The Plugin Site Press Release 05/01/04

January 5, 2004 - The Plugin Site (http://www.thepluginsite.com) is pleased to announce Version 1.02 of FocalBlade, a Photoshop-compatible plugin for sharpening your photos for screen display and printing as well as for producing great looking blur, soft focus and glow effects on 8bit and 16bit images. FocalBlade lets you sharpen photos without amplifying noise or artifacts and produces impressive sharpening results even on low quality images. FocalBlade is the second product in our new PhotoWiz product line, which sets a new standard for photo correction tools. It can be used with a wide range of graphics applications, e.g. Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Photo-Paint, PhotoImpact and Fireworks.

New in Version 1.02
FocalBlade 1.02 makes stronger sharpening possible by extending the range of the Sharpen sliders to 1000% and in the Deblur Modes even to 2000%. The FocalBlade window and preview are resizable now and even supports a minimum screen resolution of 640x480 pixel. Other highlights in this release are the new Antialias feature for reducing artifacts and grain as well as a memory usage optimization that allows a 100% preview for images of any size without using any additional RAM. 15 new preset files for creating artistic effects have been included and Cloak Mode has been improved considerably for batch processing.

Cornice Press Release 05/01/04

Cornice Introduces New 2.0-Gigabyte Storage Element, Advancing Low-Cost Data Storage for Electronics

LONGMONT, Colo.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Jan. 5, 2004—
Storage Innovator Targets Video, Multi-function, and GPS Applications With New Device That Holds 33% More Data Than the Previous Product Generation  

Cornice Inc., an innovator in compact, high-capacity storage, today introduced the 2.0-gigabyte Cornice Storage Element—a storage device for use in consumer electronics, portable devices, and other applications that demand large amounts of reliable, inexpensive storage in a small space and at the lowest cost.

The 2.0-gigabyte Storage Element will allow electronics device manufacturers to build new pocket-able products that store more music, video, and pictures, as well as more office productivity files such as presentations and word processing documents. With the additional storage relative to the previous generation of the Storage Element, increasingly compelling, cost-competitive video capture and playback devices can be developed that are able to store more than three hours of VHS-quality video. Other applications include continent-inclusive GPS devices, multi-function handheld computers, and other emerging product types.

By carrying out a fundamental re-evaluation of how portable storage devices should be designed and manufactured, Cornice achieved the industry’s lowest cost for high-capacity portable storage. By re-examining the mechanics and electronics of storage devices, Cornice was able to create an inexpensive storage solution that is compact, durable, and optimized for portable electronics.

Epson USA Press Release 05/01/04

THE EPSON P-1000 PHOTO VIEWER IS THE ULTIMATE DIGITAL CAMERA COMPANION

New Portable Photo Viewing and Storage Device Boasts Beautiful 3.8’’ LCD Panel Designed by a World Leader in LCD Technology

LONG BEACH, Calif., January 5, 2004   Digital photographers will welcome the arrival of the EPSON P-1000, a new device for viewing, storing and sharing photos that incorporates a high quality Epson 3.8” LCD screen for the best image quality.  Digital photography is evolving and changing as are many photographers’ needs.  Epson is helping to address these changing needs with the EPSON P-1000 photo viewer.  This device gives photographers the ability to view details of their images with an LCD screen that sets it apart from any other product of its kind.  Epson is a leading producer of LCD modules and has incorporated this technology expertise into devices such as AV projectors, digital cameras, cellular telephones and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs).  With Epson’s introduction of the first LCD digital quartz watch over 30 years ago, to recently becoming the world leader in cellular telephone LCD displays, the EPSON P-1000 is a logical extension of this long heritage of LCD technology.

In addition to its high-resolution screen, the sleek and sophisticated looking EPSON P-1000 has a 10 GB hard drive and can print directly to select Epson printers.  This convenient product enables photographers to simply take their CompactFlash memory card out of their digital camera, pop it into the EPSON P-1000 and download and print the images with ease. 

“The Epson P-1000 is a breakthrough product for Epson that sets the bar extremely high for other portable devices of its kind,” said Daniel Oey, senior product manager, digital input products, Epson. “The screen resolution is simply amazing and allows photographers to see the details of their images clearly and easily without having to download them and view them on a computer screen.  Whether shooting for work or play, this is a convenient viewing and storage solution for a variety of people.” 

PC Pro magazine have condusted a group test of 15 inkjet printers, ranging in price from the Dell J740 ( £51) to the Canon Bubble Jet i965 (£225). The Canon Bubble Jet i865 (pictured) was named the overall winner.

“Things have changed considerably since our last inkjets group test. The gap between great and not-so-great printers has narrowed to the point that you can now print excellent photos without spending more than ?70.

This doesn’t bode well for the high-end ‘photo’ printers, which offer features like extra inks and direct printing to help justify their prices. HP’s Photosmart 7960, for instance, includes three cartridges for eight-ink printing and even incorporates a scanner so you can select which hard copies of photos you’d like from an index print. We’ll be examining whether such ideas are revolutionary or just expensive gimmicks.”

Website: PC Pro - Inkjet Printers Test

The Slovenian website e-FotoPortal has started the new year by publishing tests of the Sigma SD-10 and Olympus E-1 digital SLRs. The white balance of the SD-10 is compared to the Canon EOS D60, whilst the E-1 gets a work-out in a club environment, which makes for some interesting sample shots.

Website: e-FotoPortal - Olympus E-1 and Sigma SD-10 Tests

DCResource have reviewed the Casio QV-R40, a 4 megapixel digicam which has an amazing start-up time of one second and shutter-lag of 0.01 seconds. The Casio QV-R40 currently retails for around $300 / £300.

“The QV-R40 takes sharp images with accurate color and exposure. Purple fringing was not a major issue.

The biggest gripe I have with the photo quality is the noise level—it’s higher than average. The place where the noise is most obvious is in the sky, and on flat things like walls. It really eats away at the detail in your shots.”

Website: DCResource- Casio QV-R40 Review

PMA Newsline International Press Release

European photo specialty retailer Jessops is now selling a range of cameraphones in a joint agreement with Vodafone. Jessops will offer a selection of mobile phones, each with a built-in digital camera, with customers being connected to the non-contract pay as you talk service on Vodafone live!. The choice of phones will include models from Sharp, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Sagem.

The Vodafone live! service offers a host of features including picture messaging, games, polyphonic ringtones, e-mail, and a wide range of information and entertainment services.

The company says the move reinforces Jessops’ continued commitment to remaining at the forefront of digital imaging, and is set to further expand the company’s customer base - with industry experts predicting camera phone ownership will reach 55 million handsets worldwide in 2003, rising to 130 million in 2004.

“Jessops has a proud history of digital imaging innovation - including being the first to introduce digital camera demonstration areas in stores, and the first to offer in-store digital processing, says Jessops’ chief executive Derek Hine. “By offering picture messaging mobile phones we’re again demonstrating our commitment to embracing the latest imaging technology, and maintaining our market leading position in this exciting and fast moving field.”

In other Jessops news, the retailer is working with national charity CLIC - Cancer and Leukaemia in Childhood - to raise funds for children with cancer and leukemia. The campaign entitled ‘Click for CLIC’ aims to raise at least ?50,000 by the end of 2004 and Jessops is celebrating the new partnership by presenting CLIC with a cheque for ?5,000, the company said.

Jessops launched the campaign by supporting CLIC’s ‘Win a day off work’ fund-raiser Dec. 12th - whereby companies donate extra days holiday to raffle off amongst staff to raise funds.

CLIC offers practical hands-on care and has a unique all-embracing approach to the well being of children affected by cancer and their families. CLIC fund specialist doctors, nurses, and play specialists, care grants, home from home accommodation, research and teenager support.

LetsGoDigital have reviewed the Fuji FinePix S7000, which is the successor to the popular FinePix S602 model. The S7000 uses Fuji’s 4th Generation Super CCD HR with 6.3 Million Effective Pixels output and 12.3 million recorded pixels. It costs around $799.99 and is available now.

“Is the FinePix S7000 a perfect camera? Well, some things can always be found, and the S7000 is not an exception. I would like to have some more choices of compression, beside the Fine and Normal mode in a 12M resolution. The other resolutions have only one compression! Also disappointing is the large range of shutter times only in M mode and not, as I would have expected in the S mode. The camera is delivered rather frugal, that is to say: a standard 16MB memory card with 4x AA Alkaline batteries won’t surprise the buyer.”

Website: LetsGoDigital - Fuji FinePix S7000 Review

Website: Read my review of the Fuji FinePix S7000

This week Mike Johnston’s Sunday Morning column asks if Leica has lost the plot…

“And many times over the past decade or so, I’ve had cause to wonder if the current management of Leica really gets it - “it” being the true gestalt of the Leitz Camera - or whether they’ve just lost it.”

Website: Sunday Morning Photographer: Has Leica Lost It?

Digital Outback Photo have reviewed PowerRetouche Black & White Studio, a plugin for PC and Mac which works in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. As the name suggests, this pulgin allows you to convert colour images to black and white.

“Different B&W films have different spectral sensitivities. B&W studio lets you select from some presets and then even let you control the seven sliders yourself. We use TriX most of the time. But in some cases we like to show e.g. blue darken then we change the values. All settings in B&W studio can be saved and loaded back.”

Website: Digital Outback Photo - PowerRetouche Black & White Studio Review

Website: PowerRetouche

The Danish website Akamera.dk have reviewed the Fuji FinePix A210 Zoom digital camera. The A210 has 3.2 million megapixels and a 3x optical zoom. It retails for $279.99.

Website: Akamera.dk - Fujifilm FinePix A210 Review

The theme for the January 2004 Competition has been decided. The new theme is simply “Reflections” - submit one photograph that you think best interprets the theme.

This is a monthly photography competition with a specific theme and prizes for the top 3 photos. The winning entries will be decided by a panel of judges. You just have to submit one photograph to the Competition Gallery that best interprets January’s theme, which is “Reflections”.

Please make sure that you read the Monthly Competition Rules before submitting your entry. The competition is worldwide and open to everyone.

You can now start submitting entries to the January Compeitition here:
January 2004 Competition

The December 2003 PhotographyBLOG Competition has now closed. The theme for December was “Night” - you can view all 43 entries in this gallery.

The 1st / 2nd / 3rd place winners will be announced on Saturday 10th January, and the prizes will be sent out shortly after :-)

Imaging Resource have reviewed the Kodak EasyShare CX6330, a 3.2 megapixel digital camera that costs around £220 in the UK.

“Kodak’s EasyShare digital cameras consistently rank among the easiest to use of any I’ve tested, and the CX6330 follows suit. Full automatic exposure control keeps things simple, with exposure decisions down to a bare minimum. A handful of preset scene modes help with special shooting conditions. This is a true “point-and-shoot” digicam, requiring little or no intervention to take nice looking photos under a wide variety of conditions.”

Website: Imaging Resource - Kodak EasyShare CX6330 Review

The Slovenian website e-Fotografija have just posted a review of the 5 megapixel Kodak EasyShare DX4530. This digicam retails for just £399 in the UK.

Website: e-Fotografija - Kodak EasyShare DX4530 Review

The Danish website Akamera.dk have reviewed the 4 megapixel EasyShare DX6490 digital camera, a digital camera which features a 10x optical zoom lens (38-380mm focal length). The Kodak EasyShare DX6490 has a suggested retail price of £399.99.

Website: Akamera.dk - Kodak EasyShare DX6490 Review

I had a bit of a scare this morning when my PC failed to boot up, for no apparent reason, with the error message “Boot Failure - Insert Boot Diskette in Drive A”. I did have a boot disk for my operating system (Windows Me) but inserting it just took me to the A:> prompt in DOS. After a bit of digging around on Google, I found the command “Sys C:” which copies the system files from the floppy onto the hard drive. Bingo! My PC now successfully boots to Windows, so I guess the system files must have become corrupted (though I have no idea how).

I was panicking for a couple of hours, as all of the photos that I took in December were on the hard-drive and not backed-up. I usually wait until the end of every month and copy that month’s photos onto 2 CDs, but I’m going to have to rethink that strategy and maybe backup after every shoot.

To everyone who has emailed me since December 24th, I will reply to you tonight. I’ve just been on holiday for the past week, that’s all :-)

Roger Cavanagh and Paul Jaruszewski are working on an interesting set of JavaScript programmes called the Variations Suite. Apparently each script in the suite will display up to eight previews of your image with different processing treatments applied. The first component to be released will be Velvia Variations, followed by B+W Variations and Toning Variations. Variations Suite scripts will work on both 8-bit and 16-bit images, and will use the colour space of the active image when creating the previews. The scripts in the Variations Suite are compatible with Photoshop CS and will not run in other versions of Photoshop. One to keep an eye on…

Website: The Variations Suite

A-Digital-Eye have posted another comparison test of sample images from 5 different digital cameras, all taken within a short time of each other. The Sony DSC T1, Canon Digital Rebel, Sony F828, Minolta Dimage A1, and the Sigma SD10 are all included in the test, with the images taken standing in the same location within 10 minutes of each other, and in the cameras Auto/Program mode.

Website: A-Digital-Eye - Digital Camera Comparison Test #2

Steves Digicams have published a comprehensive review of the 4 megapixel Minolta DiMAGE G400 digital camera, which is actually exactly the same model as the Konica KD-420Z.

“Perhaps the most striking feature of the G400 is its remarkable shooting performance. Minolta claims that the G400’s performance is improved over the G500, and our measurements are in agreement. From power-on until the first image was captured took only 7/10 second, so responsive that it will likely be ready to shoot before you are; you’ll rarely miss that unposed spontaneous photo opportunity.”

Website: Steves Digicams - Minolta DiMAGE G400 Review