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.

Digital Foci Press Release

Displays Photos, Slideshows and Music at Home or Office

Los Angeles, California, October 18, 2005 – Digital Foci, Inc. (www.digitalfoci.com) introduced today the powerful Image Moments digital photo album frame, which lets you display and share photos directly from digital camera memory cards at home or at the office on beautiful maple or walnut picture frames.  Just insert any digital camera card into Image Moments and memories will instantly come to life in sharp, vibrant color on its big 8-inch high-resolution LCD screen. 

Photo Slideshows with Music
Instead of seeing the same picture day in and day out as you do with traditional print photo frames, Image Moments lets you easily change photos at your whim.  Remember cherished memories – your wedding, the birth of your baby, or your family vacations with Image Moment’s “Photo Slideshow Mode,” which lets you automatically scroll through collections of photos.  Since Image Moments supports MP3 and video formats, you can even add music to your slideshows and play movies.

Epson UK Press Release

Epson again successful in halting sales of infringing ink cartridges

In on-going activities to protect its intellectual property rights, Seiko Epson Corporation (“Epson”) recently filed patent infringement proceedings in the English High Court against CybaHouse Limited to stop the importation from China, and supply within the UK, of certain Epson compatible printer cartridges (IM JET brand).

Epson has now agreed to settle the case out of Court, based on undertakings from CybaHouse, their sister company Nutronic Limited and their directors that they will cease trading in the Epson compatible cartridges. The settlement terms also include the payment by CybaHouse Limited of Epson’s legal costs plus an undisclosed sum in respect of damages. The full terms of the settlement are confidential.

Creative UK Press Release

THE AMAZING ZEN MICROPHOTO: NOW SHIPPING IN THE UK!

Winner of a ‘Best of CES’ award for 2005, Creative’s new MP3 and photo player features advanced colour screen, storage for up to 4,000 songs* and a choice of ten colours.

London, 18th October, 2005; Creative (Nasdaq: CREAF) the worldwide leader in digital entertainment products for the personal computer and the Internet, announces first shipments of the new Zen MicroPhoto. This MP3 player for music and photos, which is optimised for Windows XP and Windows Media Player 10, stores thousands of images or up to 4,000 songs* on its 8GB hard disk, enabling people to enjoy their favourite music or share photos with friends. Winner of ‘Best of CES’ for 2005 in the ‘Audio to Go’ category, it’s a player that’s made to fit in the hand, with a solid construction designed to withstand the rigours of day-to-day life. It’s also exceptionally easy to control, thanks to its Vertical Touch Pad. It features a built-in FM radio for extra entertainment on the move, while the rechargeable and removable battery offers playtimes up to 15 hours.

PhotoVu Press Release

PhotoVu™ Compatible with World’s First Built-in WiFi-Enabled Digital Camera, the Nikon® COOLPIX P1

For direct wireless viewing of photos from camera to PhotoVu Digital Wireless Picture Frames

Boulder, CO—October 18, 2005—Today PhotoVu™ announced the compatibility of their PV1945 and PV1750 wireless digital LCD picture frames with the world’s first built-in WiFi-enabled digital cameras, the Nikon® COOLPIX™ P1 and P2. By easily accessing the WiFi features of these new cameras, a person can immediately view the photos they’re taking on their PhotoVu frame.

“At a birthday party, a wedding or any gathering where photos are a must, individuals can now add to their enjoyment by viewing the event as it unfolds,” said Robert Jordan, Partner, PhotoVu. “Using WiFi technology to save a step and automatically display new photos on the PhotoVu frame is just one new way we’re taking photos out of the shoebox and on to the wall.”

JP Distribution Press Release

JP Distribution is pleased to announce the Gepe Card Safe (TM) range.

Digital memory cards are now used in almost every electronic device such as digital cameras, video cameras, MP3 Players, cell phones, PDAs, etc. For these devices different type and sizes of cards are used. All cards have one point in common however; the personal value of their contained data that needs to be protected. For transport, safekeeping and optimal protection of these memory cards Gepe has developed the unique Card Safe series.

A special feature of all Card Safe models is the innovative MultiCard insert. Each card space can be used for different card types. Without having to change the insert MMC/SD cards, Smart Media, Memory Stick or Compact Flash cards can be stored tightly and safely. The design and special material used, protect the cards from shocks and keeps them securely in place, whilst the unique, Anti-Static lining material prevents valuable data from being erased, or damaged, due to electrostatic effects.

Digital Railroad Press Release

The Digital Railroad Marketplace Will Provide All Members with Worldwide Distribution Opportunities; Buyers Will Have More Resources in One Professional Marketplace than Ever Before

New York, NY – October 18, 2005 – Digital Railroad, Inc. (http://www.digitalrailroad.net), the leading provider of Web-based application services for the professional photography industry, today announced plans for the Digital Railroad Marketplace. This initiative is another direct response by the company to address requests for additional features by its photographer, agency and photo buyer members around the world.

The Digital Railroad Marketplace will continue to allow members to maintain their personally branded archives, while giving them the most efficient method to simultaneously publish images through an aggregated marketplace. Digital Railroad’s members include award-winning photographers and agencies in 40 countries, from Afghanistan to Italy, from the U.S. to Indonesia. A partial list of members can be viewed at the following directory: http://www.digitalrailroad.net/corpsite/directory.html

Lexar Card Readers Provide Photographers With Easy, Efficient Management Of Images And Information

New Professional Compactflash Reader Is The Latest Addition To The Company’s Award-Winning Line

FREMONT, Ca., October 18, 2005 – Lexar Media, Inc. (Nasdaq: LEXR), a world leader in advanced digital media technologies, is demonstrating its focus on meeting the needs of professional photography workflow by strengthening its line of memory card readers from the new Professional CompactFlash Reader and high-speed multi-card readers to the single slot unit ideal for the mobile photographer.

“The big trend today for the pros is turning images around quickly, and that means they need workflow tools that will enable the speed of transferring images. We see this trend emerging for pro-sumers as well, as they are discovering and exploring the multitude of features that their new SLR camera has to offer, and the real need for tools that will help them manage volume better,” said John Omvik, director of professional product marketing, Lexar. “Our newest product, the Professional CompactFlash Reader is a high quality, durable device that streamlines the photography workflow and improves the experience for professionals.”

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.

BitShelter LLC Press Release

Photographers Laforet, Frakes, Ashburn choose PhotoShelter as their Online Image Archive; Award Winning Photographers Making Full Use of PhotoShelter’s Low Cost, Geographically Redundant Storage System

PhotoPlus Expo 2005 Booth 582

NEW YORK—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Oct. 17, 2005—Digital storage platform provider BitShelter LLC today announced the launch of PhotoShelter (www.PhotoShelter.com), an online image archive service and marketplace.

Vincent Laforet, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer with The New York Times; Bill Frakes, a staff photographer for Sports Illustrated Magazine; and 2004 Canon Female Photojournalist Award winner Kristen Ashburn are among PhotoShelter’s initial clients.

Built by the engineers behind the success of HotJobs.com, PhotoShelter offers professional photographers a truly affordable and robust archive system, along with the tools and resources they need to turn their storage into sales.

Lexar Media Press Release

FREMONT, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Oct. 14, 2005—Lexar Media, Inc. (Nasdaq:LEXR), a world leader in advanced digital media technologies, today announced that the trial court has entered final judgment in Lexar Media, Inc. v. Toshiba Corporation et al. In entering the judgment, the Superior Court for the State of California affirmed the jury verdict delivered in March in the case against Toshiba Corporation (JP:6502) and Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (PNK:TOSBF.PK) in which the jury awarded Lexar over $465 million in damages based on Toshiba Corporation and Toshiba America Electronics Components’ breach of fiduciary duty and theft of trade secrets from Lexar.

“We are very pleased that, after six months of Toshiba’s efforts to challenge the jury verdict, the Court has rejected those challenges and entered judgment confirming that verdict in every respect,” said Eric Whitaker, executive vice president and general counsel, Lexar. “The jury’s verdict was based on a mountain of evidence, mostly from Toshiba’s own files, establishing that Toshiba deliberately violated its duties to Lexar and that a large number of the products currently manufactured and sold by Toshiba contain Lexar’s trade secrets. We are confident that Toshiba’s remaining efforts to challenge the verdict, including its inevitable appeal, will fare no better than Toshiba’s earlier attempts.”

Samsung Press Release

Samsung Introduces Mobile Phone with 3GB Hard Disk Drive

SEOUL, Korea—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Oct. 17, 2005—Samsung today introduced a 3GB HDD embedded phone, model SPH-V7900. This is Samsung’s latest model equipped with a hard disc drive following the world’s first mobile phone equipped with 1.5GB hard disc drive, model SPH-V5400, which Samsung introduced in September of last year.

The V7900 allows users to store two or three full-length movies (at 1.1-5GB each) or more than 700 music files (at 4MB each).

The V7900 also supports the latest multimedia compression technologies -MPEG-4/H.264 (for video) and MPEG-4 AAC/AAC+ (for audio). High-performance dual speakers are mounted on the exterior folder to provide 64-polyphonic stereo sound.

This model comes with harmonic color, a new feature that converts all musical elements such as scale, octave, tone and volume into visual images in a variety of colors and patterns. It also comes with a 2 megapixel camera that includes 2x optical zoom, MP3 player, and document viewer functions.

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

Sony Press Release

Analysts agree. Sony’s Cyber-shot® digital cameras are proving to be a popular choice among women.

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 17, 2005 - According to the NPD Group, 53 percent of all digital camera purchases from May to July were made by women. Of Sony digital camera purchases, 56 percent were made by women, beating the industry average. This is up from 42 percent a year ago.

In a research study conducted in April entitled Closing the Technology Gender Gap; What Women Really Want, analysts from IDC found that women were not only tech savvy, but also very busy, pragmatic individuals, who demand performance and convenience from the products they buy. According to the study, women don’t have time to “tinker” with their gadgets; they require reliable and intuitive devices that are ready when they are.

BBC Press Release

BBC Collective, the BBC’s interactive culture magazine, in collaboration with The Photographers’ Gallery are pleased to announce the “Create Your Own Exhibition” competition is now live on bbc.co.uk. 

Offering an entertaining and creative opportunity for photography and arts enthusiasts to use the BBC’s stills archives, the competition offers a unique opportunity for users to dream up a theme and illustrate it with your own online exhibition.  An image bank of over 450 stills taken from the BBC’s image archive is available for people to pick from.

Tamron USA Press Release

Rapid Shift to Digital SLRs by Bronica’s Core Customer Base Prompts Move to Terminate Bronica Medium Format Business

October 14, 2005, Commack, New York — Tamron USA, Inc. announced today that it has discontinued the production of the Bronica RF645 6x4.5 range finder camera model along with its relevant interchangeable lenses and accessories. The discontinuation of this last Bronica model marks the termination of the Bronica brand business. Bronica withdraws from the medium format camera business after 47 years since its first model, the Zenza Bronica D, was introduced in 1959.

Due to the drastic worldwide shift to digital over the past few years, medium format business has suffered, particularly in the portrait and wedding photography segment, the core customer base for Bronica cameras. “I believe we all understand the issues at hand when it comes to the business of medium format,” stated Kenji Nakagawa, Sales Manager of Tamron headquarters’ Overseas Sales & Marketing Department in Japan. “We have been struggling to find the best possible solution for the medium format camera business under the Bronica brand, but after careful study and the comprehensive consideration of the market situation, we have concluded that there is no other choice but to end this business.”

DigitalCameraInfo have published their review of the 12.8 megapixel Canon EOS 5D digital SLR.

“Following our period of evaluation with the Canon EOS 5D, we can fully confirm that the camera is indeed all it’s slated to be. Images produced with the camera’s 35.8mm x 23.9mm 12.8 megapixel full frame CMOS sensor were sharp and contained low noise. While the camera is not meant for speed, its 4-channel readout and DIGIC II processor handled volumes of large files with ease – processing 15 RAW images in under 22 seconds. However, the biggest surprise was the effectiveness of the newly implemented Picture Style settings. While it is slightly deceiving at first (since “0’s” are not equal to other “0” settings), the amount of control provided by the parameters was enlightening. Colors can be made to accurately reproduce the scene or slightly embellish the look and saturate the tones nicely, adding vibrancy. The design of the camera made it easy to handle and it fit my hands better than any Canon DSLR released to date. Other than a disappointing LCD screen and limited x-sync, the EOS 5D is about all consumers can ask for at a retail price of $3299. Currently, the 5D is truly without competition.”

Website: DigitalCameraInfo - Canon EOS 5D Review

Check the Latest Prices for the Canon EOS 5D

Write a Review of the Canon EOS 5D

PCMagazine have just reviewed the new HP Photosmart R817, which offers 5 megapixels and a 5x optical zoom lens.

“Affordable compact digital cameras typically have 3X optical zoom, which is fine for most situations. But when you want to get close to the action on the soccer field or at the recital, 3X won’t always suffice. So we were excited to see that the HP Photosmart R817 has 5X optical zoom—and at a reasonable price. Although our initial enthusiasm was dampened a bit by the R817’s relatively slow speeds and significant shutter lag, we still think it’s the best 5-megapixel compact camera for beginners.”

Website: PCMagazine - HP Photosmart R817 Review

Website: Read my HP Photosmart R817 Review

Check the Latest Prices for the HP Photosmart R817

Write a Review of the HP Photosmart R817

DigitalCameraReview.com have published their review of the Konica Minolta Z6, which updates the popular Z5 and features a 6 megapixel sensor, 12x zoom lens and 2 inch LCD screen.

“The Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6 is a 6 megapixel camera that features a 12x optical zoom and Konica Minolta’s CCD-shift Anti-Shake system. The camera performs quickly with a fast auto focus system and minimal shutter lag. Manual modes provide a large range of control over images and the stabilized 12x optical zoom. However, I had problems with overexposure in a lot of my shots taken with default settings and shots were a bit too noisy.”

Website: DigitalCameraReview.com - Konica Minolta Z6 Review

Check the Latest Prices for the Konica Minolta Z6

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Color Confidence Press Release

Totally Colour Managed - The most comprehensive colour management road show ever in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Fantastic news - Due to high levels of interest and registrations, the early bird discount for the colour management event of the year has been extended for one more week. Book before the 21st October to take advantage of the special ‘early bird’ rate of £79.00 ex. VAT. Book Now!

The full rate of £99.00 ex VAT, will apply to all bookings made after the 21st October.

Remember - this event is for everyone, from amateurs to professionals and anyone interested in getting colour “right”: photographers, designers, pre-press and reprographics, new media professionals - to name a few.