Fujifilm has announced that the Fujifilm X100 large-sensor compact camera has scooped up an iF Design product design award. Established in 1953, and sponsored throughout by the International Forum Design GmbH of Hanover Germany, the iF product design award is recognized all over the world as a symbol of outstanding design and innovation. As one of the 2012 Product Design Award winners, the Fujifilm X100 will now also be automatically put forward as a nomination for the iF Design’s 100 Gold Award winners, to be announced on 10 February 2012.

The “Photographs of the Year” competition, open to all professional photographers residing in Europe, is now open for entries. There are fifteen categories plus a “Young Talent” competition, open to individuals having less than one year of activity as a professionnal photographer and under the age of 25 on 1 of January 2012. The contest is sponsored by Nikon, who offered a total of €10,000 worth of photo equipment to the winners. The submission deadline is 15 January 2012.

Ilex Press has released the pilot issue of Photographer’s i Magazine, which is billed as “the world’s first interactive, multimedia tablet magazine for photographers”. Photographer’s i offers informative articles about the world of photography in the form of text, photos, video and audio as fully integrated elements that add up to an informative experience greater than the sum of its parts, the publisher says. The pilot issue — available for US $1.99 / UK £1.49 after downloading the free app from iTunes or the Android Market — features internationally acclaimed professional photographers such as Abbas, Julian Broad, Michael Freeman, Steve Simon, Jay Maisel, Romano Cagnoni, Bob Krist, Haje Jan Kamps, Stephanie G. Roberts, Natalie “Miss Aniela” Dybisz, Robert Golden, Laura El-Tantawy, Steve Sint and others. Future issues will be available for a single issue price of US $5.99 (UK c. £3.75) or through money-saving subscription offers.

Rivolu has released TideTrac 1.0.1 for iPad, and the app is currently available for free. A useful tool for landscape photographers, TideTrac allows you to quickly find high tide and low tide events anywhere near coastal United States. Incorporating an interactive tide graph and a Map view to visualise the locations of tide stations, the app presents all of its data on a single screen making it easy to use. TideTrac is available on iTunes.

Plum Amazing Software has released iWatermark 1.1, which adds iPhoto and Aperture integration. iWatermark lets you add your personal or business watermark to any photo or graphic. In addition iWatermark can resize and rename your images, add IPTC and XMP metadata, create thumbnails, and filter incoming photos. iWatermark Pro is available for $30 through the website below.

Brilliant Prints have announced a 40% Christmas discount for all new UK customers plus the chance to win a £300 voucher. Simply register online before the 15th December at the website below to go into the draw. Established in Australia in 2004 producing just canvas prints, Brilliant Prints has since expanded its operations to include a range of acrylics and fine art papers. Their Singapore office opened in 2007, while the UK branch was set up earlier this year.

Olympus UK has announced a cashback promotion on the Olympus XZ-1 premium compact camera. The cashback offer is running in the UK (£40) and Ireland (€40) until 31st December 2011 and is valid on
purchases of the XZ-1 from authorised UK and Ireland stockists. For more information, visit the website below.

Cypress Innovations has launched piRAWnha for iPhone to complement the existing piRAWnha app for iPad. The new app enables iPhone users to edit the raw data and once the settings have been optimised, a high?quality JPEG image file can be exported to the Photo Library. Currently, piRAWnha works with all raw files supported by Apple and supports raw image files transferred to the iPhone via iTunes. The iPhone app is available on iTunes for $4.99.

The winners of Blottr’s Your View photography competition have been announced. The winning image of the “Workplace” category (see above) was captured by Stephen Wheatley, a volunteer from the Royal National Lifeguard Institution.

Canon UK has launched its 2011/2012 Winter Cashback with offers on 18 models across their EOS, IXUS and PowerShot camera ranges, Legria camcorders, Pixma and Pixma Pro printers. The promotion runs until 25 January 2012, and all claims must be received by 24 February. The offers are valid on purchases made in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland only. Click through / scroll down for a detailed list of the promotional products.

The new Silver Shadows 2 black-and-white toolkit is now available for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Compatible with Lightroom 1, 2 and 3 for PC and Mac, the plug-in has been re-mastered and expanded to include over 100 refined black-and-white presets. “It’s been four years since Silver Shadows 1 was introduced,” says developer and photographer Gavin Seim. “Version 1 was powerful, but it’s nothing compared to the delicate hand-chiseled granite that makes up Silver Shadows 2.” The plug-in is available now for immediate download at the introductory price of $45. After November 30th the price will be $54.

Jessops has opened its fourth Centre of Excellence store in the heart of London. Located at 129-131 Oxford Street, the showcases a customer friendly layout enabling customers to test and trial an extensive range of cameras, camcorders, accessories and Jessops photo products. Additionally, the store’s shop-in-shop design allows the customer to browse by brand, including Canon, Nikon, Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Pentax and Tamron. The in-store large format printer is able to produce posters and canvases up to 44” wide, and you can also create onsite photobooks all within one hour. The store is open from 9am till 9pm Monday through Saturday, and from 11am till 5pm on Sunday.

Xpro Software has released version 1.43 of GeniuX Art. The latest release contains over two dozen new features plus a host of improvements and bug fixes. Available for Windows, GeniuX Art sells for €149. Click through / scroll down for a video demonstration and a detailed list of bug fixes, improvements and new features in version 1.43.

The new Kingston DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 features the fastest speeds and largest capacities that Kingston has to offer in a USB Flash drive. Its high-speed eight-channel architecture provides USB 3.0 data transfer rates of up to 225MB/s read and 135MB/s write. The DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 will be available in 64GB (£110.76), 128GB (£199.44) and 256GB capacities. The suggested retail price of the 256GB version - which can store as much data as ten Blu-ray Discs or fifty-four DVDs - has yet to be communicated.

CyberLink has launched its new Video & Photo Creative Collection. This bundle includes both the award-winning PowerDirector 10 video editing software and the new PhotoDirector 2011 raw converter and image editor, which offers native rendering of raw files from Canon and Nikon cameras. The CyberLink Video & Photo Creative Collection is available today and can be purchased from the CyberLink online store for £114.99.

Nikon has released firmware updates for the three VR lenses in its new 1 Nikkor line-up. Version 1.01 for the 1 Nikkor VR 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 superzoom resolves an issue that in some rare cases caused images to be blurred when shot immediately after the camera was shaken or moved quickly. Version 1.02 for the 1 Nikkor VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 standard zoom (read review) and the 1 Nikkor VR 30-110mm f/3.8-5.6 telezoom (read review) fixes a bug related to the recording of the aperture value in the image metadata. You can download the firmware updates from the websites below.

Website: 1 NIKKOR VR 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 PD-ZOOM L Firmware Update 1.01
Website: 1 NIKKOR VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 L Firmware Update 1.02
Website: 1 NIKKOR VR 30-110mm f/3.8-5.6 L Firmware Update 1.02

Tiffen has updated its Dfx filter suite to add compatibility with Avid Media Composer v6, Symphony v6, and NewsCutter v10, as well as support for a number of new (and older) Sony digital cameras. The newly supported models include the A550, A580, A700, A850, A900, NEX-3, NEX-5, NEX-5N, NEX-C3, SLT-A33, A35, A55, A65 and A77. There is also a new adjustable brush slider that covers large areas, and new blur controls for theDfx Paint Mask tool that gives more control over blending and transitioning. The Tiffen Dfx 3 photo plug-in, which is compatible with Photoshop, Lightroom and Aperture, is available today at an introductory price of $199.95. The standalone version of Tiffen Dfx retails for $169.95.

International Garden Photographer of the Year (IGPOTY) is reminding interested photographers that the deadline for this year’s competition is fast approaching. You have until the end of this month (that is, Wednesday, 30th November) to submit your best photographs that fit into one of the following categories: The Beauty of Plants, Beautiful Gardens, Wildlife Havens, Breathing Spaces, Bountiful Earth, Fragile Landscapes and Greening the City. The top prize is £5000 and category winners will also be awarded cash prizes. Full details of how to enter the competition can be found online at the website below.