DPNow have published a brief illustrated tour of Adobe Photoshop CS2.

“A great enhancement to the already brilliant healing brush introduced in CS1 is spot healing. You no longer need to set up a source region for the cloning action, just set your brush size and click. Another excellent healing brush enhancement is a new red eye option. Again, simplicity is the key - just drag select around the red eye area, release the mouse button and it’s done.”

Website: DPNow - Adobe Photoshop CS2 Preview

Easypano Press Release

Easypano releases the most powerful stitching solution Panoweaver 4

Shanghai, April 5th (PR Newswire) - Easypano, Inc., the premier virtual reality solution provider announces today that its new product, Panoweaver 4 is available on the market. Panoweaver is a professional tool that can stitch digital images and creates 360-by-360 panoramas, in an easy way. These panorama photos are used to record scenes, buildings, objects in a more comprehensive way. In the past four years, the industry-leading panorama stitching software, Panoweaver has been serving thousands of professional photographers, real estate agents, web designers, project managers and even crime scene investigators worldwide.

Jupitermedia Corporation Press Release

Jupitermedia Announces That Its Comstock Images Collection is Available Through New Adobe Stock Photos Service

NEW YORK—(BUSINESS WIRE)—April 5, 2005—Jupitermedia Corporation (Nasdaq: JUPM) today announced a collaboration with Adobe through Adobe(R) Stock Photos, a new stock photography service that offers designers one-stop shopping for high-quality, royalty-free images for layout and design. With drag and drop ease, designers can download non-watermarked comp images from Jupitermedia’s Comstock Images collection (www.comstock.com) and bring them into a layout—and then purchase without ever having to leave Adobe Creative Suite 2.

Comstock Images is one of five premier image suppliers whose collections will be included in the Adobe Stock Photos service, available in Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium and Standard Editions, Adobe Photoshop(R) CS2, Adobe InDesign(R) CS2, Adobe Illustrator(R) CS2 and Adobe GoLive(R) CS2 announced April 4 and expected to be available in North America this May.

Peachpit Press Release

The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers by #1 Photoshop Author Scott Kelby to Ship the Same Day as Adobe’s Software

BERKELEY, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—April 5, 2005—Today Peachpit announced its lineup of books designed to guide readers through Adobe(R) Creative Suite 2 (CS2), Adobe’s software package which contains all-new versions of Adobe Photoshop(R), Adobe InDesign(R), Adobe Illustrator(R), Adobe GoLive(R), plus the recently released Adobe Acrobat(R) 7.0 Professional. Peachpit is offering books on all of the new applications for all levels of users. Its first title, The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers, by #1 Photoshop author Scott Kelby, will ship in early May 2005, on the very same day as Adobe’s Photoshop CS2 software.

Total Training Press Release

Sample Tutorials Included in Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium Edition Product Boxes

Carlsbad, CA, April 5, 2005 – Total Training™, Inc., a pioneer in engaging and innovative video-based training, today announced a new series of DVD-ROM videos for mastering Adobe® Creative Suite® 2 Premium Edition. This announcement follows the launch of Creative Suite 2, Adobe’s complete design and publishing environment—making the Total Training series the earliest video training available for both Mac and PC users.

Sample video tutorials will be included with Adobe Photoshop® CS2, Adobe InDesign® CS2, Adobe Illustrator® CS2, and Adobe GoLive® CS2 product boxes. In addition to the sample tutorials, Creative Suite 2 users can get Total Training’s comprehensive video training for each full-version of Adobe’s indispensable design software, including: Total Training for Photoshop CS2, Total Training for InDesign CS2, Total Training for Illustrator CS2, and Total Training for GoLive CS2. Also available is Total Training Presents Creative Suite 2: from Design to Delivery, which focuses on ways to master the entire product line workflow.

DigiCamReview have just posted their review of the 4 megapixel, 8.3x optical zoom Nikon Coolpix 4800.

“Image quality is very good, the images have good colour, saturation, contrast and detail - with very little purple fringing. The camera did a good job focusing - although indoors it did occassionally struggle. Noise was controlled well. I didn’t notice any vignetting in the corners . There is an good range of image sizes although not much in the way of compression options. The macro mode is excellent. Auto white balance and metering seemed to be very good. Red-eye was controlled well. The movie mode is fairly average.”

Website: DigiCamReview - Nikon Coolpix 4800 Review

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The Norwegian website Akamera.no have reviewed the new Casio Exilim Pro EX-P505, which features a 5X optical zoom, an imaging CCD with 5.0 megapixels, Casio’s “EXILIM engine”, and a large 2-inch TFT color rotating screen.

Website: Akamera.no - Casio Exilim Pro EX-P505 Review

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DIWA member and Norwegian website digIT have published their review of the 6 megapixel FujiFilm FinePix F810 Zoom.

Website: digIT - FujiFilm FinePix F810 Zoom Review

Website: Read my Fujifilm Finepix F810 Review

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IT-Enquirer have published a brief review of the new A3+ printer from the HP, the Photosmart 8750, which was announced at PMA in February. Thanks to Louis Montrose for letting me know.

“The two main and most important improvements with this new model are the 9-ink (Vivera inks) system and the A3 capabilities. The ninth ink provided with the printer is an extra blue. According to HP, next to gray tones, blue is the most often used ink colour, and the one with the most visible improvements in photo quality. I compared the output of the 8750 with the output of the 8450, HP’s current flagship photo printer. There is hardly any difference, except in blue skies and green areas. I expected the improvement in the blue sky areas, but not in the green colour areas. However, in both cases the improvements are marginal. I did notice the 8750 to output slightly sharper photographs when printing from the camera directly.”

Website: IT-Enquirer - HP Photosmart 8750 Review

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Corel UK Press Release

COREL OFFERS 10% OFF CorelDRAW® GRAPHICS SUITE 12

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 now over 50% cheaper than other suites

London, UK - 6 April 2005 - Corel, a leading technology company specialising in graphics and office productivity software, today announced a 10% discount offer on the price of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 for its customers.

All customers will receive £40* off the standard full edition price of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12** between 1st April and 30th June 2005. The offer is available through all of Corel’s sales channels including its resellers and online eStore. The award-winning image-editing and design software package usually offers great value at £359 but with this offer, the price is cut to £319.

“CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 has always been excellent value for our customers - whether they are individuals or small businesses - and this offer makes it more than 50% cheaper*** than some of the other leading professional graphics packages,” says Dan Weisbeck, marketing director, international - Corel. “Using Corel software, it has never been easier to create professional-looking graphics and documents at truly affordable prices - it’s like a complete design agency in a box.”

Impression Press Release

Impression automates data and asset archiving for OS X by specializing in moving large amounts of plain-file data to spanned DVD/CD sets for offline storage.  Photographers, DAM engineers and other professionals who deal with high volume data transfer to offline storage media find Impression invaluable in managing their archiving operations.

Other noteworthy features include the preservation of all file meta-data, after-write file verification and bookmark-based management features.

Impression costs US$49, and a 15-day trial version is available from the Babel Company’s website through this address:
http://babelcompany.com/impression/index.html

Volume licensing and educational discounts are available.  Pertinent details are available on Impression’s web site.

The Fujifilm FinePix F440 is the 4 megapixel version of the Finepix F450 that I recently reviewed. The Finepix F440 also replaces the 3 megapixel Finepix F420 that I reviewed back in August 2004. The F440 adds a number of extra features, the most obvious being a new larger 4 megapixel sensor. In addition, the F440 is even smaller and lighter than its predecessor, yet can still squeeze in a bigger 2 inch LCD screen. Fujifilm have also extended the range of the optical zoom lens on the F440 to 3.4x, equivalent to 38 - 130mm on a 35mm camera, and added a low sensitivity setting of ISO 80. I really liked the older Finepix F420, so have the improvements to the Fujifilm FinePix F440 resulted in an even better camera? Read my extensive review to find out.

Website: Fujifilm Finepix F440 Review

DPReview have published their review of the 3 megapixel Canon PowerShot A510 digital camera.

“The build quality is excellent, the results - though probably a little ‘over-processed’ for purists (and almost all are in need of a little sharpening in post processing) are perfect for the target market; bright, colorful and contrasty. Our only serious complaints are to do with some aspects of the speed of operation - focus can struggle in low light at the long end of the zoom (sometimes taking up to two seconds to find its mark), the shot-to-shot time (when not in burst mode) feels very slow if you’re trying to grab shots quickly, and the flash recycle time is frankly unacceptable.”

Website: DPReview - Canon PowerShot A510 Review

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The Spanish website Quesabesde have published their review of the new 12 megapixel Nikon D2X digital SLR.

Website: Quesabesde - Nikon D2X Review

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Trusted Reviews have published the first online review that I have seen of the Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z20.

“Picture quality is extremely good, with bright natural colours, lots of fine detail and very little lens distortion even at wide angle. There is a little bit of purple fringing on very high contrast edges, but it is not a major problem. Noise levels are very low at ISO 50, 100 and at 200 a smidgen is noticeable. At the maximum (ISO 320), noise is evident although it’s within acceptable limits. The camera’s exposure system copes well with unusual lighting such as scenes that are backlit and have high contrast, plus the fill-flash works well to brighten up dark foregrounds, although it can be a bit harsh on close range shots.”

Website: Trusted Reviews - Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z20 Review

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CNET have just reviewed the 7 megapixel Pentax Optio750Z.

“Thanks to the recent spate of fully featured, pocket-friendly 7-megapixel cameras from Pentax, Olympus, Sony, and Canon, serious photographers don’t have to trade must-have capabilities for compact size. Pentax includes the fine-tuning control over exposure and focus that photo enthusiasts need, along with some stand-out features such as a flip-out swiveling LCD, a 3D stereoscopic shooting mode, and a time-lapse interval recording option. Unfortunately, mediocre performance and imaging artifacts in the photos seriously crimp the Pentax Optio 750Z’s upscale appeal.”

Website: CNET - Pentax Optio750Z Review

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Pocket-Lint have just posted their review of the Fuji FinePix S3 Pro digital SLR.

“I’ve been in the fortunate position to have reviewed the S1 Pro, then this Digital-SLR’s (D-SLR) predecessor, the S2 Pro (twice in fact, as I compared it to its peers (which it beat) a year later) and I then wrote the First Look article on the new, S3 Pro D-SLR for Professional Photographer: I’m familiar with it’s evolution therefore. Although the S3 Pro looks overpriced compared to many of the D-SLRs appearing on the market, it must be remembered this is not a sports photographer’s snapper. It offers uniqueness with its wide dynamic range thanks to the dual pixel layout that makes it a real social photographers tool where skin tones and whites (of wedding dresses) are the key to a good shot. A corker then, but one for a niche within niche of the photo market.””

Website: Pocket-Lint - FujiFilm FinePix S3 Pro Review

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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.

Hitachi Press Release

Hitachi lays groundwork for 20-GB Microdrive with century-old technology

Company Demonstrates 230 Gigabit Per Square Inch Data Density on Perpendicular Recording; Industry Luminaries Make History as Part of Worldwide Field Test Program

TOKYO – April 4, 2005 – Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is today announcing new advancements to a 100-year-old magnetic recording technology that will set the stage for ultra-high capacities such as a 20-gigabyte* Microdrive or a one terabyte 3.5-inch hard drive.

To achieve this, Hitachi has demonstrated the industry’s highest data density at 230 gigabits per square inch (Gb/in2) on perpendicular recording. Hitachi believes 230 Gb/in2, which represents a doubling of today’s highest longitudinal recording densities, will be implemented in commercial hard drive products in 2007. When fully realized over the next 5-7 years, perpendicular recording could enable a 10-fold increase in data densities over longitudinal recording, paving the way for new heights in capacity such as a 60 GB one-inch drive.

Staccato and Fujitsu Jointly Develop Industry’s First Wireless USB-Enabled Digital Still Camera Development Platform

First public showing of Staccato’s Ripcord™ UWB Development Kit and joint demonstration with the Fujitsu digital still camera development platform

Tokyo, April 5, 2005 — Staccato Communications, Inc. and Fujitsu Limited today announced their joint development of a wireless universal serial bus (USB) demonstration system comprised of Staccato’s new Ripcord™ UWB Development Kit (SC3100D) and the Fujitsu digital still camera (DSC) development platform. This system will be the first demonstration to show wireless USB connectivity to DSCs, one of the most popular applications of wireless USB.

Staccato and Fujitsu will jointly demonstrate this system in the Wireless USB Community at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) spring events to be held in Tokyo (April 7-8), Taipei (April 11-12) and Beijing (April 14-15). These developments are the first major marketing activities between Staccato and Fujitsu to promote the wireless USB and ultrawideband (UWB) markets.