new DSLRs including the Canon EOS 5D and Canon EOS 1D II N.

Corel UK Press Release

New Addition to Corel’s Digital Imaging Portfolio Inspires Home Users to Explore their Creativity with Digital Art and Photography

Maidenhead, UK – 26 October 2005 – Corel Corporation today unveiled Corel® Painter™ Essentials 3, the complete home art studio built on the award-winning power of Corel Painter IX. The latest addition to Corel’s digital imaging portfolio, Corel Painter Essentials 3 includes everything new users need to get started with digital art and create stunning paintings from their photos. The software is now available from Corel (www.corel.co.uk/pe3).

Available for the suggested retail price of £59 excl VAT, this affordable software package provides home users with more creative options than ever before. Ideal for digital camera enthusiasts, art, decor and scrapbook enthusiasts, and art students and teachers, Corel Painter Essentials 3 enables users to create beautiful, handmade digital-art keepsakes that are perfect for framing, craft projects, and special gifts for friends and family.

The Plugin Site Press Release

October 25, 2005 - The Plugin Site (www.thepluginsite.com) is pleased to announce Version 2.0c of ColorWasher for MacOS X, a plugin for correcting the colors, contrast, exposure and saturation of 8bit and 16bit photos. It works with various graphics applications, e.g. Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Illustrator, Fireworks, Painter, Canvas, Photoline and GraphicConverter. ColorWasher takes photo correction to a new level of accuracy and speed. With its help even beginners are capable of doing photo corrections within seconds that only experts were able to produce in the past.

BenVista Press Release

ARNHEM - October 21, 2005 - BenVista today announced to have achieved an agreement of cooperation with Shortcut. In doing so, BenVista takes over responsibility of the Shortcut photo software range, consisting of PhotoZoom Professional, PhotoMagic and PhotoArtist. As of today, these products will be further developed, supported, and sold on-line by BenVista. Shortcut will exclusively focus on retail sales, and continue to publish these products under the Shortcut brand through retail channels.

Together with the software range, also its development and support teams have become part of BenVista. Applying their knowledge and experience, both teams are taking part in fulfilling BenVista’s main focus: developing and improving software.

Phase One Press Release

Phase One A/S, Photo Plus East, New York, US (October 20, 2005): Phase One®, the world leader in digital imaging solutions, is proud to announce a brand new Color Moiré Suppression tool with the latest version of Capture One 3.7.2 PRO and DB (Mac only). The technology behind this tool is patented by Phase One.

With the new Moiré tool, photographers can effectively suppress and remove color Moiré in images from the range of Phase One digital backs listed here:
• H25 and H 20
• All existing and new P-backs

Light Crafts Press Release

New Photo Editing and Image Processing Software Now Available from Light Crafts; LightZone is the Most Significant Advance in Digital Photo Editing in More Than a Decade

PALO ALTO, Calif. & NEW YORK—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Oct. 20, 2005—Light Crafts, Inc. today announced availability of LightZone, a breakthrough photo editing software tool designed especially for professional and avid photographers. LightZone provides a complete photo editing tool that significantly reduces the time photographers spend after a shoot producing high quality photographs. LightZone offers photographers an advanced RAW editing experience that is easy to use while delivering a fast workflow that produces professional results.

Designed and built from the ground up for professionals, LightZone is available as a free 30-day trial at www.lightcrafts.com. LightZone is immediately available for Macintosh users and in November for Windows users.

LightZone is being demonstrated at PhotoPlus Expo in booth 1174, October 20-22, at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, in New York, NY.

Extensis Press Release

Extensis Portfolio 8 Puts Creative Workgroup Assets at User’s Fingertips - New functionality means less time searching for files and more ways to organise and share across workgroups.

Northampton – Thursday 20th October, 2005 — Extensis, a division of Celartem, Inc., today announced Portfolio 8, a major advance in its digital asset management (DAM) solution. The new version of Portfolio provides industrial-strength workflow features to organise and route digital files utilising visual catalogs and embedded metadata, making it fast and easy to find and share valuable branding collateral within the asset creation workgroups and externally with global partners.  The Portfolio 8 product family includes a standalone version, Client/Server solution; as well as NetPublish and SQL Connect Modules.

”The most competitive organisations are looking for the best way to use technology to improve their business processes and their bottom line. This new version of Portfolio is the ultimate solution for organising, finding and distributing a company’s critically important brand assets,” said Dan Harlacher, Portfolio product manager for Extensis. “It’s our cure for the common quagmire of creative assets and image management that companies are facing every day. Plus you can do it in less time and with less money than you might think; it’s a software solution trusted by IT and approved by creatives and brand professionals.”

Breeze Systems Press Release

DSLR Remote Pro v1.1 improves exposure control and adds support for new cameras

20th October, 2005 : Breeze Systems today released DSLR Remote Pro v1.1. Photographers can now use Breeze Systems’ highly regarded software to control Canon EOS 5D, 350D/Rebel XT, 20D, EOS-1D Mark II and EOS-1Ds Mark II cameras as well as the 10D, 300D/Rebel, EOS-1D and EOS-1Ds models.

Improve exposure control in tricky lighting conditions with DSLR Remote Pro’s unique ability to auto bracket up to 15 images with Canon DSLR cameras by varying either the shutter speed or the aperture. This greatly simplifies the taking of sequences of images which can then be combined to make High Dynamic Range (HDR) images in your image editor. This technique is particularly effective when taking interior shots or product shots without the need for sophisticated lighting.

View color managed previews where color accuracy is critical. Previews may also be sharpened using the highly acclaimed HQ sharpening routines used in BreezeBrowser Pro.

Apple Press Release

First All-in-One Post Production Tool for Photographers

CUPERTINO, Calif., Oct. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/—Apple(R) today introduced Aperture, the first all-in-one post production tool that provides everything photographers need after the shoot. Aperture offers an advanced and incredibly fast RAW workflow that makes working with a camera’s RAW images as easy as JPEG. Built from the ground up for pros, Aperture features powerful compare and select tools, nondestructive image processing, color managed printing and custom web and book publishing.

“Aperture is to professional photography what Final Cut Pro is to filmmaking,” said Rob Schoeben, Apple’s vice president of Applications Marketing. “Finally, an innovative post production tool that revolutionizes the pro photo workflow from compare and select to retouching to output.”

iView Multimedia Press Release

iView’s New MediaPro Speeds Creatives’ Workflows

iView Multimedia today announced a new version of iView MediaPro, the award-winning, cross-platform digital asset management application. Designed for photographers and other creative professionals, MediaPro 3.0 delivers the world’s most flexible and powerful professional workflow management solution.

Like earlier versions, MediaPro 3.0 helps users organize and manage a high volume and wide variety of digital files by creating customized, centralized and searchable catalogs.

Now, new features and enhancements simplify and speed up specific workflow tasks, including: importing, organizing, annotating, searching, distributing and archiving valuable digital assets.

Adobe Press Release

Adobe Updates DNG Converter and Adds New `Camera Raw’ Plug-in for 14 New Cameras

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Oct. 20, 2005 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced that its Digital Negative Specification (DNG) - an industry-wide initiative to create one unified format for archiving raw digital images - is continuing to win support from camera manufacturers and software makers. Ricoh Co. is the latest camera manufacturer to support DNG, with its new GR digital camera. By providing DNG support directly in its products, Ricoh joins respected camera manufacturers Hasselblad and Leica, along with a wide range of software manufacturers such as Apple, Extensis, iView and ULead.

“DNG addresses a critical need in the market to preserve digital images in their purest form while also simplifying the raw workflow for photographers,” said Kazuhiro Yuasa, general manager of the Image Capturing Solution Division at Ricoh. “The Ricoh GR Digital represents the latest advancements in high resolution compact cameras, and by incorporating support for DNG we’re giving our customers the flexibility and control they require to do their best work.”

Adobe UK Press Release

Adobe Photographers Directory Expands its Global Reach to Include Thousands of Pro Photographers

Updated Directory Provides Designers and Art Directors with Access to Thousands of Professional Photographers Worldwide

London — Oct. 20, 2005 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced that thousands of professional photographers are accessible to the creative community through an expanded update to its worldwide Photographers Directory.  The Photographers Directory is now highlighted in the Favourites section of the Adobe Bridge feature in Adobe Creative Suite 2 and Photoshop® CS2 software and is also accessible from the Adobe Web site.  Adobe has teamed up with nearly 20 professional photography associations worldwide, making it easy to find the right photographer without interrupting the flow of the overall design process and providing photographers with a global network to showcase their work and attract new clients.

VicMan Software Press Release

VicMan Software, Inc. announces the release of an exciting program that lets you view your photos in a virtual 3D gallery - My Pictures 3D 0.9

Oct. 20, 2005 - VicMan Software, Inc. is proud to release My Pictures 3D - the first product of a special line created to let everyone enjoy their
favorite pictures in 3D. My Pictures 3D is a 2-in-1 product which offers much fun and enjoyment to anyone who has a collection of digital photographs. It is a program letting you watch your favorite photos wandering through a beautiful virtual 3D gallery. Besides, it can function as a screensaver running in the automatic mode.

My pictures 3D comes with artistically designed galleries made in different styles. Users can walk through a modern showroom, secluded Renaissance yard or find themselves in more exotic surroundings, like an ominous medieval castle or a classic Greek temple. A pleasing lifelike atmosphere is created thanks to amazingly natural-looking graphics.

Smoky City Design Press Release

Pittsburgh, PA - October 17, 2005—Smoky City Design, LLC today released version 4.0 of The Panorama Factory, its popular software product for creating panoramic images. The quality of images produced by The Panorama Factory has been significantly improved and new stitching methods were added to accept images with camera rotation or tilt. Other improvements include: controls for initial view and automatic rotation of VR viewers (QTVR, IVR, PTViewer); export to layered Photoshop PSD format; and restart of the stitching Wizard on previously stitched panoramas.

Pricing and availability
A 30-day trial of The Panorama Factory version 4.0 may be downloaded from www.panoramafactory.com. Purchasing a registration key at The Panorama Factory web site converts the trial version to the full version. The full price of a new license for The Panorama Factory is $69.95. The upgrade price for current customers who own a registration key for V3 is $29.95. An introductory special, valid until November 30, 2005, reduces the price of a new license to $59.95 and the version upgrade to $24.95.

Two Pilots Press Release

MAKEUP PILOT - YOUR PHOTO COSMETIC KIT!

Two Pilots has released MakeUp Pilot, a Windows application that makes it easy to have perfect, professional-level photo portraits.

Don’t be upset if your skin doesn’t look perfect on a photo. If you have the MakeUp Pilot program, it means you have a cosmetic kit built into your computer. Use it to retouch any spots on the skin (moles, warts, pimples, heat-spots, etc.). The program will make any photo into a perfect portrait to send to friends or save in the family album.

You will also be able to restore your old photographs after scanning them. MakeUp Pilot allows you to remove any defects arising from long-term storage of a still picture: fixer stains, scratches and worn spots.

ACD Systems Press Release

ACD Systems International Inc.: ACDSee Pro Photo Manager Streamlines Professional Photography Workflow

VICTORIA, British Columbia—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Oct. 17, 2005—New software that helps professional photographers confidently manage their photos to be unveiled at Booth #801 during PhotoPlus Expo

ACD Systems International Inc. (TSX:ASA), today announced ACDSee(TM) Pro Photo Manager, the advanced version of its award-winning ACDSee photo management software. Developed specifically for the professional photographer, ACDSee Pro will be showcased from October 20-22 at PhotoPlus Expo in New York. ACDSee Pro delivers advanced functionality designed to streamline the workflow of professional photographers, while incorporating the viewing speed and organizing capabilities synonymous with ACDSee products.

ACDSee Pro is a single platform where professional photographers can view, process, edit, organize, catalog, publish and archive their growing digital photo collections. Key features include advanced workflow functionality, support for DNG (Digital Negative Specification) and the latest RAW formats, RAW processing capability, batch IPTC editing, powerful color management functionality and professional publishing options.

Bibble Labs releases version 4.4 with support for the Canon 5D, 1D Mark II N (1d2n), Konica Minolta A200, 5D, and Pentax *ist DL.

Bibble Labs Press Release

Bibble Labs releases version 4.4 Update with support for Canon 5D & 1D Mark II N

Includes new Fill Light control and improved sharper output.

Austin Texas (October 17th, 2005) - Bibble Labs today announced availability of version 4.4 of its popular Raw Workflow software. Now supporting over 60 of the most popular DSLR and prosumer cameras, this update includes support for the new Canon 5D and 1D Mark II N cameras, as well as the Minolta 5D, A200 and Pentax *ist DL. Using Bibble’s integrated Photoshop plug-in, users of older versions of Photoshop including 7.0 and CS can now open raw images from the latest cameras without having to pay for a costly upgrade.

The new “Full Light” Feature allows photographers to easily brighten overly deep shadows and reveal detail in the dark areas of high contrast photos. Combined with the existing “highlight recovery” feature, photographers now have two powerful yet easy to use tools to enhance their digital images .Further refinements to the raw processing engine results in sharper output then ever before

Corel UK Press Release

London, UK - 17 October 2005 - Corel is delighted to announce the details of its fabulous Christmas offer. Customers will receive a Creative MuVo MP3 player worth £79.99 absolutely FREE when they buy CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12* between 1st October and 31st December 2005. Perfect for if you need a great Christmas gift idea for someone or want to keep it all for yourself to listen to while you work or play. Plus, upon purchase, customers will also be eligible to download CorelDRAW Design Collection Volume 1 (£70 SRP) for FREE.

The award-winning image-editing and design software package offers great value at £359 and real choice for an all-in-one Creative Suite. It is the ideal option for the value-conscious designer, small-medium business, photographer or enthusiast. The Creative MuVo TX SE MP3 player - 512 Mb - combines good looks and great portability with fast downloads. It holds up to 256** songs, giving up to 18 hours continuous playtime from a standard AAA battery. The Design Collections provide pre-made, professionally crafted templates, such as letter-heads, logos, envelope lay-outs, labels, business cards, flyers and brochures, that allow you to create stylish, effective business communications in next to no time.

Photo-i has just reviewed Corel Paint Shop Pro X and Corel Photo Album 6.

“Corel has done a nice job in redesigning the Paint Shop Pro X interface, but somehow I get the feeling it has concentrated a bit too much on auto features. Yes, there is an excellent Colour balance adjustment with automated white balance. However, the more advanced photographer may want to have finer control and for this they will still want the previous Colour Balance palette or the Manual Colour correction. They are still there, but you have to dig about for them in the Unused Commands section.”

Website: Photo-i - Corel Paint Shop Pro X Review

Google have just added several new features to version 2.1 of their popular Picasa photo editing software.

Google Newsletter Release

If you’re running Windows 2000/XP or higher, simply open Picasa and you’ll be automatically updated to the latest version of the software. This means you’ll enjoy:

Multiple languages - You asked for it, you got it: Picasa is now available in Chinese (simplified and traditional), Dutch, English (US and UK), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian and Spanish. The software automatically matches your system’s native language and locale. To change your preferred language in Picasa, go to Tools > Options. Then just close and re-open Picasa and the changes will take effect.

BlogThis! - The new “BlogThis!” button allows you to post one photo at a time directly to the Blogger.com web editor without going through the Hello software.