Getty Images Press Release

Getty Images Acquires Digital Vision, Significantly Expands Imagery Market Leadership Worldwide; Acquisition Primes Company for Emerging Platforms and Licensing Models

SEATTLE—(BUSINESS WIRE)—April 20, 2005—Getty Images, Inc. (NYSE:GYI), the world’s leading imagery company, announced today that it has acquired London-based Digital Vision, one of the world’s leading royalty-free photography businesses, for $165 million in cash. This acquisition, the largest Getty Images has made in five years, unequivocally confirms the company as the leading creator and provider of royalty-free imagery worldwide. Combined with Getty Images’ Photodisc, which pioneered the royalty-free licensing model and remains the world’s largest royalty-free imagery business, Digital Vision will provide more choice for customers and additional opportunities for photographers.

Photobird.com Press Release

New Photobird.com codebase: More robust platform, flexible architecture, stronger foundation, at least 200% speed increase

For the past several months, we’ve been hard at work on a new version of Photobird.com.  This new version has the same clean, attractive design as the previous Photobird.com site, but it also has improved speed, a more flexible architecture, and a stronger foundation upon which to build new features.

Our speed benchmark tests show a performance improvement of at least 200%.  Some pages on the new Photobird.com show an improvement of over 2000%!  Because Photobird.com is already very fast and because these improvements are measured in milliseconds, individual site visitors may not see a dramatic speed increase.  But these performance improvements mean that as Photobird.com grows, it will continue to show photos and albums very quickly.

Nikon Press Release

The Nikkor special website is up and running

Nikkor lenses, popular for more than 70 years, are featured under such categories as philosophy, history, technology and achievement

TOKYO - Nikon Corporation is pleased to announce the launch of its Nikkor special website on April 20, 2005, to commemorate total production of more than 35 million Nikkor lenses.

Our popular range of Nikkor lenses, which have been loved by customers for more than 70 years, is featured under such categories as philosophy, history, technology and achievement. This attractive site offers you a wealth of information to help you increase your enjoyment and use of Nikkor lenses, and is equally suited to long-time Nikkor fans, the owners of a Nikon digital SLR with a Nikkor lens as well as those who are still thinking about buying a Nikkor lens. We promise that you won’t be disappointed.

Kodak UK Press Release

Change Reflects Continued Integration into the KODAK Family of Digital Photography Products; Service Will Maintain Complete Set of Products

London, 19 April — Eastman Kodak Company and its online photo service subsidiary, Ofoto, Inc., has announced that the service will change its name to KODAK EASYSHARE Gallery, effective 18 May.  This powerful new name builds on the success of the award-winning Ofoto service and provides new and exciting opportunities for integration within the KODAK family of products, including the ability to directly access the Gallery from new KODAK EASYSHARE-ONE zoom digital cameras.

With the change, Ofoto.com will become Kodakgallery.com. From now until 18 May, customers will continue to see the Ofoto name and should visit www.ofoto.com to access, share, and print their pictures.

PSFK Release

When Piers Fawkes and Simon King saw the amazing collection of photos under the ‘whatsinyourbag’ tag on Flickr recently they were inspired to try to repeat the phenomenon around the concept of their blog, PSFK. PSFK is a collaborative trend spotting blog and Piers and Simon decided to launch the PSFK Cool Hunt on Flickr - a competition with judges & prizes where folk upload their images of ‘cool’. Each month there’s a theme - April’s is ‘mycooljeans’.

Although, just run for fun, over 100 photobloggers joined the PSFK Cool Hunt Group within the first 2 weeks and now Australian Bag manufacturer Crumpler want to give their funky camera bags as prizes for May.

PSFK Cool Hunt On Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/psfkcoolhunt/
Details: http://www.psfk.com/2005/04/psfk_cool_hunt_.html
PSFK: www.psfk.com

emeness Press Release

April 14th 2005 -  emeness, commercial print firm and sister company of the digital print service company clickonprint.com, announces a new online digital printing service called totalPIX.  The Hackney-based group will offer digitally printed products, such as photobooks or calendars, that can be designed by the consumer via an easy to use interface, customised with personal photos, and ordered via a secure Internet commerce site.  The fulfilment is facilitated by an e-business application that is exclusively licensed for use with the KODAK NEXPRESS 2100 digital production colour press.

emeness is the first UK printer to offer this unique service.  totalPIX is an Internet-based service that will enable anyone to design and order a variety of personalised products, such as photobooks (weddings, new baby, holidays, etc.), school yearbooks, certificates or postcards.  Favourite photos can be used to create a custom calendar or poster.

Globetechnology have published a brief review of PhotoLeap, a new online service dedicated to emailing photos. Thanks to Sanj for letting me know.

“The free version lets you send up to 25 photos per message and resizes those photos, using proprietary compression algorithms, to a maximum of 2 megapixels each. With the premium version, which costs $29 (U.S.) per year, you can send up to 250 photos per message at up to 8 megapixels per photo. There’s also a $499 professional version that has a 250 photo-per-message limit with up to 16 megapixels per photo. The paid versions let you receive any number of photos at any resolution.”

Website: Globetechnology - PhotoLeap Review

Fotobay.com Press Release

Fotobay.com’s Calypso Technology Brings Online Photo Sharing to a Whole New Level of Personalized Experience

BURLINGAME, Calif., April 12 /PRNewswire/—Fotobay.com’s announces the public release of “Calypso,” the revolutionary technology that allows anyone to create the ultimate online photo album experience. With Calypso, the end user can create their own personalized Cool Objects to add to their albums. Cool Objects can be anything such as personal handwriting captions, personal sketches or drawings, animated objects with sound, or intelligent objects that interact with the viewers. No longer are the Cool Objects limited to the collection offered by Fotobay. This technology sets your imagination free and brings new dimensions of creativity and fun to experiencing your photo memories.

NAPP Press Release

Tampa, FL – April 4, 2005 – Today, immediately following Adobe’s announcement of Photoshop® CS2, the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) launched the Photoshop CS2 Learning Center—the most comprehensive look at Adobe® Photoshop© CS2 available anywhere (http://www.photoshopuser.com/photoshopcs2.html). This extensive learning center, including free online videos, articles, reviews, news, a downloadable CS2 overview, and a CS2 discussion forum, provides an unparalleled resource for learning about this amazing new upgrade.

“I loved Photoshop 7. I thought Photoshop CS was even better, but Photoshop CS2 blows them both away. This is clearly the most significant update to Photoshop in years,” said NAPP President Scott Kelby. “This update has something for everybody, but if you’re a photographer, it’s absolutely going to make your jaw drop. It’s that good.” Kelby added.

It might be Staurday today, but that hasn’t stopped Mike Johnston from celebrating the 3rd anniversary of his “Sunday Morning Photographer” with a look at digital black and white using ConvertToBW Pro v.3 from The Imaging Factory.

“There are all sorts of ways to convert a color digital image to B&W. Some cameras have it as a capture option; you can click on “grayscale” in most image-processing programs; and there are various different ways you can do it in Photoshop, such as using Channel Mixer. Then there are a number of freeware, shareware, and commercial applications, several but by no means all of which I’ve tried. This column’s home base is The Luminous Landscape, and thanks to a recent recommendation from Michael Reichmann, the site’s proprietor, called Three Must-Have Photoshop Plug-ins, I got turned on to what I think is a really great one: ConvertToBW Pro v.3.”

Website: The Sunday Morning Photographer: A Digital Black and White Update

Create-A-Gift Press ReleaseCreate-A-Gift, the largest supplier of personalised print in Europe, is launching an exciting new feature on its website which will enable amateur photographers to sell their work from its online library for the first time.

Photographers can upload their images at the Create-A-Gift website and will earn a commission if customers select one of their pictures for use in a gift. The copyright of the image will remain the property of the photographer and images can be added to or withdrawn at any time.

Phill Rodgers, Director of Create-A-Gift; “This is a really exciting opportunity for any photographer to get a presence on the web and exposure for their work. It’s also a great way to make money from their creativity without any risk since there is no cost involved.”

FolioLink Press Release

Artists and Photographers Get Flashy Web Sites

FALLS CHURCH, Va., March 30 /PRNewswire/—FolioLink’s new FLASH movie web sites take advantage of the visual richness of FLASH technology while allowing search engines to index metadata and text content. This technological feat makes FolioLink the first service of its kind that can offer FLASH movie web sites with search engine visibility.

Lonna Tucker, professional photographer since 1978 and former Arizona Chapter President of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) collaborated with FolioLink on the development of its first FLASH movie template. Within the first three weeks of her new site launch she was listed on the first page of Google (TM) for the search term Golfscapes Photography. She also received sales requests from around the world. Her site can be visited at http://www.lonnatucker.com/ . “We solved the FLASH movie search engine riddle and now we can offer FLASH templates that are visible to Google and other crawler-based search engines. This is a terrific advance in technology for art-based web sites,” said Raul Jarquin, FolioLink developer.

MalekTips Press Release

400 Digital Camera Tips - Get More Enjoyment Out of Photography

(PRLEAP.COM) Knoxville, TN - Digital camera and computer help website MalekTips (http://malektips.com/camera/) today announced the expansion of its digital camera help library, now numbering at 400 tips. Bringing its total computer and technology tip count to over 2,300, MalekTips now has an increased number of articles on pertinent subjects such as digital camera purchasing advice, photo composition, and photo printing.

The Photobloggies is an annual award ceremony celebrating photoblogging around the world. Through the Photobloggies, you can find some of the best photoblog sites on the internet, chosen by photobloggers and photoblog readers. Organized by Brandon Stone, Jake Dobkin, and Rannie Turingan, it includes awards based on geographic region, photoblog subject matter, and “best of” categories.

PhotographyBLOG is pleased to be able to support the Photobloggies by sponsoring the “Best Landscape Photography of a Photoblog” category.

Voting is now open, so visit the Photobloggies site now to vote for the Best Landscape category and all the other awards.

The Photobloggies

Yahoo have announced that they have bought Flickr, one of the most popular ways to store, organise and share your photos online. Flickr’s own announcement via their blog is the best way to find out what the acquisition means for the future of the Flickr service:

“Holy smokes, SOMEBODY out there is bad at keeping secrets!!  Yes! We can finally confirm that Yahoo has made a definitive agreement to acquire Flickr and us, Ludicorp. Smack the tattlers and pop the champagne corks! Woohoo! What does this mean? It means that we’ll no longer have to draw straws to see who gets paid, schedule conjugal visits between trips to the colo….wait! That’s not what you want to know.”

Flickr Blog - Yahoo actually does acquire Flickr

Thanks to Sanj for the link.

Canon UK Press Release

Online gallery returns to search for best photograph of UEFA Champions League 2004/2005

Canon is pleased to announce the launch of The Shot, an interactive photo competition hosted on the official website of UEFA, www.uefa.com/theshot.  The original competition during UEFA EURO 2004™ attracted over 1.3 million visitors and we expect this updated version to be even more popular.

Available now, the website will be updated after each UEFA Champions League matchday with the very best images captured at each game by Getty Images, the world’s leading professional sports photographers.  Football and photography fans alike can then visit the site and vote on which pictures they think are the most visually exciting; these votes will be recorded throughout the knockout stages of the competition to identify The Shot of the competition after the Final in May.

By registering to vote and taking part in the competition, fans can win a range of fantastic prizes. There are six competition periods, each offering the chance to win a variety of cutting edge Canon cameras and printers and limited edition Canon merchandise. The Grand Prize is a once in a lifetime VIP trip to a UEFA Champions League game during next year’s competition.

PictoColor Corporation Press Release

New on-line store features professional calibration and profiling solutions for color managed workflows

March 10, 2005-Burnsville, MN-PictoColor Corporation, a leading developer and distributor of color management products has opened PictoMarketplace.com, a new online store featuring professional color correction, calibration, and profiling solutions. PictoMarketplace is a color management product resource for digital photographers.  It is owned and operated by PictoColor Corporation and specializes in digital color control products that help the digital photographer create a color management workflow.  PictoMarketplace.com is located at www.pictomarketplace.com.

Mike Johnston’s “Sunday Morning Photographer” column appears for the second time this month. In this bonus edition, Mike makes some, long-term predictions about what cameras of the future will look like…

”– First of all, I predict that DSLRs will be an evolutionary dead-end. They may last another six or seven, or even ten or twelve years, but eventually they will fizzle and go away. I’m not trying to be controversial; I really believe they will.

– Second, I think sensors will get smaller, not bigger. That is, they will get smaller than “full-frame,” APS-C, and 4/3rds size, although they may not need to be as small as the tiny 1.1/8” imagers on today’s digicams. But they will be closer to today’s 2/3 size (6.6 x 8.8mm) than to “full-frame” 24 x 36mm.”

Website: The Sunday Morning Photographer: Rash Predictions Part 1

Luminous Landscape editor Michael Reichmann then replies to Mike’s original article…
Website: The Sunday Morning Photographer: Rash Predictions Part 2

...before letting Mike have the last word…
Website: The Sunday Morning Photographer: Rash Predictions Part 3

HP Press Release

HP Launches Mobile Moments – the Online Star- Studded Mobile Phone Photography Exhibition

BRACKNELL, UK, March 14, 2005.  HP (NYSE, NASDAQ: HPQ) today announced it will be unveiling Mobile Moments (www.hp.com/eur/mobilemoments), an online celebrity mobile phone photography exhibition in aid of Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres and HP digital villages. HP has asked leading photographers, artists and entertainment personalities to contribute their first mega-pixel mobile phone photograph to the exhibition. Each participant was asked to capture their own ‘mobile moment’ – a spontaneous image caught in the moment. The result is a thoughtful, imaginative and sometimes funny look at what makes celebrities tick.

Mike Johnston’s “Sunday Morning Photographer” column this month urges you to forget digital and go buy yourself a film camera instead…

“The F100 is a superb used buy. Being a Nikon and being so clearly the near-pro, hyper-hobbyist body in the film lineup, it’s just the kind of camera that was lapped up in the thousands by well-heeled amateurs who love photography but may not get to shoot much. In that these are just the sort of folks who are offloading their film gear lately to finance the digital wallet drain, the used market is awash with good used F100s. $600 will get you a fine one almost anywhere, and I’ve even seen perfectly good ones dip into the high $400 range. The F100 might not be quite the perfect modern camera (that’s the F6’s role), but it’s the most perfect modern camera anybody’s ever been able to buy for five hundred bucks.”

Website: The Sunday Morning Photographer: Just to be Contrary