International Garden Photographer of the Year is reminding interested photographers that entries for its Competition 8 "Macro" close on 30th  June. There’s a £500 cash prize for the winner, plus the opportunity for their image to be featured in the IGPOTY book and also the exhibition, which tours the UK and worldwide including Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, plus venues across Europe and venues as far afield as Sydney, Australia. International Garden Photographer of the Year has a top prize of £5000 cash for the overall competition and images entered in any of the special art projects can still be entered separately into the main annual competition.

TeoreX has released a new version of its intelligent resizing utility iResizer. Version 2.5 brings built-in aspect ratio presets for easier conversion of images to printer-friendly formats, optimised memory usage and a number of usability improvements. Users can now pick a destination aspect ratio, select the image elements they want to preserve, click a button - and watch the photo transform magically into a format that fills the target paper size completely while all important elements of the image remain intact. The program is available for Windows XP or higher and for Max OS X 10.7 or higher for $19.99.

Nikon has announced its sponsorship of a photography exhibition titled, Dennis Hopper: The Lost Album. Hosted at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, the exhibition will present more than 400 original photographs taken between 1961 and 1967 by Dennis Hopper, the American actor, film director, and artist. The photographs were personally selected and edited by Hopper for his first major exhibition at the Fort Worth Art Center in Texas in 1970, and the vintage prints were only re-discovered after his death in 2010. Jeremy Gilbert, Group Marketing Manager at Nikon UK, comments: “Hopper shot some fantastic images that reflected a personal perspective of an interesting period in history. Knowing that Hopper shot his work on a Nikon camera, with no formal training is truly inspirational and we look forward to celebrating his work with support of the exhibition this summer.” Te exhibition will run from Thursday 26 June – Sunday 19 October 2014.

Transcend today introduced the ESD400, its latest SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Portable Solid State Drive (SSD). Featuring storage capacities ranging from 128GB to 1TB, transfer speeds of up to 410MB/s read and 380MB/s write, and an extra durable and compact design, ESD400 SSDs are best suited for consumers demanding massive storage space and high-speed data transfer. The ESD400 USB 3.0 Portable SSD is equipped with a next-generation SuperSpeed USB 3.0 connection interface that provides 10 times the bandwidth of USB 2.0. With USB 2.0 backwards compatibility, the ESD400 ensures that users will be able to move files between computers that do not support SuperSpeed USB 3.0. Transcend’s ESD400 Portable SSDs are available in 128GB ($109), 256GB ($189), 512GB ($349) and 1TB ($699) capacities, and all models carry Transcend’s three-year limited warranty.

Canon has announced the upcoming launch of Digital Photo Professional (DPP) 4.0. The latest version of DPP - available for download at the end of this mont - has been updated with a number of new features and enhancements, These include faster, real-time adjustments, better integration with EOS Utility, movie playback support, improved raw file workflow, enhanced highlight recovery, and much more. A new colour adjustment palette allows hue, saturation and luminance adjustment for eight individual colour gamuts, enabling the user to adjust one specific colour in isolation without affecting the image as a whole. For those photographers with dual monitors, DPP now allows a secondary monitor to be used as the preview window on the primary display. Do note that DPP 4.0 will be compatible only with 64-bit operating systems.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court approved the sale of the brand and assets of Tamrac to Gura Gear. Tamrac, which entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in early 2014 will continue to operate normally until the acquisition is finalised later this month. Once the transaction is complete, Gura Gear will relocate Tamrac's assets and expand its Ogden, Utah facilities.

The Tamron 28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD is a new superzoom lens for full-frame cameras, featuring a Piezo Drive AF motor, moisture-resistant construction, and a more compact build than its immediate predecessor. Headline features include optical vibration compensation, advanced anti-reflection coating, four low-dispersion elements, three molded glass aspherical elements, one hybrid aspherical element, one extra-refractive-index glass element and one element of UXR (Ultra-Extra Refractive Index) glass. The lens will be available in the U.S. in both Canon and Nikon mount on June 26, 2014 at $849.

Tamron today announced the price and availability of its 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 Di III superzoom lens for the Canon EOS M compact system camera. Originally released for Sony mount in 2011, this 29-320mm equivalent lens employs two (Low Dispersion) elements, three Molded-Glass Aspherical elements, one XR (high refractive index) element, and one Hybrid Aspherical element to reduce aberrations "to a bare minimum" as Tamron put it. The lens also has optical vibration compensation and a stepping motor adopted for the AF drive, a construction that accommodates contrast-detect auto focus and movie shooting. This feature also supports the Direct Manual Focus (DMF) function, which allows the user to make fine manual adjustments after initially focusing by AF. The Tamron 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 Di III VC for Canon will be available in the US starting 26 June 2014 priced at $499.

Tamron announced the price and availability of its first superzoom lens designed for Micro Four Thirds compact system cameras. Employing one LD (Low Dispersion) glass element, two AD (Anomalous Dispersion) glass elements, two Molded-Glass Aspherical elements and one Hybrid Aspherical element, Tamron's new 14-150mm F/3.5-5.8 Di III lens is housed in a compact body with a filter diameter of just 52mm. The metal lens barrel exterior is available in two colours: black and silver, providing the most popular colour options to match high end cameras. The Tamron 14-150mm Di III will be available in the USA starting June 26, 2014 at $589.

Adobe has unveiled a new suite of mobile apps and complementary hardware that connect Adobe Creative Cloud to your iPad. Adobe Sketch is a social sketching iPad app for free-form drawing, Adobe Line is the world’s first iPad app for precision drawing and drafting, while Photoshop Mix is billed as the most precise app for compositing and masking on iPad. Photoshop Mix also offers powerful cloud-based imaging technology on iPad for the first time, including Upright, Content Aware Fill, and Camera Shake Reduction. It offers non-destructive photo enhancements, selections, the ability to cut-out and mix images, and the ability to open and save PSD files. In addition to these apps, the company also released an iPhone version of Lightroom Mobile, and a couple of hardware devices including Adobe Ink, a digital pen, and Adobe Slide, a digital ruler. These devices work in tandem with Adobe Sketch and Adobe Line.

today announced the availability of the new Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan. Designed for anyone interested in photography, the new plan brings together - for £8.78/$9.99 per month -- Photoshop CC and Lightroom 5 as well as Lightroom’s mobile apps on iPad and now iPhone. Unlike the similar but limited-time special offers introduced last year, this subscription includes only 2GB of cloud storage (rather than 20GB).

Primrose: Early Colour Photography in Russia is an upcoming retrospective of colour experiments and developments in Russian photography over the course of a century. Primrose will feature over 140 works, many never before seen in the UK, spanning the 1860s through to the 1980s. These will be arranged in five chronological sections, each looking at different periods and the ir prevailing photographic aesthetics. The exhibition will include works by Dmitri Baltermants, Sergei Mikhailovich, Prokudin-Gorsky, Alexander Rodchenko, Ivan Shagin, and Boris Mikhailov among others. Primrose will open on 1st August in The Photographers' Gallery, 16-18 Ramillies Street, London W1F 7LW. Admission is free.

Apple today introduced a new 21.5-inch iMac starting at £899. Featuring a 1.4 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost Speeds up to 2.7 GHz, Intel HD 5000 graphics, 8GB of memory and a 500GB hard drive, the new iMac comes with OS X, next-generation 802.11ac Wi-Fi, two Thunderbolt ports and four USB 3.0 connectors. Configure-to-order options include a 1TB hard drive, a 1TB Fusion Drive, and up to 256GB flash storage. The new 21.5-inch iMac is available today through the Apple Online Store, Apple’s retail stores and select Apple Authorised Resellers.

The NEC MultiSync EA244UHD Ultra HD monitor is now available in the UK. Featuring a resolution of 3840x2160 pixels, the NEC MultiSync EA244UHD offers 14-bit gamma processing for improved colour accuracy, the latest DisplayPort connectivity, as well as a range of DVI and HDMI inputs. Those using a multiscreen configuration will also benefit from the ControlSync harmonisation feature that matches brightness, white point temperature, energy saving and other settings, as well as the ability to turn up to six synchronised displays on and off with one button. Distributed by Color Confidence, the NEC MultiSync EA244UHD is available for £1079+VAT.

Think Tank Photo has just released two new additions to its My 2nd Brain line of carrying solutions for Apple MacBooks and tablets. The My 2nd Brain Briefcase 13 and My 2nd Brain Briefcase 15 promise to improve the workflow of tech-focused travellers and creative professionals by keeping their tablets, laptops and accessories organised and their workflow clutter-free. Think Tank Photo's My 2nd Brain Briefcase 13” ($129.75) fits a 13” Macbook Pro or 13” MacBook Air, iPad, phone, over-ear headphones, a power brick with AC cable, portable hard drives, USB hub, USB connection cable, earbuds, monitor adapters, network cable, USB drives, pens, business cards, folders, sketchbooks and other personal items. The My 2nd Brain Briefcase 15” ($144.75, pictured) accommodates a 15" Macbook Pro, iPad, phone and all accessories listed above.

Today marks the official Kickstarter launch of SelfieMe, a unique lfestyle brand and phone photo accessory company that is looking to “revolutionarise the way users share and express memories.” Consisting of wide angle and fish eye lenses machined from aircraft-grade aluminium, an ergonomic raised shutter button, and a shock absorbent lens carrying case; SelfieMe is billed as the most proficient and lightweight lens system available for smart phones. “As photography enthusiasts, we found that most lens enhancements for our phones didn’t match our active lifestyles” said founder/co-creator Jonas Johansson. “In testing other lenses, we found they were too bulky, not easy to use, and at risk for damage, coming with lackluster cases -- that just didn’t work for us. We set out to create a better option for consumers and SelfieMe was born.”

The Canon EF-M 55-200mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM is Canon's first EF-M mount telephoto zoom lens. Featuring the manufacturer's lens-based optical image stabiliser, the Canon EF-M 55-200mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM offers a 35mm equivalent focal range of 88-320mm. The lens will be available from July with a SRP £329.99/€389.99.