Hamrick Software Press Release 01/11/04

Hamrick’s VueScan 8.1.5 now supports entire range of Canon scanners

Phoenix, AZ, November 1, 2004—Hamrick Software, a leading developer of scanning software for consumers and professionals, has released VueScan 8.1.5, its award-winning program that enables users to more easily produce better looking digital images from color snapshots, negatives, slides, and documents.

No other vendor supports all of Canon’s professional and consumer scanner products. VueScan 8.1.5 now supports the following Canon scanners on Windows and Mac OS X:

“Canon scanners are among the worlds’ most widely sold scanners,” noted Ed Hamrick, president of Hamrick Software. “VueScan’s well-known capabilities in producing high-quality scans will complement the high-quality scanner hardware from Canon to produce outstanding results.”

Neat Image Press Release 03/11/04

Finally, Neat Image is available on Mac platform too!

This is the first public release of Neat Image for Mac.

Neat Image for Mac is currently in the stage of active development. We are working hard to provide the Mac version with even more advanced functionality to match that of the original Windows version of Neat Image. The qualit of noise reduction is already as high as in the Window version.

Early adopters of Neat Image /Mac will benefit from the introductory license price (it is temporarily lowered) and will get free upgrade to the next version of Neat Image for Mac.

PicaJet.Com Press Release 02/11/04

Digital Image Organizer with Built-In Photo Album.

PicaJet Photo Organizer 2.2 is a straightforward photo organizer that is gaining popularity among digital camera owners.  The pivotal points of the software are the following - direct import from camera, one-click image sharing, automatic photo enhancement feature, easy search, built-in photo album and one-click print.

The idea behind the software is that most camera owners are not high-tech pros, so they need one program that does all photo-related tasks for them.  And that’s just what PicaJet Photo Album does.  Once the camera is connected to PC, the image is imported.  It can then be renamed, rated and described.  Later, if one need so find an image, the built-in search engine will sort images by ratings or dates.  This is especially helpful when the number of images is the hundreds and thousands.

Pocket-Lint have published their review of Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0.

“If editing photos, or rather tidying them up to give your final image that professional look, is your thing then this is where Elements comes into its own. There are quick fix options, which apply a number of filters to compensate for any quality problems in your image. If you want to control the changes more closely, you get the option to punch the auto button or slide the slider. You can view your edited photo along side the original, so it?s easy to see if you are over-doing things. The ubiquitous red-eye removal feature is in there, which seems to be the top of most people?s lists. You can also stitch pictures together to make a larger panoramic image.”

Website: Pocket-Lint - Adobe Photoshop Elements 3 Review

Editor’s Note: The Kodak Professional Color Management Check-Up Kit will start shipping on Monday 1st November.

Colour Confidence Press Release

Colour Confidence Unveils Kodak Professional Color Management Check-Up Kit

* New Check-Up Kit provides a comprehensive way to verify and validate colour management issues for monitors, cameras and printing devices
* Complements the extensive range of colour management solutions
* Available through the Colour Confidence webstore for £39.95 (59.95 Euros) excluding VAT

Birmingham, UK, September 28 2004 - Colour Confidence, the colour management division of TypeMaker, today announced the availability of the Kodak Professional Color Management Check-Up Kit.  Developed and manufactured by Colour Confidence, the kit offers professional photographers a way to verify their colour management workflow and validate their monitor calibration and printer profile.  Priced at ?39.95 (59.95 Euros) excluding VAT, it is available through the Colour Confidence website (www.colourconfidence.com) and via its growing network of resellers.  The Check-Up Kit is one of a number of announcements that the company is making at Photokina (Stand F-011 in Hall 10.1).

The Kodak Professional Color Management Check-Up Kit represents a valuable addition to the colour management tools available to professional photographers and prosumers alike.

Total Training Press Release 27/10/04

CARLSBAD, Calif., Oct. 27 /PRNewswire/—Total Training(TM), Inc., a pioneer in fun and innovative video-based training for popular software programs, today announced new consumer products for learning digital photography and video titled Total Training Presents: Digital Photography and Adobe(R) Photoshop(R) Elements 3 and Total Training Presents: Digital Video and Adobe Premiere(R) Elements.  Training host, Brian Maffitt, reveals comprehensive ways to retouch and restore photos, and create dynamic, high-quality home movies.

Total Training Presents: Digital Photography and Adobe Photoshop Elements, the next generation of the instructional videos that received the NAB2004 ICE Award, makes the art of digital photography easy.  Lessons begin with the fundamentals of digital photography and offer tips and tricks for optimizing and printing photos.  The informative tutorials clarify the processes of importing pictures to a computer, manipulating and adjusting them in Photoshop Elements, and printing and sharing them with friends.  A $100 bonus of PhotoSpin professional photography is also included.

Sometimes the simplest things are the most effective. Preferences Manager is a free utility script that can be used to back up and restore your Photoshop Preference settings. That’s it. Never have to worry about your Photoshop setup again.

Website: Roger Cavanagh - Preferences Manager

Apogee Photo have just reviewed the new image management software Extensis Portfolio 7 (found via Cameratown).

“Portfolio is a product for the professional user and not the casual digital photographer who doesn’t have time to delve into a powerful program. Yes, it is more expensive and harder to learn, but accepting those drawbacks is often the trade-off that’s necessary when you’re dealing with a product that must meet the demands of a professional power user.  For that user, both the money spent on this program and the time dedicated to mastering it will be quickly recouped through more efficient use of production time and fewer headaches.”

Website: Apogee Photo - Extensis Portfolio 7 Review

Apogee Photo have published their review of Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0, written by well-known author Scott Kelby.

“Elements 3 now supports the direct importing of digital camera photos taken in the high quality Raw format though a built-in Camera Raw plug-in (shown above), and you can also now work with 16-bit images directly within Elements (although the number of things you can do is limited, just like Photoshop 7’s support for 16-bit images). The Camera Raw plug-in enables you to do the processing of your Raw digital negative to create your own custom prints, and you can control everything from the white balance to the color tint. This is a big feature for serious photographers who demand the highest quality and flexibility.”

Website: Apogee Photo - A Look at Photoshop Elements 3

Roger Cavanagh has reviewed a plugin for Photoshop CS and PhotoShop Elements 3(Windows-only I’m afraid) that aims to brighten up the shadows in your images without causing too many unwanted side-effects.

“Unlike Photoshop Shadow and Highlight Adjustment, SI will only work on 8-bit RGB images. It is also very slow, which given what the manual says, is understandable:

“From the original image the software estimates the illumination field that illuminated the scene when the picture was taken. Then it corrects every pixel to produce a result that would have been seen if the scene were more uniformly illuminated. “

Not the most elegant or grammatical of phrasing, but it does describe what the plug-in does, and it does indicate that bigger files and more pixels means slower performance. The FAQ page does suggest users could experience memory problems, but all my tests have so far been on full-size 10D images, which have been processed successfully.”

Website: Roger Cavanagh - Shadow Illuminator Plugin Review

Shortcut Press Release 26/10/04

Shortcut gathers all its strength into one new product
PhotoMagic, the complete photo software suite

Arnhem, October 26, 2004 - Shortcut launches PhotoMagic, the complete photo software suite. All of Shortcuts software products, including their award-winning and patented technologies, are now bundled into one product. Design, paint, repair, enlarge, and print photos very easily. PhotoMagic is available from 14 November. 

PhotoMagic is specially designed to enhance photos, taken with a digital camera or mobile phone - with built-in camera -. It offers creative, artistic and repair filters as well as enlargements without quality loss and one-click printing.

PCMagazine have published their review of Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0.

“Elements 3 boasts both a redesigned interface and easier access to powerful tools. New image-editing tools include Photoshop’s amazing Healing Brush, which lets you easily remove blemishes and imperfections from photos. There’s also an easier-than-ever tool for removing red-eye, and built-in support for the Camera Raw format. Meanwhile, a new Quick Fix mode offers an even simpler interface to Elements - it’s a perfect choice for image-editing newbies.”

Website: PCMagazine - Adobe Photoshop Elements 3 Review

Ink Saver Press Release 20/10/04

LONDON ?October 20th 2004 - The universal adoption of digital technology has led to a higher usage of ink. Ink Saver has already become an invaluable software application at a time when the increasing price of ink is becoming a more expensive cost in the home, school and office. With InkSaver savings of up to 75% can be made on the amount of ink used.

InkSaver works with all inkjet printer brands to reduce the amount of ink the printers consume, saving up to four times the amount of ink that an inkjet would normally use. Once installed InkSaver sits between the printer driver and the application software and uses advanced algorithms to intelligently reduce the ink needed to print documents and images. This activity goes on “in the background” and at such a rate that the user doesn’t see any decrease in print speed.

Fred Miranda has released Velvia Vision, a new Photoshop plug-in designed to enhance color and tone in your photographs.

It provides a 200% range of error-free color intensity as well as smart algorithms to increase contrast, create moods and expand tonal range. With this new tool, photographers can preview settings and tweak intensity results for maximum control over their work. Another feature unique to this plugin, is that you can save and load your own Velvia Vision profiles.

This plug-in is compatible with JPEG files straight from the camera or TIFF/JPEG files converted from RAW files. (Compatible with all digital camera or scanned film files)

Website: Fred Miranda

Mac Design Magazine have published their review of Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0.

“Features unique to the Mac
The Mac version of Elements 3 doesn’t have the new Organizer so Adobe has added some features to the Mac version, including a full-featured version of the File Browser from Photoshop CS (the Windows version of File Browser doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of the CS version). Also included are additional Web Photo Gallery templates, more Picture Package editing options, and several other enhancements that won’t be available on the Windows version.”

Website: Mac Design Magazine - Adobe Photoshop Elements 3 Review

Profile Prism is software that allows monitor calibration and can generate ICC profiles for digital cameras, scanners, and printers using an IT8 reference target. Resulting color profiles may be used in any ICC aware application such as Qimage Pro, Adobe PhotoShop, Corel PhotoPaint, and many others. The software is designed for a PC running any 32 bit Windows operating system, however, it can be run on a Mac running Virtual PC. In addition, since the ICC profiles generated by Profile Prism are 100% compliant with ICC specs, the profiles themselves may be used on any platform (PC, Mac, etc.).

Version 5.0 allows precise editing of printer profiles.

New Features:
Profile Editor: A quality scanner based profiling tool like Profile Prism is very helpful in color managing “screen to print” color, however, due to differences in how your eyes perceive color in prints and how your scanner interprets printed targets, there is often a need for some fine tuning or editing of certain areas of printer profiles.

The Dansih website Digital Magasinet have reviewed RAW PhotoDesk for Windows, which allows you to view and edit both raw and other file formats from most digital cameras. If you want to use RAW PhotoDesk beyond the 30 day trial period, you must register. A single user license is $29.95.

Website: Digital Magasinet - RAW PhotoDesk Review

Website: RAW PhotoDesk

Scheider Press Release 21/10/04

Powerful, affordable, easy-to-use “plug ins” are compatible with all popular image processing programs

Hauppauge, NY, October 21,2004 - Schneider Optics, in conjunction with its parent company, Jos. Schneider Optische Werke GmbH, known for manufacturing high performance lenses and filters, has introduced a new line of digital filter software that enables any PC or MAC computer user to easily and quickly apply special retouching and effects to any digital image.

Available in two different sets: (1) Portrait and Family, and (2) Outdoor, these B+W software sets each provide six selectable effects that can be selected by a single click of a mouse, be instantly adjusted, and applied to an image by a second mouse click. As a result, retouching effects that previously took minutes or hours, and could only be accomplished by highly trained, experienced operators using leading photo-manipulating software, can now be achieved easily by anyone, virtually instantly.

The new B+W filter software can apply professional-quality effects to photos from any source, including digital cameras, “camera” cell phones, camcorders, scanners and the Internet.

Phase One Press Release 21/10/04

Phase One announces 2005 support for Adobe DNG Digital Negative Specification

Phase One A/S, Copenhagen, October 21th, 2004: Phase One, a world leader in digital camera backs and DSLR RAW conversion software, welcomes Adobe’s latest initiative, the Digital Negative Specification (DNG), as an important step in facilitating the wider usage of raw formats. Phase One is announcing today the support of the Adobe DNG specification in upcoming releases of its highly respected C1-RAW Workflow Software in 2005.

Today, the C1 range of RAW workflow software has native support for most professional DSLR cameras. Adding the DNG format, Phase One will be able to offer our end users yet another option in regards to taking advantage of working with RAW captures and building an efficient RAW workflow. Phase One will continue to support the native RAW format of existing professional DSLR cameras as well as future DSLR cameras, however we look to the DNG format as a means of bringing additional camera support to our C1 users in a more timely fashion, while maintaining the image quality that Phase One is known for.

FlashFixers Press Release 21/10/04

FlashFixers Announces ImageRecall 3 Now Recovers More Image Formats Than Any Other Digital Photo Recovery Software Including RAW Formats

ImageRecall 3 also adds new speed enhancements and an upgraded user interface, making it the fastest, easiest and most complete solution available for digital image recovery.

PhotoPlus-New York, NY-October 21, 2004-Keeping pace with advances in digital photography, FlashFixers announces ImageRecall 3 now offers expanded recovery support for all known camera RAW and standard image formats, as well as sound, video, Microsoft Office and Adobe pdf files. Additional improvements in usability, performance and speed, result in recoveries that are more than 60 percent faster than previous versions and a more satisfying user experience.

“Most photographers at some point will experience the frustration of lost images,” notes Kevin Bordley, ImageRecall’s product marketing manager. “ImageRecall 3 acts like an insurance policy and brings easy and affordable file recovery within reach of anyone owning a digital camera.”