Kubota Image Tools are now offering a new educational format that combines the business value of their Digital Photography Bootcamps with the convenience of an in-home or in-studio setting. The e:CLASS series will be taught by company founder Kevin Kubota (pictured), who promises to bring his unique learning-style to the online-seminars. The first e:CLASS will kick off at 10am PDT on 21 July, and will focus on the new features found in Lightroom 3. The webinar will last 1.5 hours including a 30-minute Q&A session. This e:CLASS costs $39 to attend and includes access to a recorded copy for download, as well as a $20 coupon for any Kubota Image Tools Lightroom products through 2010.

Kubota e:CLASS

In order to promote its new photo-backup membership plans, SnapHaven has launched a free photo scanning promotion. During this special promotion, SnapHaven members can also take advantage of free photo scanning for all their prints up to 8x10” with any active membership. Members just pay shipping and handling to have as many prints digitised as they like. Negative and slide scanning, colour correction, and expedited service options are available at an added cost.

Website: SnapHaven

Photo Productions have launched brand new Pocket Books to complement their existing range of albums. Starting at only £18.00, these miniature albums are the perfect accompaniment to the larger Photobooks. New features have also been added to Photo Productions’ user friendly website, including the ability for Photographers to supply their own Photobook design and get a 10% discount in return.

PicTreat.com makes it fast and easy to instantly retouch any photograph. With a single click, PicTreat.com magically removes unsightly skin flaws, like blotchiness and blemishes, removes red-eye and auto-corrects the image color to produce the best photo. PicTreat.com is completely free and no registration is required.

ImageRights is now offering a free version of its online image recognition and recovery service to photographers and illustrators. With this new offering, the company’s advanced visual search and crawler technology will continuously scan websites and blogs to protect its clients. Customers who take advantage of ImageRights’ free service may also participate in the company’s new, optional Recovery Programme, which will launch next month to help photographers and illustrators obtain compensation for the unauthorized use of their images. Customers who select a paid package and opt into the Recovery Program will share 35 percent of their recovered fees with ImageRights; those who select the free service will share 50 percent of their compensation.

Website: ImageRights

PhotoReflect, a photography storefront hosting and e-commerce site, is now providing new and improved tools to increase sales for the professional photographer. These include digital download packages, creation tools, auto-orienting photo gifts and a multi-dimensional representation of gallery canvas. These tools let photographers “configure their product offerings in ways necessary to meet the unique needs of their individual business,” the company claims.

Website: PhotoReflect

Point101 has launched an online giclée prints service. Giclée is a fine art term describing high quality, short run print jobs using large format ink-jet printers and archival inks. Point101’s giclee prints are available on Ilford Pearl, Fotospeed Matt and Hahnemühle Photorag media; and in standard, square, A sizes and panoramic formats. Their Flash-based interface lets you position, crop and accurately preview your images in a virtual living room. To upload your photos and get detailed information on giclée prints, head to the website below.

Website: Point101

Nikon has jsut launched NikonLIVE as part of its sponsorship of the Nikon at Jones Beach Theater with Live Nation. Fans will be able to view images taken by performing artists in the site’s “Sound Check” area, and view professionally photographed images in the “Rock and Roll Picture Show” area. Nikon’s professional photographers will give fans an exclusive, behind the scenes look at their favorite music acts, as well as provide fans with advice and tips on how to shoot great images and video with their digital cameras. In addition to visiting nikonlive.com, fans will be able to follow updates from other fans along with bloggers, photographers and participating artists by using the Twitter hashtag #NikonLive and by visiting the Nikon Facebook Fan Page.

Flickr has launched a new page layout for members’ photos. Firstly, the default size of the images has been increased by 28% linearly, reaching 640 pixels on the longer side. Secondly, the film strips have been redesigned to show more of the surrounding photographs in a set or a group. Thirdly, a location map has been added to the right-hand column next to each photo that has been geotagged either manually or automatically. Other changes include the introduction of a new “light box view” that allows photos to be displayed against a black background, the removal of the button clutter above the images, the addition of new navigation tools, the integration of favourites with the comment stream, and more. As of writing, the new look can only be previewed by members, so you’ll need to sign in and click the “Take me to the future’” link above any photo to actually see it, but Flickr promises that the new features will be rolled out to their entire audience in the coming weeks.

Source: The Flickr Blog via 1001 Noisy Cameras

DxO Labs today unveiled DxOMark 2010, the new version of its website, which adds raw-based lens performance measurements to its existing database of camera sensor measurements. Initially covering about 540 cameras-lens combinations, with dozens to follow each month, the DxOMark database is based on measurements performed on raw images. To complement the lens and camera sensor measurement database, DxOMark also proposes fifteen Scores to help users to quickly assess and compare the intrinsic raw performance of lenses and cameras. These Scores are based either on photographic use cases such as Travel, Portrait, Landscape etc., or key optical metrics such as resolution or distortion.

Website: DxOMark

With the introduction of its new 72-hour online clipping path service, graphics outsourcing pioneer uClip has lowered the price to less than $2 per image. “Clipping path is the art of masking out an object of interest from a picture,” the comapny explained in a statement. “Once the image has the clipping path, the object outlined can be edited, moved or placed in any publication or web page without any distracting background elements.” uClip’s professional, 24-hour service - which costs $3.89 per image - has been used by major publishing houses worldwide. New users can register for a trial account, and receive one clipping path for free.

Website: uClip

LensFolder.com is a brand new websitethat enables you to join photos of the same event that were taken by different people together into the same folder. Founder Tristan Thomas says the site will hopefully solve “the problem of lots of people taking photos at an event or on holiday and you never seeing or getting any of those photos”. It works like this: one of the people that were present at the event sets up a folder and tells everyone else who has taken photos there to upload their shots to the folder by clicking the “I have the details for a folder somebody else has set up” button. The service is free.

Website: LensFolder

Think Tank Photo has released the free Multimedia DSLR Buyers Guide to aid first time buyers of video enabled DSLR cameras. This online guide compiles information about cameras, lenses, microphones, recording equipment, bags, and accessories. Within each section is a short description of the gear, the price range, and links to more detailed product information. The buyers’ guide is available at the website below.

Website: Think Tank Photo Multimiedia DSLR Buyers Guide

Lexar has launched a new microsite designed to be a resource for customers and professional photographers. The microsite includes educational videos, customer testimonials, information on how Lexar tests its cards, and other content. Lexar will be adding new videos, testimonials and information to the site, which you can visit by clicking on the link below.

Website: When Memory Matters

The National Association of Photoshop Professionals has launched its new Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Learning Center. Timed to coincide with the release of Lightroom 3, the NAPP Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Learning Center is open to the public and offers new in-depth tutorials on the most talked about features including: the new import dialogue, tethered capture, improved noise reduction, lens correction, the new grain feature, and more.

Website: NAPP’s Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Learning Center

The Emotion Company announced today the launch of its new photofinishing service. This service fully relies on the KoffeeWare Photo Web Shop, which allows for easy creation of photo dedicated webshops including features ranging from the interactive online product customisation tools to the product and promotion management system associated to full control of the service and a full featured content management system CMS for an easy update of the hosted photo web shop. The Emotion Company’s service is available in 8 languages at the website below.

Website: The Emotion Company

GoingPro has hit the quarter million mark in page views just two months after start-up of its new blog. “The response from the photographic community has been incredible. Feedback from the public has been so positive. We’re working hard to keep expanding content, podcasts and even sponsorship,” commented Scott Bourne, GoingPro Co-Founder. Created by MEI’s Skip Cohen and BMG’s Scott Bourne, GoingPro is a year-long annual programme dedicated to educating professional and aspiring professional photographers through a GoingPro book, educational workshops, national conferences, free webinars and podcasts, blog and training

Olapic.com has announced its online service of collecting and sharing high-quality wedding photos. Guests can upload the digital photos taken at any of the bridal and wedding events, and members are able to organise, store and print each photo for keeps in an album or placed on other social networking sites. In addition, Olapic.com offers commitment-free partnership plans to enhance the wedding planner’s and photographer’s portfolio. Users can register for a free trial version, as well as upgrade their account to plans starting at $55.

Flixtime.com has been upgraded to include a number of new features. These include image highlighting, video presentation speed control, unlimited copies, text integration onto photo stills, voiceover and sharing capabilities as well as an option to keep or strip sound from uploaded videos. Recently launched by Fotolia, Flixtime is a free website that enables users to create free 60-second videos using their personal image collection or those provided by Fotolia.

Website Flixtime

Zeiss Images is a free online photo gallery for hosting pictures taken with Zeiss lenses. Members can upload pictures captured with any camera - be it a Canon, a Nikon, a Leica or a different brand -, as long as the lens used to take the shot was made by Zeiss. Besides being a gallery, Zeiss Images is also an image forum.where participants can comment on and discuss the photos uploaded by members. Most interesting is the feature that allows anyone to search for photos by the specific lens used to take them.

Website: Zeiss Images