The before and after of a magazine cover.

Better get a zoom here, check this guy going Neo while train spotting

Los Angeles photo slideshow on Michael Chapdelaine’s ‘ California Dreaming ‘

Spheron-VR AG, known globally as pioneers in HDR (High Dynamic Range) capture device technology and experts in precision engineered equipment & imaging optics, will today show publicly for the first time the capabilities and results from their HDR video camera. On display at Siggraph 2010 in Los Angeles will be HDRv footage from this unique device.

A prototype of the HDR video camera was first revealed at Siggraph 2009 in New Orleans. Through further research and developments over the past year, this functional prototype technology can now boast features such as – 50 x EXR frames per second, in full High Definition, with each frame containing up to 20 f-stops of dynamic range.

During this years Siggraph on Spheron’s exhibition stand the results of this production piece will be shown. The final pipeline for this ground-breaking production has included assembling this in the popular full 32-bit Film editing software suite – Nuke from The Foundry. Do visit our stand 1011 to see the entire production pipeline.

‘Throughout Spheron VR’s successful growth, we have always focused on being at the cutting edge of research into digital imaging technology’ said Spheron’s founder and CEO Mr.Gerhard Bonnet, ‘showing this content publicly is yet another important milestone in our company’s history of achievements’

Chief Scientist at The Foundry – Simon Robinson comments ‘Nuke has supported HDR imagery for some time. Spheron’s excellent research into HDR video capture has provided an insight into what may be possible in the future with an entire 32-bit Film production pipeline and we’re excited! ’

A low dynamic range version of the HDR sequence can be seen here online via this website link – http://bit.ly/spheron_hdr_video

ImageRights International, Inc., a company that helps professional photographers and illustrators discover the illegal use of their intellectual property on the Web, is offering a free version of its online image recognition and recovery service to further expand efforts against image piracy.

With this new offering, the company’s advanced visual search and crawler technology will continuously scan websites and blogs to protect up to 10,000 images for professional photographers and illustrators.

The crawler indexes millions of new images every month and uses powerful image recognition technology to compare customers’ photos and illustrations against images found on the Web. It then detects where the customers’ images have been used, even if the stolen photos have been altered, cropped, rotated or color adjusted. The customer receives a full report, including a picture of the original image, its use online, and the URL and ownership information for the website where it was found.

“As an advocate for photographers and illustrators, our goal is to help artistic professionals monitor how their work is being used on the Internet, and to partner with them to recoup lost profits when it’s being used illegally,” said Maria Kessler, senior vice president of business development at ImageRights and former president of the Picture Archive Council of America (PACA). “Image piracy is rampant online and by making these services more accessible, we’re enabling creatives to have more control over how their images are used, while sending a clear message that we are patrolling for unauthorized uses.”

Customers who take advantage of ImageRights’ free service may also participate in the company’s new, optional Recovery Program, which will launch next month to help photographers and illustrators obtain compensation for the unauthorized use of their images.

ImageRights will continue to offer its Basic, Standard and Pro packages for a monthly fee of $9.95, $19.95 and $39.95, respectively. Customers who select a paid program 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. Users are welcome to opt out of the ImageRights’ Recovery Program to pursue compensation on their own or with the help of their own attorney.

For information about ImageRights or to create your free account and start uploading your images now, go to http://www.imagerights.com.

About ImageRights International
ImageRights International protects professional photographers and illustrators’ intellectual property online by identifying illegal use of images and providing a support system to receive proper compensation. With its industrial strength crawler technology continuously scanning business sites, blogs, news/media sites and more, ImageRights works as an agent to support proper compensation for image use. Founded in 2008, ImageRights International is a global company headquartered in Cambridge, Mass. It is a proud member of the APA (http://www.apanational.com), CEPIC (http://www.cepic.org), and PACA (http://www.pacaoffice.org).

PhotographyBB announced today the release of the 29th edition of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine. PhotographyBB Online Magazine is a free publication with the goal of educating beginner to intermediate level photographers, and has become a leading resource in the future of free information distribution. PhotographyBB Online Magazine offers readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, discussions on issues surrounding the photo community, and image post processing tutorials in Adobe® Photoshop, and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom.

The edition features a tutorial on how to create dramatic landscape photos. Additionally, readers will learn about the differences between small flash units and studio strobe, along with the practical applications of each option. This release also examines the relationship between sensor sizes vs megapixels (in digital cameras), and how both of these factors combined affect overall image quality.

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“The theme of this edition is Learn, Practice, and Grow. The team has put together a great issue with plenty of tutorials and tips to learn from, put into practice, and ultimately grow as a photographer (be it amateur or aspiring professional). This month we look at how to time-manage your social media efforts from a photographer’s standpoint. We also take a peek at the latest new features in the official Lightroom 3 release from Adobe, and how to manage your workspace in Photoshop CS5.

In our Photography Around the World series, we are off to Hawaii for a look at my own little adventure on the island of Oahu, including touring the filming locations from the TV series, LOST.”

By way of download in PDF format, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. Each edition contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers. In addition, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and practical tutorials on how to use image processing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

Download the PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue #29
in PDF Format:

PDF (11.9 MB)

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today reported financial results for its second quarter fiscal year 2010 ended June 4, 2010.

In the second quarter of fiscal 2010, Adobe achieved record revenue of $943.0 million, compared to $704.7 million reported for the second quarter of fiscal 2009 and $858.7 million reported in the first quarter of fiscal 2010. This represents 34 percent year-over-year revenue growth. Adobe’s second quarter revenue target range was $875 to $925 million.

“Record revenue and our strong Q2 financial performance were driven by the successful launch of Creative Suite 5,” said Shantanu Narayen, president and CEO of Adobe. “Our growth is being fueled by the explosion of digital content across all media and devices.”

Second Quarter Fiscal 2010 GAAP Results

Adobe’s GAAP diluted earnings per share for the second quarter of fiscal 2010 were $0.28, based on 533.3 million weighted average shares. This compares with GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.24 reported in the second quarter of fiscal 2009 based on 528.0 million weighted average shares, and GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.24 reported in the first quarter of fiscal 2010 based on 532.6 million weighted average shares.

GAAP operating income was $227.3 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2010, compared to $161.4 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2009 and $176.8 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2010. As a percent of revenue, GAAP operating income in the second quarter of fiscal 2010 was 24.1 percent, compared to 22.9 percent in the second quarter of fiscal 2009 and 20.6 percent in the first quarter of fiscal 2010.

GAAP net income was $148.6 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2010, compared to $126.1 million reported in the second quarter of fiscal 2009 and $127.2 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2010.

Second Quarter Fiscal 2010 Non-GAAP Results

Adobe’s non-GAAP diluted earnings per share for the second quarter of fiscal 2010 were $0.44. This compares with non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.35 reported in the second quarter of fiscal 2009 and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.40 reported in the first quarter of fiscal 2010.

Adobe’s non-GAAP operating income was $334.5 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2010, compared to $237.7 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2009 and $289.3 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2010. As a percent of revenue, non-GAAP operating income in the second quarter of fiscal 2010 was 35.5 percent, compared to 33.7 percent in both the second quarter of fiscal 2009 and the first quarter of fiscal 2010.

Non-GAAP net income was $234.2 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2010, compared to $185.0 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2009 and $211.7 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2010.

Reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP results is provided at the end of this press release.

Third Quarter Fiscal 2010 Financial Targets

For the third quarter of fiscal 2010, Adobe is targeting revenue of $950 million to $1 billion. The Company’s operating margin is targeted to be 25.5 percent to 27.5 percent on a GAAP basis, and 36 percent to 37 percent on a non-GAAP basis. In addition, the Company is targeting its share count to be between 532 million and 534 million shares, and it is targeting non-operating expense between $12.5 million and $13.5 million. Adobe’s GAAP and non-GAAP tax rate is expected to be approximately 25 percent.

These targets lead to a third quarter diluted earnings per share target range of $0.32 to $0.37 on a GAAP basis, and an earnings per share target range of $0.46 to $0.50 on a non-GAAP basis.

Stock Repurchase Program

Adobe also announced its Board of Directors has granted authority for the Company to repurchase up to $1.6 billion in common stock through the end of fiscal 2012. This new program modifies the existing share-based program to offset dilution to a dollar-based authority.

“This stock repurchase program reaffirms our confidence and optimism in the long-term future of Adobe, and our commitment to returning value to our stockholders,” said Mark Garrett, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Adobe.

Forward-Looking Statements Disclosure

This press release contains forward-looking statements, including those related to revenue, operating margin, non-operating expense, tax rate, share count, earnings per share, anticipated stock repurchases and business momentum, which involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Factors that might cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: failure to develop, market and distribute new products and services or upgrades or enhancements to existing products and services that meet customer requirements, introduction of new products, services and business models by existing and new competitors, failure to successfully manage transitions to new business models and markets, the economic downturn and continued uncertainty in the financial markets and other adverse changes in general economic or political conditions in any of the major countries in which Adobe does business, difficulty in predicting revenue from new businesses, failure to realize the anticipated benefits of past or future acquisitions, and difficulty in integrating such acquisitions, costs related to intellectual property acquisitions, disputes and litigation, inability to protect Adobe’s intellectual property from third-party infringers, or unauthorized copying, use or disclosure, security vulnerabilities in our products and systems, interruptions or delays in our service or service from third-party service providers that host or deliver services, security or privacy breaches, or failure in data collection, failure to manage Adobe’s sales and distribution channels and third-party customer service and technical support providers effectively, disruption of Adobe’s business due to catastrophic events, risks associated with global operations, currency fluctuations, risks associated with our debt service obligations, changes in, or interpretations of, accounting principles, impairment of Adobe’s goodwill or amortizable intangible assets, changes in, or interpretations of, tax rules and regulations, Adobe’s inability to attract and retain key personnel, impairment of Adobe’s investment portfolio due to deterioration of the capital markets, and market risks associated with Adobe’s equity investments. For further discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties, individuals should refer to Adobe’s SEC filings.

The financial information set forth in this press release reflects estimates based on information available at this time. These amounts could differ from actual reported amounts stated in Adobe’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for our second quarter ended June 4, 2010, which the Company expects to file in July 2010. Adobe does not undertake an obligation to update forward-looking statements.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated

Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit http://www.adobe.com.

© 2010 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe, Adobe Creative Suite and the Adobe logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

A camera manufactured in 1839 and signed by inventor Jacques Daguerre. has been sold on auction in Austria for 732 000 euro’s – 898,000 dollars.

Only ten of them are left, with 9 of them placed in musea.The 170 year old  camera was privately owned by a German family and manufactured in Paris by Alphonse Giroux, Daguerre’s his brother-in-law

It is a daguerreotype

A daguerreotype (original French: daguerréotype) was the first large scale commercial photographic process.

It was developed by Louis Daguerre together with Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Niepce had produced the first photographic image in the camera obscura using asphaltum on a copper plate sensitised with lavender oil that required very long exposures.

The image in a Daguerreotype is formed by amalgam i.e. a combination of mercury and silver. Mercury vapor from a pool of heated mercury is used to develop the plate that consists of a copper plate with a thin coating of silver rolled in contact that has previously been sensitised to light with iodine vapour so as to form silver iodide crystals on the silver surface of the plate.

Exposure times were later reduced by using bromine to form silver bromide crystals.

continue

Free sand and dirt textures in high resolution available for download

PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the 28th edition of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine

. PhotographyBB Online Magazine is a free publication with the goal of educating beginner to intermediate level photographers, and has become a leading resource in the future of free information distribution. PhotographyBB Online Magazine offers readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, discussions on issues surrounding the photo community, and image post processing tutorials in Adobe® Photoshop, and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom.

The edition features techniques for improving photography at auto-shows, a portraiture tutorial on skin softening, and how to create digital frames for showing off web gallery photos with style. Additionally, photographers will learn how their peers are using personal blogs as a means for acquiring photography related jobs and freelance work.

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“Once again, our team of contributing authors have knocked it out of the park. With ‘social media’ being the latest buzz in the online world, I’m pleased with how our team is tackling the social media aspects with regard to photography. This month we look at flickr and how photographers are making use of it not only for self promotion, but for networking and relationship building with their peers. We also have a great editorial on how to find inspiration in your own backyard, an expose on why photographers should consider complimenting their photo gear with a point-and-shoot camera, and some fantastic tutorials in this month’s edition.

In our Photography Around the World series, we are off to New Zealand for a photographic exploration of the Otago Rail Trail, a popular biking trail for outdoor photo enthusiasts.”

By way of download in PDF format, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. Each edition contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers. In addition, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and practical tutorials on how to use image processing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

Download the PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue #28 in PDF Format

PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the 27th edition of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine

. PhotographyBB Online Magazine is a free publication with the goal of educating beginner to intermediate level photographers, and has become a leading resource in the future of free information distribution. PhotographyBB Online Magazine offers readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, discussions on issues surrounding the photo community, and image post processing tutorials in Adobe® Photoshop, and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom.

This release features an 11-page special report on the release of Photoshop® CS5 and the amazing new features of this processing powerhouse. Additionally, photographers interested in starting their own photography business will get an overview of the type of business entity they may become, along with important considerations when selecting a business name.

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“The contributing team has gone all out this month in bringing us one of our best processing issues to date. Every one of us, as photographers, has a collection of photos which we have yet to post-process, and this edition of the magazine tackles just that. We have a great article on simplifying your digital workflow, and for the portrait photographers we have a tutorial on creating drama through subtle selective coloring.

For those photographers who are just getting started and are looking to purchase their first digital SLR, we have some tips on the important features you need to look for in choosing a camera that will last long and allow you to produce your best photos. Also, we take a look at how photographers of all levels are using Twitter to make big waves in getting their photos seen and their names known.”

By way of download in either PDF or ZIP formats, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. In a completely ad-free format, each issue contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers.

In addition to articles which aide photographers in getting the most from their DSLR cameras, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and applicable tutorials on how to use post-processing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom, to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

Download the PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue #27
in PDF or ZIP Format:

PDF (7.04 MB) | ZIP (6.18 MB)

Canon today announces the launch of its new, enhanced after-sales support scheme for professional photographers and videographers, the Canon Professional Services (CPS) programme. The CPS scheme offers professional users of Canon products exclusive, free access to a range of benefits, from CPS support teams at many international and local events, to a priority repair service and direct support from Canon Professional Representatives in selected European countries *.

Redesigned following extensive consultation with the CPS community, the new CPS will offer more reliable support and information to qualifying professional photographers and videographers across Europe. The re-launched CPS introduces multiple levels of membership, allowing a greater number of professional photographers to qualify for the benefits of CPS support.

Kieran Magee, Director of Professional Products Marketing, Canon Europe commented, “We are committed to offering the best possible after-sales service and support and, with this in mind, we have taken a careful look at Canon Professional Services and redesigned it to offer more tailored support to our customers. We are sure that the CPS community will appreciate the enhanced accessibility and assistance offered by the improved CPS membership structure and we look forward to offering this level of service to a wider range of professional Canon customers.”

Become a member of the new CPS programme

The CPS scheme offers three types of membership to professional photographers, depending on the qualifying equipment registered with the scheme (for a full list of qualifying Canon products, please consult: http://www.canon-europe.com/cps)

* Silver membership is available to photographers who register two bodies and three qualifying lenses. Repairs to CPS-serviced equipment will also be turned around in five working days.
* Gold membership is available to those who register two qualifying bodies and three qualifying lenses. Repairs to CPS-serviced equipment will be turned around in three working days with a free back-up loan service should this be exceeded.
* Professional photographers with a wider array of Canon equipment can qualify for Platinum membership after registering three qualifying bodes and four lenses. Benefits of this membership include a two-day turnaround for repairs to CPS-serviced equipment and free back-up equipment loans.

Videographers registering one qualifying1 camcorder will also benefit from specialist support and priority repairs with a maximum six-day delay and free back-up loan service should this be exceeded.

New CPS members can register their Canon equipment easily through http://www.canon-europe.com/cps from 7th April onwards. The appropriate level of membership will be automatically assigned depending on the number of qualifying bodies and lenses registered with CPS.

Existing CPS community members are invited to validate and update their details through the CPS website in order to ensure the correct CPS membership has been registered. All existing, unvalidated memberships will expire in June 2010. After this, a new registration will be required and new cards will be issued.

* European countries that currently offer the CPS program are: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom

Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging, today announced the 2010 schedule of Canon Live Learning educational events. In addition to the successful EOS Immersion Seminars and Workshops, Canon has two new intensive workshops for the professional EOS HD video user, EOS Moving Image Workshop and Canon Cinema Caravan, led by respected professionals in the industry. Geared toward the professional user in film/video production and wedding/event videography, these new workshops answer the growing educational demands of those using Canon EOS HD video products on a regular basis, along with prospective users seeking expert-level guidance in this burgeoning field.

“The trend of consumers using the movie mode on SLR cameras is rapidly increasing,” said Yuichi Ishizuka, executive vice president and general manager, Consumer Imaging Group, Canon U.S.A. “Our Live Learning Workshops are a great platform to help educate camera enthusiasts and professional users on the capabilities and advancements in the EOS product line while also providing tips and techniques to further their overall experience.”

EOS Moving Image Workshop

The EOS Moving Image Workshop provides hands-on instruction from industry leaders who currently use Canon EOS cameras in professional film and video productions. Developed in conjunction with Createasphere, this workshop provides informative presentations, hands-on shooting and coaching from industry-experienced instructors.

On day one of the three-day program, participants will be introduced to shooting video with EOS HD video cameras, with topics including camera operation and an overview of supporting aftermarket hardware and software. Day two incorporates extensive hands-on shooting as students learn optimal capture skills in a variety of common production scenarios. The final day is dedicated to post-production and workflow, highlighting output, color correction, off- and on-line editing and backup strategies. Beginning in late May, these workshops will be available on select dates in Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and New York.

Canon Cinema Caravan, Workshops for EOS Storytellers

For the experienced wedding and event videography professional, the two-day Canon Cinema Caravan workshops will provide expert instruction on mastering the cinematic capabilities of Canon’s HD video-enabled EOS products. In this two-day intensive workshop, instructors from stillmotion, a leading innovator in the use of EOS HD video products, will focus on the principles of video storytelling, connecting with subjects and imagery, selecting the best optics, overcoming common shooting challenges, working with light, audio configurations and techniques, post-production workflow and more. Hands-on shooting opportunities will be available during the session as well.

The six-city workshop tour kicks-off July 7th and 8th in New York followed by stops in Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Portland. The final city will be selected via voting on the Cinema Caravan blog on the Canon Digital Learning Center.

EOS Immersion Seminar and Workshops

For this year’s program, the two-day Canon EOS Immersion Seminar and Workshops have been expanded to 11 cities throughout the United States. Beginning in San Diego, Calif. on April 24th and running through November 14th for the last stop in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the EOS Immersion Seminars will take place on Saturdays and be led by Canon Explorers of Light (EOL) and Canon’s own Live Learning instructors. The day-long seminar covers advanced user techniques and demos for getting the most from the Canon EOS camera system, HD video basics with EOS, creative lighting techniques with the EOS Speedlite system, landscape photography tips and general techniques for improving one’s photography overall.

Sunday is workshop day, featuring two separate opportunities for hands-on learning in an intimate and fun environment with top instructors, top facilities and plenty of Canon-provided EOS loan equipment. Workshops will be offered in EOS HD video techniques and creative lighting with Canon’s Speedlite system. From Canon EOS-1D Mark IVs to EOS 7Ds, users will be able to choose and learn with the camera body that best fits their needs while also experiencing Canon’s award-winning EF and EF-S lens lineup.

In the Exploring HD Video with EOS workshops, instructed by Canon EOLs Bruce Dorn or Bob Davis, depending on the city, the morning session will focus on camera configuration, stabilization, audio strategies and the basics of planning your shoot. In the afternoon, participants are able to experience hands-on shooting with the EOS HD platform, with help from the instructor and on-hand Canon experts.

For the EOS camera user interested in learning how to best use single and multiple flash configurations, the Creative Lighting with Speedlites workshop, instructed by professional photographer Jeff Greene, will provide a full day of intimate studio shooting, instruction and feedback. The workshop will be divided into smaller working groups where participants will learn professional techniques for improving the quality of their lighting through the use of Canon Speedlites, flash triggers and light modifiers.

EOS Destination Workshops

EOS Destination Workshops return to Canon Live Learning in 2010. Two-day workshops will be held in photographic gems such as Boulder, Colo., Moab, Utah, Yosemite, Calif. and other locations. Participants are able to choose from a variety of specialties with instructors such as EOLs Jennifer Wu, Tyler Stableford and Adam Jones with topics ranging from landscape photography to capturing the speed and majesty of thoroughbred racehorses in Kentucky. Whether spending the day in Arches National Park, on the beach shooting surfers, or the fall colors in Yosemite National Park, EOS Destination Workshop participants are sure to expand their portfolios and experience EOS photography at an exciting new level.

For the complete Canon Live Learning schedule, please visit http://www.usa.canon.com/canonlivelearning.

Explorers of Light
The Explorers of Light concept came out of Canon U.S.A. in the mid 1990’s as a broad-ranging initiative for photographic education and inspiration. Today, the group is comprised of more than 60 of the most influential photographers and cinematographers in the world, each a master of their own creative specialty. The Explorers share their photographic passions and technical expertise with eager audiences of photo professionals, hobbyists and enthusiasts in a variety of personal appearances, seminars and gallery showings throughout the United States. Examples of the Explorers’ work may be found online at the Explorers of Light Gallery as well as numerous museums, galleries and publications. Explorers of Light use Canon EOS photographic equipment. For more information, please visit the Canon Digital Learning Center:
http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc

About Canon U.S.A., Inc.
Canon U.S.A., Inc., is a leading provider of consumer, business-to-business, and industrial digital imaging solutions. Its parent company, Canon Inc. (NYSE:CAJ), a top patent holder of technology, ranked fourth overall in the U.S. in 2009†, with global revenues of US $35 billion, is listed as number four in the computer industry on Fortune Magazine’s World’s Most Admired Companies 2009 list, and is on the 2009 BusinessWeek list of “100 Best Global Brands.” Canon U.S.A. is committed to the highest levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty, providing 100 percent U.S.-based consumer service and support for all of the products it distributes. At Canon, we care because caring is essential to living together in harmony. Founded upon a corporate philosophy of Kyosei – “all people, regardless of race, religion or culture, harmoniously living and working together into the future” – Canon U.S.A. supports a number of social, youth, educational and other programs, including environmental and recycling initiatives. Additional information about these programs can be found at http://www.usa.canon.com/kyosei. To keep apprised of the latest news from Canon U.S.A., sign up for the Company’s RSS news feed by visiting http://www.usa.canon.com/rss.

PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the 26th edition of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine. PhotographyBB Online Magazine is a free publication with the goal of educating beginner to intermediate level photographers, and has become a leading resource in the future of free information distribution.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine offers readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, discussions on issues surrounding the photo community, and image post processing tutorials in Adobe® Photoshop, and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom.

This edition examines some key traits necessary for those interested in becoming professionals, or “photo-preneurs.” Additionally, there are some helpful tutorials on conveying a sense of motion in night portraits, along with the top 5 landscape photography tips and techniques.

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“Now into our third year of publication, I’m pleased with the growth of the magazine as well as our valued readership. Thanks to the help of the press, bloggers, and the use of social media, we’ve seen a huge increase in the numbers of readers, and the response has been very positive. In a way, this ties into a new series we’ve been running (and will continue to run) for two months now on Social Media for Photographers. This series will be exploring the different social media options that are available, how they work, and how photographers can use them to connect with others and promote their own work successfully.

This month, we take a look at the key differences, advantages, and disadvantages of the RAW vs JPEG file formats. We’ve also got a very special in-depth coverage of the new Lightroom 3 Beta 2 release by John Ogden. Here we dive into details regarding the small tweaks Lightroom 3 has to offer, as well as some of the big changes that have been highly anticipated. Also, if you are planning any trips this year, you’ll want to check out our travel photography tips for some important considerations that many vacationing photographers often overlook.

In our Photography Around the World feature, we’re off to Tanzania for a photo-safari. Along with experiencing the majesty of these beautiful animals, you’ll also learn some valuable tips should you ever have the chance to take a photo-safari yourself.”

By way of download in either PDF or ZIP formats, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. In a completely ad-free format, each issue contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers.

In addition to articles which aide photographers in getting the most from their DSLR cameras, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and applicable tutorials on how to use post-processing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom, to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

Download the PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue #26
in PDF or ZIP Format:

PDF (6.08 MB) | ZIP (5.61 MB)

Ushering in a new era of high-performance image sensors, InVisage Technologies, Inc.—a venture-backed start-up that is revolutionizing the way light is captured—today announced QuantumFilm. Harnessing the power of custom-designed semiconductor materials, QuantumFilm image sensors are the world’s first commercial quantum dot-based image sensors, replacing silicon. InVisage delivers 4x higher performance, 2x higher dynamic range and professional camera features not yet found in mobile image sensors. The first QuantumFilm-enabled product, due out later this year, solves the crucial challenge of capturing stunning images using mobile handset cameras.

QuantumFilm was developed by InVisage after years of research under the guidance of notable scientist and InVisage CTO Ted Sargent. The technology is based on quantum dots—semiconductors with unique light-capture properties. QuantumFilm works by capturing an imprint of a light image, and then employing the silicon beneath it to read out the image and turn it into versatile digital signals. InVisage spent three years engineering the quantum dot material to produce highly-sensitive image sensors that integrate with standard CMOS manufacturing processes. The first application of QuantumFilm will enable high pixel count and high performance in tiny form factors, breaking silicon’s inherent performance-resolution tradeoff.

“It is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to develop next-generation image sensors using silicon; essentially, silicon has hit a wall,” says Jess Lee, InVisage President and C.E.O. “The fundamental problem is that silicon cannot capture light efficiently, but until now it has been the only option. The disruptive nature of QuantumFilm builds on silicon’s success in electronics, and elevates its function using new materials that are engineered from the ground up for light capture.”

Silicon-based image sensors—the technology used today for all digital cameras including handheld, professional, mobile phone, security and automotive cameras—capture on average a mere 25 percent of light. QuantumFilm captures between 90-95 percent, enabling better pictures in even the most challenging lighting conditions. This increase in efficiency will deliver improvements across the entire imaging market, allowing QuantumFilm to be the de-facto next generation camera platform. The first target market for QuantumFilm is mobile handsets, where there is the greatest demand for small, high performance image sensors.

Just nanometers in size, the quantum dot-based material is deposited directly on top of the wafer during manufacturing. And unlike silicon-based image sensor technologies such as BSI (back-side illumination) and FSI (front-side illumination), QuantumFilm covers 100 percent of each pixel. The material is added as a final wafer-level process, which allows for easy integration into standard semiconductor foundries. The process—akin to coating a layer of photoresist onto a standard wafer—adds minimal cost on top of the standard layers of silicon processes.

“It is safe to say that the industry spends an average of $1 billion for each new generation of pixel technology, all to achieve a single-digit percentage improvement in image quality,” says Tetsuo Omori, senior analyst, Techno Systems Research Co. “The future of imaging is in new materials like QuantumFilm, which will change the competitive landscape and possibly re-ignite the pixel race.”

InVisage was founded in 2006 and is led by industry veterans from the image sensor and advanced semiconductor materials industry. It employs 30 people at its Menlo Park headquarters and has received more than $30 million in funding from RockPort Capital, Charles River Ventures, InterWest Partners and OnPoint Technologies. Its technology is protected by 21 patents and patents pending.

QuantumFilm is ideal for a wide range of image-sensing technologies including security cameras, automotive cameras and military applications. The first QuantumFilm image sensors, targeting high-end mobile handsets and smartphones, will sample in Q4 of 2010.

For more information on InVisage Technologies, please visit its newly-launched web site at http://www.invisageinc.com. InVisage will be demonstrating its new technology at DEMO Spring 2010 in Palm Desert, Calif., on March 22 and 23. InVisage will also be giving a talk about its technology at Image Sensors Europe 2010 on March 24 in London.

About InVisage Technologies, Inc.
InVisage Technologies, Inc. is a venture-backed fabless semiconductor company based in Menlo Park, Calif. that is developing QuantumFilm, a breakthrough imaging-sensing technology that will replace silicon. Its first product enables the high-fidelity, high resolution images from handheld devices like camera phones and PDAs. Founded in 2006, InVisage Technologies is venture funded by RockPort Capital, Charles River Ventures, InterWest Partners, and OnPoint Technologies. More information is available at http://www.invisageinc.com.

About DEMO
Produced by the IDG Enterprise events group, the worldwide DEMO conferences focus on emerging technologies and new products innovations, which are hand selected from across the spectrum of the technology marketplace. The DEMO conferences have earned their reputation for consistently identifying cutting-edge technologies and helping entrepreneurs secure venture funding and establish critical business. For more information on the DEMO conferences, visit http://www.demo.com/.

PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the 25th edition of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine. This edition marks the two year anniversary milestone for PhotographyBB, who continue to educate beginner and intermediate level photographers in digital photography. PhotographyBB Online Magazine has become a leading resource in the future of free information distribution, offering readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, and image post processing tutorials in Adobe® Photoshop™, and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom™.

The Two-Year Anniversary edition examines the role of amateur photographers looking to break into the professional realm, along with the impact on the photography industry. Additionally, portraiture and flash lighting techniques are featured, along with a guide on what to look for when purchasing a new lens.

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“I am extremely proud to announce the release of our Two-Year Anniversary edition. It’s been an amazing journey so far, and thanks to the help of our talented team of contributing authors coupled with our growing readership, the magazine continues to grow and evolve as we head through 2010.

This edition covers portraiture lighting techniques, and how to achieve a balance between ambient lighting conditions and portable flash units. We also continue our detailed look at some of the new features in the Lightroom 3 beta release, including the Watermarking Tools and the new Identity Plate. We are also extremely pleased to welcome world-renowned photographer, Kevin Kubota, into the spotlight. Kevin was very forthcoming in telling us about his professional life as a photographer and how he got to where he is today, and it was a pleasure to do this interview.

In our Photography Around the World feature, we’re off to Canada for a trip through the Canadian Rockies. From the wildlife to the icefields, you’ll get a great look at the spectacular scenery which British Columbia and Alberta have to offer.”

By way of download in either PDF or ZIP formats, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. In a completely ad-free format, each issue contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers.

In addition to articles which aide photographers in getting the most from their DSLR cameras, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and applicable tutorials on how to use post-processing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom, to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

Download the PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue #25
in PDF or ZIP Format:

PDF (6.31 MB) | ZIP (5.82 MB)

” Let’s just say it: Nobody has changed the way we interact with technology like Apple has over the last 10 years. Even if the iPad turns out to be the disaster that many are anticipating, Steve Jobs will still be seen as the hero who turns top-end technology into friendly little gadgets even your grandma can use.

But recently, a faint chorus has been growing–thousands of tech geeks suggesting that if you look under Apple’s shiny white veneer, you’ll find some practices that are less than user friendly. In fact, some of the things Jobs and Apple are being accused of are so over the top, Lex Luthor would have to take off his hat … and then use it to cover the dark stain spreading across the front of his pants.”

continue

“  I was first set up (by the tournament people) in a room with very little to work with. About three feet of shooting space, seriously. So I scouted around the arena and found a loading dock to take all the photos in. It was great because it a had a very gritty feel to it and I could get three differnt looks in a very short amount of time, which was good because I got between 1-5 minutes with each of the players. I was seriously grabbing them as they were walking into the gym to play. ”

Make sure to check Dustin’s blog with lighting setups and postproduction notes about this shoot.

Dustin Snipes blog about the postproduction

idem about the lighting

photos © Dustin Snipes

DALSA Corporation (TSX: DSA) is pleased to announce the shipment of very high resolution image sensors that will power the newest models in the UltraCam line of aerial photogrammetry cameras produced by Microsoft’s photogrammetry business, Vexcel Imaging, GmbH.
Featuring 196 megapixel resolution (17,310 pixels x 11,310 pixels), the new UltraCamXp and UltraCamXp Wide Angle use multiple DALSA CCD image sensors to provide breathtakingly detailed imagery that feeds applications such as Microsoft® Bing™ Maps.
“To achieve the performance we wanted in these new UltraCams, we needed the best large and medium format image sensors available,” commented Alexander Wiechert, CEO of Vexcel. “DALSA’s technology is industry-leading, and they delivered the products and the support we needed to succeed.”
The incredible resolution and footprint of the new UltraCams allows users to produce high-quality urban maps, large-scale ortho photos and stereo imagery with fewer flight lines, saving time and lowering cost. Increased onboard storage allows for longer flights to take advantage of good flying conditions, and the high throughput and superior dynamic range of the DALSA sensors enable the system to capture more data with higher image quality in less time.

For medium-format mapping applications, the new UltraCamLp delivers 92 megapixels (11,704 pixels x 7,920 pixels) in a package ideal for smaller aircraft and local projects that require a rapid response with the highest image quality, such as digital surface model production, aero triangulation, ortho mapping and 3D technical vector mapping.
“We are proud to provide image sensors for these impressive products,” said Edwin Roks, Vice President and General Manager of DALSA Professional Imaging. “This relationship further reinforces our position as the world’s supplier of choice for large format image sensors.”
For more information on the new UltraCams, visit the Microsoft Ultracam website. For More information on DALSA’s image sensor technology, visit the DALSA Image Sensor Solutions website.
About Vexcel Imaging GmbH
Acquired by Microsoft Corporation in May 2006, Vexcel Imaging, GmbH brings 20 years of photogrammetry expertise to Microsoft’s Bing Maps business unit and is at the heart of the burgeoning Microsoft Photogrammetry business. The company’s offerings include its series of UltraCam digital aerial mapping cameras and the UltraMap workflow software.
About DALSA Corporation
DALSA is an international leader in high performance digital imaging and semiconductors with approximately 1000 employees world-wide. Established in 1980, the Company designs, develops, manufactures, and markets digital imaging products and solutions, in addition to providing semiconductor products and services. DALSA’s core competencies are in specialized integrated circuit and electronics technology, software, and highly engineered semiconductor wafer processing. Products and services include image sensor components (CCD and CMOS); electronic digital cameras; vision processors; image processing software; and semiconductor wafer foundry services for use in MEMS, high-voltage semiconductors, image sensors and mixed-signal CMOS chips. DALSA is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol “DSA” and has its corporate offices in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

The international jury of the 53rd annual World Press Photo Contest has selected a photo by the Italian photographer Pietro Masturzo as the World Press Photo of the Year 2009. The picture depicts women shouting in protest from a rooftop in Tehran on 24 June.

The winning photograph is part of a story depicting the nights following the contested presidential elections in Iran, when people shouted their dissent from roofs and balconies, after daytime protests in the streets. The story as a whole was awarded first prize in the category People in the News.

World Press Photo called Pietro Masturzo to tell him the news that his photo won the top prize. You can listen to a recording of his reaction here.

The conclusion of the jury
Jury chair Ayperi Karabuda Ecer said: “The photo shows the beginning of something, the beginning of a huge story. It adds perspectives to news. It touches you both visually and emotionally, and my heart went out to it immediately.”

Fellow juror Guy Tillim commented: “The difficulty in photographing conflict situations is one of portraying the parallel lives involved, of people going on with their lives. This picture has made a very good attempt at marrying these two elements, in giving the conflict a context – and that is a holy grail of photography. The photographer does it with a very beautiful image of an Iranian landscape, which would be worth looking at in itself. But it also arouses our curiosity about the woman shouting – incorporating this moment, the importance of this historical event. It represents a very honest and successful attempt at taking forward our vocabulary of showing things.”

Juror Kate Edwards said: “The photo has a powerful sense of atmosphere, tension, fear – but also of quietness and calm, and in this sense was a challenge as a choice. We were looking for an image that drew you in, took you deeper, made you think more – not just about showing what we already know, but something that asks more of us.”

2010 contest statistics
The jury gave prizes in ten themed categories to 63 photographers of 23 nationalities from: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Ecuador, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mali, Mexico, the Netherlands, Palestinian Territories, Peru, Somalia, Sweden, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States.

During the two-week judging, the jury viewed a record number of photographs with 101,960 images submitted by 5,847 photographers. The photographers represent 128 different nationalities.

Entries by photographers from Asia continued a steady increase, with the majority of entries coming from China with 586 submissions (2009:490) and Indonesia with 107 submissions (2009: 77). Africa also had a higher number of entries, with a 7.5% increase. European photographers were well represented, with a significant increase from photographers from Italy with 370 entries (2009: 306) and Russia with 156 entries (2009: 130).

The 2010 jury
The two-week judging period brought together 19 picture editors, photographers and representatives of press agencies from around the world. The members of the 2010 jury were:

Chair
Ayperi Karabuda Ecer, Sweden/Turkey, vice president pictures Reuters

Members:
Harry Borden, UK, photographer
Saurabh Das, India, photographer The Associated Press
Kate Edwards, UK, picture editor Guardian Weekend Magazine
Bill Frakes, USA, photographer Sports Illustrated
David Griffin, USA, director of photography National Geographic magazine
Hideko Kataoka, Japan, director of photography Newsweek, Japan
Guy Tillim, South Africa, photographer
Stephan Vanfleteren, Belgium, photographer

Secretaries:
Daphné Anglès, France/USA, European picture coordinator The New York Times
Stephen Mayes, UK, managing director VII Photo Agency

For the 2010 contest, specialized juries took part in the initial rounds of judging for the categories Sports, Nature and Portraits. The specialized juries were created with the intention of bringing more focus to the categories, and raising the overall standard even further. The members of the specialized juries brought extensive experience, knowledge and their diverse perspectives to enhance the judging process. After the specialized juries judged their categories in the first part of the contest, one representative per category joined the general jury for the final round, to ensure continuity. The members of the specialized juries were:

Sports:
Bill Frakes, USA, photographer Sports Illustrated
Giovanna Calvenzi, Italy, picture editor Sportweek / La Gazetta dello Sport
Adam Pretty, Australia, photographer Getty Images

Nature:
David Griffin, USA, director of photography National Geographic magazine
Magdalena Herrera, France/Cuba, director of photography Geo, France
Mattias Klum, Sweden, photographer and filmmaker

Portraits:
Harry Borden, UK, photographer
Laurie Kratochvil, USA, photography consultant
Charlotte Cotton, UK, creative director National Media Museum, London

News & documentary:
Ayperi Karabuda Ecer, Sweden/Turkey, vice president pictures Reuters
Volker Lensch, Germany, head of photo department Stern
Laura Serani, Italy, freelance curator
Marizilda Cruppe, Brazil, photographer O Globo / Eve Photographers
Yuri Kozyrev, Russia, photographer Noor

Awards Days and 2010 exhibition
Pietro Masturzo, the author of the World Press Photo of the Year 2009, will receive his award during an awards ceremony in Amsterdam on Sunday, 2 May 2010. The award also carries a cash prize of €10,000. In addition, Canon will donate a Canon EOS Digital SLR Camera and lens kit to Masturzo.

The awards ceremony is preceded by a two-day program of lectures, discussions and screenings of photography. The exhibition of prize-winning photography will be shown at the Oude Kerk from 23 April to 20 June and subsequently visit over 100 locations around the world. For a provisional exhibition schedule, visit: http://www.worldpressphoto.org/exhibitions.

World Press Photo receives support from the Dutch Postcode Lottery and is sponsored worldwide by Canon and TNT.

WINNERS GALLERY

Established Photographers

Photographer 1:

I don’t think photographers could ever pull off a Union type situation. Never in a million years.

It is like trying to organize a million man march of independents. They are too much the loner mentality.

Many can’t even follow loose guidelines for rates or usage.

Photographer 2:

I would even love it if we could just get some standard licensing language and standard estimating forms like the film industry uses. Art buyers are already use to standardized forms from the film world. Why can’t we at least do that?

I am a member of the Director’s Guild, and the company I work through is a member of the AICP, which is a very strong and effective union. They have fantastic representation, and they are well respected by the Advertising agencies.

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PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the 24th edition of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine. For beginner and intermediate photographers interested in learning more about digital photography, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine is a leading resource in the future of free information distribution, offering readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, and image post processing tutorials in Adobe® Photoshop™, and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom™.

The January 2010 edition examines the merits of keeping a strong and tidy photo portfolio, be it physical or an online gallery. Additionally, this issue explores composition techniques, and how negative space can strengthen a photo while drawing the viewer deeper into the image. This month also looks at the Lightroom 3 Beta release in-depth, featuring the new Publish Services and Watermarking tools.

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“It’s a new year and that means exciting new features for 2010. This month’s edition kicks off a new series on portraiture lighting, and how to achieve better portrait photos using a single flash unit in combination with ambient lighting. We also have a few Valentine’s goodies, including a Photoshop tutorial and a book suggestion for those who are interested in learning to create dramatic and romantic Hollywood style portraits. Additionally, we dive into the Lightroom 3 beta release for a look at some cool new features that every Lightroom user is sure to make use of. Pre-visualization can be a powerful tool, and one of our newest contributing authors gives us a great look at how we can use pre-visualization in our photography.

In our Photography Around the World feature, we’re off to India for a colorful look at Pushkar’s annual fair. It’s a great thing to see other parts of the world through photography, and inspire our readers to consider visiting new places in their lifetimes.”

By way of download in either PDF or ZIP formats, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. In a completely ad-free format, each issue contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers.

In addition to articles which aide photographers in getting the most from their DSLR cameras, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and applicable tutorials on how to use post-processing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom, to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

PhotographyBB was founded in Oct, 2006, and is a division of PowerButton Central (2004).
For more information, visit the PhotographyBB website at: http://www.photographybb.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/photographybb
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/photographybb

Download the PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue #24
in PDF or ZIP Format:

PDF (6.31 MB) | ZIP (5.82 MB)

PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the 23rd edition of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine. The PhotographyBB Online Magazine is a leading resource in the future of free information distribution, offering readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, and image post processing tutorials in Adobe® Photoshop™, and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom™. PhotographyBB Magazine can be downloaded free at: http://www.photographybb.com/magazine

The December 2009 edition theme is Happy Holiday How-to’s, providing the readers with tips and techniques for shooting in Winter weather such as keeping your gear safe from the elements while still allowing you to get those stunning Winter shots. Readers will also learn how to shoot abstract bokeh shots, where the name of the game is shooting creatively, out of focus. PhotographyBB’s in-depth look at the new Lightroom 3 Beta release covers the differences in the new and improved Develop Module.

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“As the final edition for 2009, we always try to make our December edition extra-special. This year the contributing team have gone above, putting together the best how-to edition we’ve published to date. In this edition, our readers are going to learn the importance of creating compelling photos, and how to make your own photography more compelling to viewers. I’m also pleased to announce that we have a very special guest contributor this month. World renowned photographer and best-selling photography author, David duChemin joins us in our Spotlight Interview seat, with a look at his books, photos, and some valuable insight into today’s photographic world.

In our Photography Around the World feature, we’re taking our readers all around the globe to show you Christmas Around the World. From Vancouver to Singapore, we have some amazing photography submitted by our readers to show us just what Christmas looks like in their town.”

By way of download in either PDF or ZIP formats, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. In a completely ad-free format, each issue contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers.

In addition to articles which aide photographers in getting the most from their DSLR cameras, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and applicable tutorials on how to use post-processing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom, to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

PhotographyBB was founded in Oct, 2006, and is a division of PowerButton Central (2004).
For more information, visit the PhotographyBB website at: http://www.photographybb.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/photographybb
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/photographybb

Download the PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue #23
in PDF or ZIP Format:

PDF (7.71 MB) | ZIP (7.06 MB)

The launch of new photography website FocalPop brings photographers and photo buyers a unique new way to buy and sell photography. FocalPop’s model is simple: image seekers create a request describing the photo they need, photographers upload shots that meet the request, and then the seeker selects a winning photo. Using crowdsourcing as well as a reverse-auction approach to selling photography is proving to be the fresh new approach needed in the market.

For years, frustrations with current offerings have plagued both sides of the photography market. Photographers have seen revenues shrink with recent trends towards low-costs transactions on microstock photography sites. Photographers also have trouble estimating what type of images buyers are looking to purchase, and must invest in photo shoots based on what they guess might be needed. Photography buyers often have a very specific shot in mind when they search for stock photography. They spend hours searching through databases of photos and often settle with for a shot that is not quite what they had in mind.

FocalPop solves the needs of both photographers and buyers. Photographers can sign up for notifications of new requests and participate in those with the style, price, and licensing that best works for them. They also stand to earn high revenues with a minimum of 70% commissions on photo sales and the price of photos starting at a minimum of $50. Buyers will be happy to finally get the exact photos they need without having to spend hours digging for the right photo.

FocalPop was founded in Austin, TX by technology and marketing experts Brian Romanko and Becky Parker. Formulated during the MBA program at the McCombs School of Business, FocalPop was winner of the Texas Moot Corp Competition and took home honors at both the Oregon New Venture Competition and the Global Moot Corp competition earlier this year. FocalPop launched a beta version of the site in September and has received an enthusiastic response from the photographer community. “Our research coupled with the initial response from both photographers and buyers has validated the great need for this type of solution” says Brian Romanko, president “We collected valuable feedback from photographers throughout our three month beta period and look forward to continually optimizing the site based on customer needs as we continue FocalPop’s growth.” During the beta period, over 2,000 visitors from 63 countries helped fulfill requests for photos like “Lonely Guitar,” “Greasy Plate of Food,” and “Happy Dog.” The winners of all completed requests as well as all the photos submitted can be seen at http://www.focalpop.com.

For additional information on the Launch of FocalPop.com contact Becky Parker or visit http://www.focalpop.com.

ABOUT FOCALPOP – FocalPop is a web-based platform that allows companies to finally get the exact photo that they need by allowing them to crowdsource their image requests via a community of photographers across the world. For more information on FocalPop, contact Becky Parker (becky@focalpop.com) or follow them on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/focalpop.

PLR IP Holdings, LLC, owners of Polaroid®, today announced the signing of six licensing agreements for exciting new Polaroid branded products for imaging-related and consumer electronics products and services expected to contribute to the estimated $600 million in retail sales for the Polaroid brand in 2010, and extending to greater than $3 billion over five years.

Over the past several months, PLR IP Holdings, LLC has been forging new partnerships as part of its global licensing strategy in an effort to extend the reach of the Polaroid brand into exciting new product categories that leverage best-in-class manufacturers and distributors. The partners were chosen to build upon the rich Polaroid history as one of the world’s most iconic brands, while staying true to Polaroid’s values of fun, value and quality.

Consumers can expect to see the following new Polaroid branded consumer electronics products and services:

* Polaroid StudioTM – available now at http://www.polaroidstudio.com – the online photo sharing service from MyPhotoAlbum Inc. creates unique, highly customizable online photo albums and photo keepsakes. Under the terms of the exclusive licensing agreement, MyPhotoAlbum will combine its online photo services technology with the Polaroid brand to administer the Polaroid Studio website, focused on photo sharing and related merchandising in the North American market.

* Camera lenses, filters and close-up lenses, lens hoods and caps, flashes, battery grips, batteries and chargers, camera bags, binoculars and a host of other camera accessories from C&A Marketing Inc., a global source of camera-related products to meet any individual’s photographic needs. This high-quality and affordable product line will help drive growth of key product categories.

* Entertainment, mobile, computer and gaming peripherals will come from jWIN Electronics Corporation. Based in Port Washington, NY, jWIN Electronics Corporation is a leading consumer electronics company, bringing uniquely styled brand-name quality products to consumers worldwide. The company was awarded with three 2010 Innovations Design and Engineering Awards by CES.

* Famous Trails, a leader in outdoor gear and equipment for camping and outdoor adventure enthusiasts since 1970, will bring to market unique night vision units, range finders and digital camera binoculars.

* Personal notebook accessories including USB speakers and DVD ROM drives from Matsunichi Digital Holdings Limited, a Hong Kong-based company which specializes in R&D, manufacture and sales of digital consumer electronics and IT products.

* A complete line of precision-cut screen protectors and durable, optically clear protective films for a wide variety of mobile devices providing instant protection for your device by Panaglobal Distribution Inc.

“Polaroid has had an immense global appeal for more than 70 years, and our new licensees directly speak to our core brand competencies,” said Scott W. Hardy, president of PLR IP Holdings, LLC. “We continue to take great measures to ensure Polaroid products meet our quality standards, while expanding on our offering with new trend setting, clever and fun solutions to fit our customers’ digital lifestyle.”

PLR IP Holdings intends to partner with a number of best-of-breed global institutions in the ongoing development of the Polaroid brand. The flexibility of the Polaroid brand offers limitless potential to embark on additional product opportunities, ranging from consumer electronics to commercial imaging and beyond.

Consumers will be able to purchase these exciting new Polaroid products in the first half of 2010 at major retail outlets as well as through http://www.polaroid.com.

ABOUT POLAROID
Since 1937, Polaroid® has been considered to be one of the most respected and recognized consumer brands in the world. Best known for pioneering instant photography and polarized lenses, the Polaroid brand is now reaching a new generation of consumers, extending into innovative lines of instant imaging and consumer electronics products including digital photo frames, digital cameras, flat panel televisions and more. As part of a portfolio of iconic brands jointly owned and managed by Gordon Brothers Brands (http://www.gordonbrothers.com) and Hilco Consumer Capital (http://www.hilcocc.com), Polaroid is extending into a full-scale global licensing and marketing company. Polaroid is a registered trademark of PLR IP Holdings, LLC. (http://www.polaroid.com)

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the call for entries for the tenth annual Adobe® Design Achievement Awards (ADAA). This premier competition honors the best student graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, animators, digital filmmakers, developers and computer artists from accredited higher education institutions worldwide. For the second consecutive year, Icograda (International Council of Graphic Design Associations) is endorsing and supporting these prestigious student awards. Adobe will host the awards ceremony during the Adobe MAX conference being held in Los Angeles in late October 2010.

“Each year, we see an increase in the quality and creativity of the student projects submitted to the Adobe Design Achievement Awards,” said Ann Lewnes, senior vice president of global marketing at Adobe. “As technology developments advance at a rapid pace, we anticipate that the entries for 2010 will push the envelope in design, particularly interactive — showcasing the tremendous talent coming out of the world’s accredited higher education institutions.”

“Next year marks the 10 year anniversary of Icograda’s Education Manifesto, as well as that of the prestigious Adobe Design Achievement Awards. Partnering with Adobe on such a special occasion strengthens our commitment to advancing design education through the global collaboration between both our educational networks,” said Russell Kennedy, president of Icograda.

As demand increases for talented designers and developers in the interactive design and development fields, the Adobe Design Achievement Awards spotlight the talented work of students in three categories: Interactive Media, Motion Media, and Traditional Media.

* Interactive Media categories include Browser-Based Design, Non-Browser Based Design, Application Development, Installation Design and Mobile Design.
* Motion Media categories include Animation, Live Action and Motion Graphics.
* Traditional Media categories include Illustration, Packaging, Photography and Print Communications.

Students are invited to submit projects through the Adobe Design Achievement Awards web site at adaa.adobe.com through June 4, 2010. Finalists will be invited to attend the awards ceremony at Adobe MAX in Los Angeles and awarded software and cash prizes. From the web site, visitors can access ADAA Live!, an interactive web site that lets them view previous entries and currently submitted student projects in real-time.

For more information regarding the 2010 Adobe Design Achievement Awards, visit adaa.adobe.com.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated

Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit http://www.adobe.com.

About Icograda

Icograda (International Council of Graphic Design Associations) is the world body for professional communication design. Founded in 1963, Icograda promotes communication designers’ vital role in society and commerce. For more information, visit http://www.icograda.org.

© 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe and the Adobe logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the 22nd edition of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine. The PhotographyBB Online Magazine is a leading resource in the future of free information distribution, offering readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, and image post processing tutorials in Adobe® Photoshop™, and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom™.

The November 2009 edition theme is all about “how-to” with some great tutorials and photography techniques to get our photographic creative juices flowing. This month examines some basic macro photography tips, keeping wildlife (and yourself) safe during nature photography sessions, and a new “Evolution of an Image” series where the creation of a photograph is examined from start to finish.

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“The contributing team has put together a spectacular issue full of tutorials this month. I’m pleased to announce a new series in our magazine where we take a look at the evolution of a photograph starting with the gear, to the shoot, to the processing of the final image. It’s a great way to learn techniques and see how the pros do their work. We also have a very special new series looking at the new features of Lightroom 3 (Beta) in depth. Our resident Lightroom expert goes through the ins and outs of the Library Module this month. Even better still is that Adobe has made the Lightroom 3 Beta available for free, so now is a great time for those users who are new to working with RAW images to try it out.

In our Photography Around the World feature, we’re going to try and warm up our readers with a trip to Cabo San Lucas. Most of us are experiencing the cold of fall or even winter, so it will be nice to soak up some digital sun!”

By way of download in either PDF or ZIP formats, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. In a completely ad-free format, each issue contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers.

In addition to articles which aide photographers in getting the most from their DSLR cameras, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and applicable tutorials on how to use post-processing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom, to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

Download the PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue #22
in PDF or ZIP Format:

PDF (7.56 MB) | ZIP (6.69 MB)

Video introducing ProFORMA, a system allowing on-line (live) generation of textured 3D models.

Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2010, the Wedding & Portrait Photographers International (WPPI) announces today that registration is now open for WPPI 2010 via its newly redesigned convention and trade show website: http://www.wppionline.com/storage/lasvegas/home.html.

All WPPI 2010 classes, events and trade show will take place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV, from March 4-11, 2010. WPPI is the largest annual expo and conference in the world for professional photographers. Each year more than 11,000 professional photographers gather in Las Vegas, NV, to learn from the best and see the latest and greatest products from the hundreds of exhibitors that participate in trade show.

“This 30th reunion of photographers from around the world is sure to astound all who attend,” said George Varanakis, WPPI’s group publisher and executive vice president. “WPPI 2010 features over 120 classes making it an educational and trade show forum that shouldn’t be missed. With top-notch speakers and educators, WPPI has something for everyone to help make a photographer’s business the best it can be whether their specialty is wedding, portrait, nature, commercial, or sports and events photography.”

To view highlights from the 2009 annual WPPI convention visit: http://www.wppionline.com/storage/lasvegas/home.html.

About WPPI
The Wedding & Portrait Photographers International (WPPI) Convention and Trade Show, held annually in Las Vegas, NV, is an organization that serves the educational and business needs of wedding and portrait photographers. Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2010, WPPI is a professional organization that exists to help member photographers by providing them with exclusive information, programs and professional services to assist them with their photographic artistry and business needs. WPPI routinely supplies its members with new benefits and valuable industry information enabling them to compete effectively, especially in tough economic times. WPPI membership gives photographers

Recognising that artists and professional photographers require a variety of media to produce or archive their work, Epson today announces four new fine art papers. The new papers, Hot Press Bright, Hot Press Natural, Cold Press Bright and Cold Press Natural,  are optimised for use with Epson UltraChrome ink technology. The papers will become available in a wide range of sizes through Epson resellers in November. Cut sheets (A3+ and A2) will be available at launch, with rolls available early 2010.

Martin Johns, Senior Product Manager, Epson UK, said: “We’ve had some of the world’s most demanding photographers testing this outstanding new range in combination with Epson professional printers, and they are telling us that the results achieved are the closest thing yet to original pieces of art.”

The new fine art media range from Epson includes a 330gsm Hot Press Natural paper that provides a smooth surface, and a 340gsm Cold Press Natural paper that offers a textured surface, with both featuring a warm white point that will produce a museum grade finish. Hot Press Bright and Cold Press Bright papers offer a bright white point that will remain classic for years to come.

The four new 100% cotton papers are PH buffered and free from linen and acid, with a specially developed coating to give an exceptionally wide colour gamut and high D-Max.

Martin Johns continued: “These photo and museum grade papers are inspired by the craftsmanship of artisans who developed the world’s first watercolour papers, and they are pressed using traditional ‘mould-made’ methods. This enables artists to achieve a highly original look and feel with richer blacks, smoother tonal transitions and an expanded colour gamut.

“Put simply, when used with Epson inks and printers, this new paper range can produce the expert, authentic-quality expected in the fine art market.”

Pricing:

·      A3+ Cold Press Bright (25 Sheets) RRP: £73.33 ex. VAT
·      A2+ Cold Press Bright (25 Sheets) RRP: £117.78 ex. VAT
·      A3+ Hot Press Bright (25 Sheets) RRP: £73.33 ex. VAT
·      A2 Hot Press Bright (25 Sheets) RRP: £117.78 ex. VAT
·      A3+ Cold Press Natural (25 Sheets) RRP: £73.33 ex. VAT
·      A2 Cold Press Natural (25 Sheets) RRP: £117.78 ex. VAT
·      A3+ Hot Press Natural (25 Sheets) RRP: £73.33 ex. VAT
·      A2 Hot Press Natural (25 Sheets) RRP: £117.78 ex. VAT

Exhibition Dates: 12 February – 18 April 2010
Press View: Thursday 11 February 2010
Award Announcement: Wednesday 17 March 2010

The Photographers’ Gallery today named the four shortlisted artists nominated for its annual Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.

The exhibition will be on display next year from 12 February until 18 April 2010, with the winner announced at a special award ceremony on 17 March 2010.

The four shortlisted artists are Anna Fox, Zoe Leonard, Sophie Ristelhueber, and Donovan Wylie

Anna Fox (b.1961, UK) is nominated for her exhibition, Cockroach Diaries & Other Stories at Ffotogallery, Cardiff (28 July – 10 October 09), initiated by Impressions, Bradford.

Zoe Leonard (b.1961, USA) is nominated for her retrospective exhibition, ZOE LEONARD: Photographs, at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (1 April – 5 July 09), initiated by Fotomuseum Winterthur.
Sophie Ristelhueber (b.1949, France) is nominated for her retrospective, Sophie Ristelhueber at the Jeu de Paume, Paris (20 January – 22 March 2009).
Donovan Wylie (b.1971, UK) is nominated for his exhibition MAZE 2007/8 at Belfast Exposed (27 March – 1 May 2009).

The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2010 is presented by The Photographers’ Gallery, London. The annual award of £30,000 rewards a living photographer, of any nationality, who has made the most significant contribution, in exhibition or publication format, to the medium of photography in Europe between 1 October 2008 and 30 September 2009.

This year’s Jury is: Olivia Maria Rubio (Director of Exhibitions, La Fàbrica, Spain);

Gilane Tawadros (Chief Executive, Design Artists Copyright Society, curator and writer); James Welling (artist, USA); and Anne-Marie Beckmann (Curator, Art Collection Deutsche Börse, Germany). Brett Rogers, Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, is the non-voting Chair.

Brett Rogers, Chair of the Jury and Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, said:

‘The four finalists all manifest a sustained commitment to investigating the nature and role of the photographic image. Each of them, in their own way, explores pertinent ideas around gender, nationality, surveillance and political conflict. Donovan Wylie investigates the psychology of architecture through one of Ireland’s most oppressive institutions, the Maze prison; Zoe Leonard traverses photographic genres in her unique approach to urban anthropology; Anna Fox dissects the bizarre and the ordinary in British life; and Sophie Ristelhueber reveals the marks of history on the physical and human landscape.’

Alexandra Hachmeister, Corporate Responsibility for Deutsche Börse, commented: ‘We are delighted to announce, with The Photographers’ Gallery, this year’s shortlist. Once again it features four exciting artists whose nominated works reflect the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize as a leading contemporary and international photography award. We are looking forward to presenting the exhibition later next year at C/O Berlin and in our headquarters in Frankfurt.’

The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize continues to be one of the most prominent exhibitions at The Photographers’ Gallery and is amongst the most prestigious of the international arts awards. Deutsche Börse Group is one of the leading exchange organisations and a major sponsor of photographic art. The Group owns an extensive art collection of contemporary photography which, to date, includes more than 700 works by over sixty international artists. Further information on Deutsche Börse Group and its art collection can be found at http://www.deutsche-boerse.com/art.

Nik Software announces today its Fall 2009 Webinar schedule. These seven hour-long educational webinars, which continue through mid-December, cover a range of photography topics including portrait, sports/action, wildlife, landscapes, weddings, commercial and Capture NX2 while offering basic information, insights and tips on using all Nik Software’s award-winning image enhancing plug-in products. Additionally, the webinars enable attendees to pose questions to the live educators.

“These free online webinars are designed to show how each Nik Software plug-in product can be used to enhance any photographer’s work within all types of photography while dramatically reducing editing time and complexity,” said Tony Corbell, Nik Software’s senior manager for product education and planning. “Education is so important to today’s busy digital photographer and Nik Software is committed to empowering everyone to get the most out of their photographs with our products.”

The Nik Software webinars have been developed to address specific types of photographic styles and are designed to appeal to everyone. Both current Nik Software customers and those who have not yet purchased a Nik Software product will learn more about how these tools can simplify their digital photography workflow and create extraordinary images. Participants only need to log in from their computer to access these free educational events. By the end of each webinar, attendees learn quick, easy and powerful ways to enhance their photographs.

To register for any of the webinars listed below, please visit: http://www.niksoftware.com/webinar

In addition to these webinars, Nik Software currently offers over 70 brief online learning videos for the entire line of Nik Software products including Dfine® 2.0, Viveza®, Color Efex Pro™ 3.0, Silver Efex Pro™, and Sharpener Pro™ 3.0 software.  For a free download, streaming access or iPod versions, please visit: http://www.niksoftware.com/lessons

October 27, 2009 — 10:00am PST
Enhancing the Portrait image
This Nik Software training webinar is dedicated to the features and functionality specially designed in its product line to take portrait photography to a new level. From showcasing techniques for color correction and retouching to traditional filters and a touch of creativity, this webinar will show photographers how Nik Software products can help them make gorgeous memorable portraits.

October 29, 2009 — 10:00am PST
Improving on Sports and Action Images
Working with sports and action photography often requires precision timing and optimum camera technique to be successful. On occasion there is the need for optimizing an image after the shoot. This webinar will show photographers how Nik Software can enhance photographic depth of field, introduce how to imply motion and the freezing of action to images, how to correct for changing color temperature and more.

November 12, 2009 — 10:00am PST
Critters and Creatures
Nik Software’s own Laurie Shupp, an accomplished wildlife and nature photographer, teaches techniques specific to photographing wildlife. Attendees will see her beautiful wildlife work as she leads them through a series of enhancements including optimizing skies and backgrounds, highlighting animal fur, and minimizing distractions while maximizing primary subjects.

November 19, 2009 — 10:00am PST
Enhancing the Landscape Image
Photographers can follow along during the webinar as techniques designed to improve outdoor landscape images are illustrated in detail using numerous Nik Software products. Though particular styles and techniques differ from photographer to photographer, Nik Software products work together to capably handle all corrections and enhancements that combine to improve the overall photograph.

December 1, 2009 — 10:00am PST
Wedding Photography Techniques featuring Lightroom
Working specifically inside the host application of Adobe Lightroom®, this webinar focuses on how Nik Software products can enhance wedding photography by optimizing colors, creatively converting images to black-and-white and more. Attendees will learn tricks for batch processing and editing hundreds or even thousands of images.

December 10, 2009 — 10:00am PST
The Power of Capture NX2
Working primarily with RAW Nikon NEF files, the Nik Software team will again showcase the incredible power and ease of use of Capture NX2. This software features innovative U Point® technology for precise selective editing along with numerous other editing capabilities simply not found in other software. The intuitive nature of Capture NX2 helps photographers of all levels master editing techniques in days, not weeks, months or even years.

December 15, 2009 — 10:00am PST
Editing the Commercial Image
This webinar is devoted to commercial photography and the special needs this style of photography requires to satisfy demanding clients. Color correction, retouching and other techniques will be showcased on beautiful photography examples from some of the industry’s leading photographers.

About Nik Software
Nik Software, Inc. is a privately held company that develops software solutions for the growing digital imaging and photography markets. Established in 1995, Nik Software has become the recognized leader in digital photographic filter development and produces award-winning technology and software products for digital photography and imaging professionals including U Point® technology (http://www.upoint.com), Dfine® 2.0, Viveza®, Color Efex Pro™ 3.0, Silver Efex Pro™, and Sharpener Pro™ 3.0 software.

PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the 21st edition of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine. The PhotographyBB Online Magazine is a leading resource in the future of free information distribution, offering readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, and image post processing tutorials in AdobeR PhotoshopT, and RAW processing in Photoshop LightroomT.

The October 2009 edition appropriately features Halloween themed tutorials such as “How to Photograph Ghosts” and “Digital Pumpkin Carving in Photoshop.” Additionally this issue explores a sneak peek at the new Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Beta release, and some of the exciting new features that Adobe has to offer.

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“I’m really proud of the work that our team has done with this issue. In addition to our regular photography and tutorial columns, this month we have a special feature – a sneak peak at the new features in the Lightroom 3 (Beta) release. Readers can check out these new features, then download their own beta copy from Adobe Labs and try it out for themselves.

Additionally, since this month typically lends itself to gorgeous outdoor fall photography, we are also looking at outdoor portrait shooting techniques. For Halloween, we’ve even got some themed tutorials to really get out readers into the Halloween spirit. Couple that with the FAQ series where we answer questions from our readers, and the continuation in our popular HDR series, and I feel we have a special issue this month.

In our Photography Around the World feature, we’re whisked off the Ireland for a spectacular photographic view of the countryside, mountains, churches, and forts.”

By way of download in either PDF or ZIP formats, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. In a completely ad-free format, each issue contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers.

In addition to articles which aide photographers in getting the most from their DSLR cameras, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and applicable tutorials on how to use post-processing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom, to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

Download the PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue #21
in PDF or ZIP Format:

PDF (6.30 MB) | ZIP (5.64 MB)

The Fujifilm Student Awards 2010 is now open for entries. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the competition, making it the longest running and most prestigious student photography awards in the UK.

Following the success of the last two years, Fujifilm Professional has again tied-in with Penguin Books to provide an amazing ‘money can’t buy’ first prize.

In addition to being named Fujifilm Student Photographer of the Year 2010 the winner will see their image on the cover of the next edition of Flann O’Brien’s novel, At Swim-Two-Birds. They will also receive £250 worth of Fujifilm Professional film and 25 Penguin Classics titles of their choice. In addition to these great prizes, exhibition sponsors Genesis Imaging are providing the winner with a professional quality portfolio. The printing will be supervised by Genesis Imaging’s Creative Director, Mark Foxwell. The portfolio prize will contain up to fifteen 20″x16” prints together with a 20″x16” Clamshell Portfolio box. Mark will also mentor the winner for a period of one year.

This year’s brief is to take a photograph that captures the spirit of the novel which, in the words of Anthony Burgess, ‘assaults your brain with words, style, magic, madness, and unlimited invention’. All images must be taken on Fujifilm Professional film and submitted via http://www.fujifilmstudentawards.co.uk – entry is free and students can enter as many photographs as they wish. The closing date for entries is 28 February 2010.

Each short listed Merit winner will receive 10 rolls of Fujicolor professional colour negative film, a Penguin Classic of their choice and a copy of the book Ways of Seeing. Each Merit winner will be asked to submit a print for final judging.

The college or university that submits the most entries will win £250 worth of Fujifilm Professional film and 100 Penguin Classics titles for their college or university library. On top of these prizes, Mark Foxwell will host a half-day lecture entitled ‘Fine Art, Portfolio and Exhibition Print Production’, for the photography students of the college or university that submits the most entries. The lecture will be followed by a Portfolio Critique for the students.

To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Fujifilm Student Awards, Genesis Imaging are giving 25% discount on all their services to every student who enters the Awards. Full details on services are available from: http://www.genesis-digital.net

Jerry Deeney from Fujifilm Professional commented on the Awards: “The Fujifilm Student Awards are a major part of the curriculum for many colleges and I speak to tutors right across Britain who see the Awards as pivotal to their students’ education. Many of the winners from the previous 24 years have gone on to enjoy successful careers as professional photographers.”

He continued: “We are very grateful to Genesis Imaging for supplying the additional prizes that will make the 25th Anniversary Awards even more special.”

Jim Stoddart, Penguin Press Art Director, Adam Freudenheim, Penguin Classics Publisher and the Publisher of Foto8 magazine, Jon Levy will judge the Awards.

For further details and examples of previous winners, go to http://www.fujifilmstudentawards.co.uk
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Further addressing consumer expectations for mobile phones that deliver performance equivalent to stand-alone consumer devices, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) today announced two new members of its OMAP-DM5x family of coprocessors, which deliver the industry’s highest megapixel (MP) capability, with up to 20 MP still imaging capabilities, as well as 720p high-definition (HD) camcorder functionality. The OMAP-DM515 and OMAP-DM525 coprocessors accelerate imaging and video performance, giving handset manufacturers an easy way to upgrade existing handset designs to get to market quickly with cutting-edge multimedia capabilities. For more information, please visit http://www.ti.com/omapdmpr.

Key features and benefits of the OMAP-DM5x coprocessor family:

* Digital SLR-“like” imaging:
o Industry’s highest MP support, with up to 20 MP capabilities and high-quality 720p HD video capture
o 8MP shot-to-shot performance, with 1.4 frames per second in high-quality mode and 2 frames per second in burst mode
* Integrated software that delivers stand-alone consumer electronics quality imaging and video:
o Perfect moment technology: Captures a series of shots, allowing users to select the best image in a series
o Smart lighting: Compensates for backlit and low-light environments
o Face tracking: Identifies, recognizes and focuses on faces
o Auto scene detector: Determines appropriate settings based on environment
o Video noise filter: Improves video quality
o Advanced motion-triggered image stability
* TV-out capabilities enable content sharing on larger screens
* Pin compatibility between all devices allows for easy design upgrades to match changing consumer demands
* Eliminates need for external memory
* Works with a variety of mobile baseband and application processor solutions, as well as any high-level or real-time operating system.

OMAP-DM515 and OMAP-DM525 coprocessor specifications

Megapixel (MP)      Video resolution

OMAP-DM515           12MP           DVD quality to 720p
coprocessor                         HD camcorder
OMAP-DM525           20MP           DVD quality to 720p
coprocessor                         HD camcorder

Silicon Image, Inc. (NASDAQ: SIMG), a leader in semiconductors and intellectual property (IP) for the secure distribution, presentation and storage of high-definition (HD) content, today introduced the camerIC-18, the newest member of its family of camerIC camera processor IP cores. With its high-quality 18 megapixel (MP) image signal processing (ISP) technology, the camerIC-18 is targeted for integration into digital still camera (DSC) and video System-on-a-Chip (SoC) application processors for mobile devices such as cell phones, portable multimedia players (PMPs) and netbooks.

Silicon Image’s family of camerIC IP cores offers a cost-effective and power efficient design while placing high-performance DSC features in the hands of mobile device users. The camerIC-18 supports resolutions ranging from 5MP to 18MP, all in a single low-cost/low-power design. To effectively deliver resolutions above 12MP, the camerIC-18 IP core now includes sophisticated bad pixel detection/correction and noise reduction techniques to ensure image quality even when combined with the lower cost, high-resolution CMOS sensors commonly found in mobile devices. The camerIC-18 IP core also supports wide dynamic range processing and digital image stabilization along with an extensive set of standard features including lens shade correction, auto focus measurement, auto white balance and auto exposure support by brightness measurement.

By 2013, over 95 percent of mobile phones will have an integrated digital camera, and by 2013, over 25 percent of smartphones will support 5MP or higher resolution cameras.*

“Mobile phone cameras of increasing resolution are becoming pervasive throughout the market,” said Will Strauss, principal analyst with Forward Concepts. “It’s just a matter of time before the feature sets commonly found in DSCs will be integrated into mobile devices and the camerIC-18 camera processor intends to accelerate this market transition.”

Traditionally, ISP technologies have been integrated into the CMOS sensor or separate application processor semiconductors. However, for resolutions at 5MP and higher, there are increased costs and inherent technical challenges associated with incorporating ISPs into the CMOS sensor. As mobile devices utilize smaller foundry processes, the growing trend is for ISP technologies to be integrated into the SoC in an effort to further reduce the cost and power consumption of mobile devices.

“Since 2002, Silicon Image has led the market in delivering cost-effective, low-power camera processor designs for use in mobile applications,” said Ron Richter, director of business development at Silicon Image, Inc. “The camerIC-18 IP core continues this tradition by providing mobile SoC developers with market leading digital still camera and camcorder capabilities and flexibility in choosing CMOS sensor suppliers.”

The camerIC-18 IP core has the imaging bandwidth to support HD, 3D, 4K and higher resolution video camcorder ISP functions. A 4K resolution camcorder design incorporating a camerIC-18 IP core and running at 30 frames per second will only require about 700k gates to be implemented in hardware and consumes as little as 125mW of power. Only 30 million instructions per second (MIPS) of CPU time are required to support this hardware design, making the camerIC-18 IP core one of the industry’s highest performing, lowest cost, lowest power consumption camera processors in the world.

Silicon Image’s family of IP cores also includes a broad range of HDMI® technology solutions, including transmitters and receivers incorporating HDMI Specification Version 1.4 features, Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL™) technology, Serial ATA storage (SATA), and high-definition MPEG / H.264 / VC-1 video decoder applications.

For more information on Silicon Image’s complete IP core product offering visit us at ARM® techcon3, October 21 – 23, 2009 at the Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, Calif., on our Web site at http://www.siliconimage.com/iplicensing/index.aspx or contact Ron Richter directly at (408) 962-4259 or at ron.richter@siliconimage.com.

About Silicon Image, Inc.

Silicon Image, Inc. is a leading provider of semiconductor and intellectual property products for the secure distribution, presentation and storage of high-definition content. With a rich history of technology innovation that includes creating industry standards such as DVI and HDMI, the company’s solutions facilitate the use of digital content amongst consumer electronics, personal computer (PC) and storage devices, with the goal to securely deliver digital content anytime, anywhere and on any device. Founded in 1995, the company is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with regional engineering and sales offices in China, Germany, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. For more information, please visit http://www.siliconimage.com.

Forward-looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws and regulations, including, but not limited to, statements regarding Silicon Image’s families of IP cores and the performance, functionality, features, costs and benefits of Silicon Image’s 18 megapixel camera processor IP core technology. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including those described from time to time in Silicon Image’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which could cause the actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by these forward-looking statements. Silicon Image assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement.

Silicon Image, the Silicon Image logo, and MHL are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of Silicon Image, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. HDMI, the HDMI logo, and High-Definition Multimedia Interface are trademarks or registered trademarks of HDMI Licensing, LLC in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners in the United States and/or other countries.

*Source: Forward Concepts Report #9030, Cellular Handset & Chip Markets ‘09.

Ontela, Inc. (http://www.ontela.com), provider of award-winning imaging services for wireless carriers, released survey results today that indicate the imminent death of the traditional film camera amongst U.S. consumers. The results further indicate that cell phone data and messaging plans are still on the rise, and that people are having more difficulty than ever getting pictures off their camera phones despite a strong desire to save their pictures to a wide variety of destinations. The survey data was restricted to U.S. residents only and had 414 respondents.

The last three years of data have shown a steady decline in people who report owning a traditional film camera, decreasing from 67% in 2007, to 61% in 2008, and dropping all the way to 48% in 2009. Conversely, camera phones continue to grow in ubiquity, going from just 70% reporting that they owned a phone with a camera in 2007, to 78% in 2008 and 87% in 2009.

Data and messaging plans showed strong year-over-year growth amongst respondents, with data penetration growing from 16% in 2008 to 27% in 2009. Messaging showed similar growth, rising from 28% penetration in 2008 to 52% in 2009.

Despite respondents growing ownership of camera phones and usage of data, their ability to get the pictures off their phones to the web has stayed consistently low. When asked to upload a picture to the web, 74% of respondents failed in 2007, compared to 81% in 2008 and 61% in 2009. Users were frustrated, however, since 90% expressed a desire to upload pictures. Some of the top desired destinations included the user’s own computer hard drive at 71%, Facebook at 54%, their e-mail at 53%, and Photobucket at 25%.

With such a large discrepancy between the percentage of respondents who wish to save their camera phone picture and the percentage of those who can actually do it, there is a strong need for services that simplify the process of getting pictures off camera phones.

“While the death of the film camera marks a sad day in photographic history, consumers can take solace in the fact that Ontela is working hard to preserve the memories they capture on their camera phones,” said Dan Shapiro, CEO of Ontela. “As camera phones are now recording five, eight, and even 12 megapixels, consumers need to know that they will be able to peruse their pictures on the computer the same way their parents looked back on the stack of photos in the shoebox stuffed in the closet.”

About Ontela
Ontela provides technology infrastructure to wireless carriers that allows consumers to unlock the photos in their camera phones. Ontela’s PicDeck technology has been certified by 30 operators including Verizon, T-Mobile, and Alltel on more than 100 handsets. It is also available preinstalled on devices from all five of the top global handset manufacturers. Ontela is headquartered in Seattle and is backed by Steamboat Ventures, Hunt Ventures, Voyager Capital, and Oak Investment Partners. For more information, visit http://www.ontela.com.

PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the 20th edition of the PhotographyBB Magazine Online. The PhotographyBB Magazine Online is a leading resource in the future of free information distribution, offering readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, and image post processing tutorials in Adobe(r) Photoshop(tm), and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom(tm).

The September 2009 edition features a theme of image processing related articles. Readers also have their questions answered in the continuing FAQ series. What’s the best time of day to take photos? How to I get the best exposure in tough lighting conditions? Find out in this month’s FAQ column. In our “Portraiture Photography 101″ series, we examine methods for reconstructing the main elements of a portrait shoot, from analyzing an existing portraiture photo.

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“This theme of this month’s edition is ‘It’s Processing Time.’ Often we find ourselves with a large collection of images gathering digital dust on our harddrives as they remain in their un-processed state. This month we’re looking at using all the tools including Photoshop, Photomerge, ACR, and even Adobe After Effects in a series of processing related articles. We’ll be showing you how to remove people from an image easily without having to use the clone tool, as well as some other exciting stuff!”

In our Photography Around the World feature, we’re off to Moscow’s Golden Ring cities, a photo-spectacular myriad of locations full of ancient architecture, history, and culture.”

By way of download in either PDF or ZIP formats, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. In a completely ad-free format, each issue contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers.

In addition to articles which aide photographers in getting the most from their DSLR cameras, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and applicable tutorials on how to use post-processing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom, to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

PhotographyBB was founded in Oct, 2006, and is a division of PowerButto

Download the PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue #20
in PDF or ZIP Format:

PDF (6.17 MB) | ZIP (5.51 MB)

PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the 19th edition of the PhotographyBB Magazine Online. The PhotographyBB Magazine Online is now a leading resource in the future of free information distribution, offering readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, and image post processing tutorials in Adobe(r) Photoshop(tm), and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom(tm).

The August 2009 edition features a theme of “How-to” related articles. Readers have their questions answered in the continuing FAQ series where real questions from our readers are anonymously and thoroughly answered. In the new “Portraiture Photography 101″ series, the August edition also examines portrait lighting techniques for the importance of form in portraiture work.

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“Last month the focus was composition. This month, our theme is clearly “how-to” with several articles to educate our readers on different photographic techniques. This month we look at the basics of panoramic photography and how to process panoramic photos, which will be continued with more advanced techniques in the September issue. We also have a look at some great techniques for getting started in your own backyard with Astro-Photography, without breaking the bank. If you’ve ever wanted to take gorgeous moon photos or starfields, then this is one you won’t want to miss.

We also have a look at two of America’s most famous and spectacular national parks; Yellowstone and Grand Teton, which have provided awe-inspiring subjects for some of the most famous photography.”

By way of download in either PDF or ZIP formats, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. In a completely ad-free format, each issue contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers.

In addition to articles which aide photographers in getting the most from their DSLR cameras, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and applicable tutorials on how to use post-processing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom, to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

PhotographyBB was founded in Oct, 2006, and is a division of PowerButton Central (2004).

For more information, visit the PhotographyBB website at:
http://www.photographybb.comTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/photographybb
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/photographybb

Download the PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue #19
in PDF or ZIP Format:

PDF (6.58 MB) | ZIP (6.28 MB)

A new online service from ILFORD PHOTO for the first time makes traditional black and white photo processing accessible to everyone. Combining traditional processes with up to the minute online and e-commerce technology, ILFORD LAB DIRECT now offers customers a secure website to pay for film processing as well as providing the ability to upload digital black and white files direct to the server.

The ILFORD LAB DIRECT printing service draws on 130 years of ILFORD PHOTO expertise, producing the finest quality black and white prints; achieved using traditional ILFORD black and white chemistry and genuine ILFORD silver gelatin photographic paper. Operated direct from the ILFORD PHOTO manufacturing site in Mobberley, Cheshire, UK, it has the facilities to process prints from both film and digital files.

The new online resource at http://www.ilfordlab.com not only provides secure payment and digital file upload, but customers can also create an account with ILFORD LAB DIRECT and go through the digital upload tutorial. For customers who prefer the traditional approach, ILFORD PHOTO continues to sell process paid films and mailers through popular photographic dealers. Further still, order forms for 35mm and 120 film processing can be downloaded from the website for the direct mail order service.

HARMAN technology’s Neil Hibbs heads up ILFORD LAB DIRECT and commented:
“No matter what the preference customers will receive prints with consistent and neutral image tone, strong blacks and bright whites that will last a lifetime – perfect for capturing the essence of monochrome photography.”

Having recently moved into a new building with improved facilities, ILFORD LAB DIRECT is also expanding its capabilities and service offerings. Up and coming investments include Lightjet silver gelatin black and white prints up to 50” x 50”, dip and dunk film processing and premium black and white photobooks. More news on these services will be issued in coming months.

Steven Brierley, Director of Marketing at HARMAN technology, concluded:
“We believe there will always be demand for traditional silver gelatin prints and ILFORD LAB DIRECT is testament to our desire and commitment to make it truly successful. Ultimately we are passionate about making the highest quality black and white prints using longstanding ILFORD technology and hope this shines through in the end results. In fact, we’ve already had an overwhelming response with customer order volumes 40 percent up from 2008.”

ILFORD LAB DIRECT normally operates up-to a maximum of 5 working days in the lab for UK distribution. The service is available for UK and European customers.

PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the 18th edition of the PhotographyBB Magazine Online. The PhotographyBB Magazine Online is now a leading resource in the future of free information distribution, offering readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, and image post processing tutorials in Adobe(r) Photoshop(tm), and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom(tm). The July 2009 edition features a look at the new Pentax K-7 digital SLR, along with several articles on tips for better photographic composition techniques. Readers have their questions answered in the continuing FAQ series where real questions from our readers are anonymously and thouroughly answered. The July edition also examines portrait lighting and composition techniques in a brand new “Portrait Photography 101″series.
Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“The name of the game for issue 18 is all about composition. This month we take an in depth look at symmetry; how it is everywhere in our lives and how we can use symmetry to create stunning photos. We also take a different look at the Rule of Thirds as it applies to both photography today, as well as historical works of art in the past. In keeping with the composition theme, this month’s Photoshop tutorial teaches our readers how to create a digital composite image by adding fireworks into any night photo scene.

In our Photography Around the World column, photographer David Martin takes us to Australia for a look at the splendor of the scenery, rainforests, wildlife, waterfalls and so much more.”

By way of download in either PDF or ZIP formats, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. In a completely ad-free format, each issue contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers.

In addition to articles which aide photographers in getting the most from their DSLR cameras, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and applicable tutorials on how to use post-processing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom, to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

PhotographyBB was founded in Oct, 2006, and is a division of PowerButton Central (2004).

For more information, visit the PhotographyBB website at:http://www.photographybb.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/photographybb
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/photographybb

Download the PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue #18
in PDF or ZIP Format:

PDF (8.94 MB) | ZIP (8.14 MB)

Canon: When Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory started developing Japan’s first-ever 35mm camera equipped with a focal plane shutter, the engineers dubbed the creation “Kwanon” after the Buddhist goddess of mercy. At this point the company’s logo even included the thousand-armed goddess.

Kodak:  Founder George Eastman named the camera and film corporation in 1888. Eastman wanted a short name that was easy to pronounce and could only refer to his products. He later said that he favored the letter “k” because it “seems a strong, incisive sort of letter.” Once Eastman decided he wanted the name to start and end with “k,” he played around with combinations of letters until he found one that he liked in “Kodak.”

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Nature photography often results in some of the most beautiful, breathtaking, and stunning images that can be captured.  When trapped behind your desk all day, we often miss out on some beautiful natural moments, so it’s nice to at least have a beautiful nature photograph as your desktop wallpaper.

Today, we have 87 mind blowing, must see nature wallpapers that could grace your desktop.  Whether you like waterfalls, beaches, sunsets, deserts, mountains or fields, you’ll find a wallpaper below that will inspire you to head outdoors and see nature for yourself.

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A shortlist of twelve outstanding international photographers, from which one will be selected later this year to receive the Prix Pictet, the world’s photography prize for environmental sustainability, was announced today at Europe’s leading photography festival, Les Rencontres d’Arles in France.

The prize is supported by Swiss bank Pictet & Cie. Photographers shortlisted for the £60,000 (CHF100,000) first prize are:

Darren Almond, UK; Christopher Anderson, Canada; Sammy Baloji, Congo; Edward Burtynsky, Canada; Naoya Hatakeyama, Japan; Andreas Gursky, Germany; Nadav Kander, South Africa; Ed Kashi, USA; Abbas Kowsari, Iran; Yao Lu, China; Edgar Martins, Portugal and Christopher Steele Perkins, UK.

The Prix Pictet is an annual search for photographs that communicate powerful messages of global environmental significance under a broad theme. This year the theme is ‘earth’. A Mexican garbage dump where people forage to sustain a pitiful existence; the changing landscape and displaced communities of China’s Yangtze River; the devastating impact of oil production in the Niger Delta; and the annual pilgrimage to the desert fronts of the Iran-Iraq war are among the subjects that feature in the work of this year’s shortlisted artists.

The submissions speak of the harmful and often irreversible effects of exploiting the earth’s resources and reflect on the immediate and long-term impact of unsustainable development on communities across the globe.

‘Earth’, a book published by teNeues, cataloguing the work of the Prix Pictet nominees will accompany this year’s prize and launched on 6 October at Purdy Hicks Gallery, London.

The winner will be announced by Kofi Annan, honorary president of the Prix Pictet, on 22 October 2009 at the Passage de Retz gallery, Paris. A further award, in the form of a commission for one of the shortlisted photographers to visit a region where Pictet & Cie are supporting a sustainability project, will be announced at the same time.

Prix Pictet will collaborate with FIAC (22 – 25 October), Paris’ major international contemporary and modern art fair, and Paris Photo, the world’s leading event for photography (19 – 22 November).

An independent jury of seven leading figures from the worlds of the visual arts and the environment, chaired by the photography critic, Francis Hodgson, made the selection from over 300 nominations put forward by the seventy Prix Pictet nominators – a group that includes leading critics, practitioners and curators.

Nicolas Pictet, Partner of Pictet & Cie, said ‘The calibre of the shortlisted work for this second year of the Prix Pictet illustrates how the issue of sustainability resonates throughout the artistic community. We strongly believe that by bringing these images to the attention of the world, Prix Pictet will further highlight the devastating effect climate change is having on our planet and ensure sustainability remains at the heart of global policy making.’

Awarding the inaugural Prix Pictet to Canadian photographer Benoit Aquin last October, Kofi Annan said: ‘It is my hope that the Prix Pictet will help to deepen understanding of the changes taking place in our world and raise public awareness about the urgency of taking preventative action.’

Photo credit: Andreas Gursky, VG BILD-KUNST, Bonn

40 years ago, when the first men stepped out on the lunar surface, in their hands were Hasselblad cameras and – to paraphrase Neal Armstrong – this “small step for man” proved to be a giant leap for photography. Naturally, Hasselblad cameras were not originally designed to work in zero gravity, nor in the harsh temperatures found on the moon’s surface – but they did. Flawlessly. And they helped capture some of the most historic and memorable images ever recorded.

The R&D team rose to every occasion, producing designs that could withstand the stringent demands made by space travel. The advancements gained during the space camera design process did not just benefit extraterrestrial photographers, however, but those with both feet firmly planted on the ground as well. Every advancement was brought back to earth, benefitting photographers on this planet as well. A research tradition that continues to this day. Because what happened 40 years ago isn’t just our legacy – it’s our future too.

Simply put, NASA chose Hasselblad to go into space because we had the best cameras on earth. A claim that we are still proud to make today, forty years later.

And now, to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of our historic lunar landing, we are inviting any customer who purchases a Hasselblad H3DII-50 or H3DII-60 to join us in celebrating both the past and the future of photographic technology at the Cape Kennedy Space Center. We are hosting an exclusive packed weekend packed with photographic seminars and training, as well as a behind the scenes look at the NASA facility and a special lunar photography presentation given by Apollo 11 Astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. This is a truly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and we are thrilled to be able to bring some of our most dedicated customers along for the experience.

Image Mechanics, a digital capture studio in Santa Monica known for its educational outreach, today announced the first conference to focus on DSLR hybrid photography and cinematography. The conference will be held at the Los Angeles Film School, located at 6363 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, CA on Saturday and Sunday August 29th and 30th, 2009.  Conference passes are available immediately from http://www.ImageMechanicsExpo.com for $200 per day or $350 for a two day pass. A two-day pass to the exhibitor floor is also available for $75.

Image Mechanics, Redrock Micro and the LA Film School will present the two-day conference spotlighting the collision of still photography and cinematography. The event will cover Video Capture for Stills (VCS) and DSLR Film making. The Collision Conference will bring timely and important information to photographers and filmmakers interested in creating content with hybrid DSLR cameras, which capture both still and video images. Seminars addressing the merging of the two disciplines will be presented along with an exhibition to showcase the latest products relating to this rapidly-emerging market.

This conference is intended for professional photographers and filmmakers interested in working with DSLRs to create moving and still imagery. Attendees will leave this event armed with the latest information and tools to prepare their businesses to withstand the coming challenges as traditional photography collides with film making.

Each day of the conference will feature a keynote presentation followed by timely and informative seminars in the main theater covering VCS, Living Posters, Digital Signage, Moving Catalogs, Cinema Style DSLR Filmmaking and Music Video production. Leading manufacturers and retailers will be exhibiting and hosting demonstrations on the concourse floor. Saturday, August 29th will focus on Video Capture for Stills, while Sunday, August 30th will shift focus to DSLR Filmmaking, including a DSLR Film Festival.

“With so many photographers caught off guard by the first wave of the digital revolution, we felt it was important to get in front of this rapidly emerging trend,” says event co-producer Tom Stratton. “Clients have already begun demanding these services from photographers, and we felt it was crucial to organize this conference even as this hybrid shooting style emerges,” he adds.
“Redrock Micro has been at the forefront of the convergence of DSLR and filmmaking,” said Brian Valente of Redrock Micro. “We’ve seen the unbelievably fast adoption of these cameras and approaches, but also the resulting confusion and questions that arise. Collision Conference is the first definitive single source of practical information, state of the art workflow, and experience shared from top shooters. This event is incredibly useful to photographers and filmmakers interested in working with DSLRs create moving and still imagery,” he says.
About Redrock Micro

Redrock Microsystems, LLC was founded in 2004 by a group of avid digital filmmakers whose desire to produce high-quality movie images without access to huge budgets led them to start Redrock Micro as a company committed to the express purpose of bringing cinema-quality accessories to market at revolutionary prices. Today, Redrock Micro designs and sells a line of high-quality cinema accessories for independent filmmakers, film educators and students, and budget-conscious moviemakers. Our flagship product is the award-winning M2 cinema lens adapter, which allows DV and HD/V cameras to use 35mm cinema lenses to radicallyimprove the quality of recorded images. The M2 brings the quality and technology of high-end solutions at a fraction ofthe price. We have subsequently released the microFollowFocus, microPod, microLensSupport, and other high-quality, low-cost cinema accessories. Redrock’s strong commitment to the community of independent filmmakers has also led to the release of the Redrock DIY (do-it-yourself) Guide, an inexpensive alternative that promotes hands-on learning of camera lenses, videography, and the art of cinematography. Redrock Micro has offices in Dallas, Texas, and Hollywood, California. info@redrockmicro.com

About the Los Angeles Film School

Founded in 1999, The Los Angeles Film School (LAFS), an accredited college, is located in the heart of Hollywood at the historic RCA Building at 6363 Sunset Boulevard. The private post-secondary educational degree-granting college, which has quickly become a leading academic center for aspiring filmmakers, offers degrees in film, computer animation and game production with an exceptional curriculum in state-of-the-art facilities.

The 87,000 square foot building where the school partially resides had previously been used as production facilities by legendary artists such as Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, Henry Mancini and John Williams, who recorded the orchestral score to Star Wars: Return of the Jedi there in 1983. In addition, the college has recently expanded its campus by adding 100,000 feet of labs, studios, classrooms and administrative support facilities. The highlight of the expansion is a new Hollywood set, which is a two-story 3,000 square foot Victorian house in the main stage that utilizes age-old industry techniques such as green screen, painted backgrounds and a back-lit illuminated trans-light. The campus also includes the 8,000 square foot Ivar Theater, which has held many significant performances, including Lord Buckley, The Grateful Dead and The Doors.

Their faculty of industry professionals has earned credits on a number of major motion pictures and video games. Graduates have also been honored as winners in numerous Independent Film Festivals throughout the world; in addition, The Hollywood Reporter named LAFS “One of the best-equipped private learning centers in the country.  http://lafilm.com

intro-duck-tion provides a one-minute forty-eight second animated glimpse into my studio and the creation of one of my favorite recent images. The stop-motion footage was shot entirely with still cameras, including a Canon 5d.

The image of Michael Jackson that graces the cover of Q magazine’s August 2009 issue, which coincidentally went to press shortly before Jackson’s tragic death, has been widely circulated as the last authorized photograph of the singer. While that remains likely to be true, photographer John Wright tells the Music Mix that the photo shoot in question actually took place several years ago, in approximately 2007.

Guinness World Records hired Wright at the time to photograph Jackson at the company’s central London office, where the star was accepting an award for his history-making album sales.

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Shooting handheld with a 1ds mark III and Sigma 200-500mm F2.8 EX DG

Some months ago I reviewed the Sigma 200-500 f/2.8. In my first review, I did an in-depth studio test, but I hadn’t many photos taken in the field. I absolutely wanted to try this lens on the field so in April 2009 I loaned again the lens from Sigma and I have spent one day photographing Cristina, a beautiful model. The photos had been taken in Rivalta, a medieval village between the hills of northern Apennines, Italy.

Using this lens means tons of fun The people kept looking at us…sometime wedding photographers take photos in Rivalta, but none of them bring any lens that come close to the Sigma 200-500 f/2.8…

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PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the 17th edition of the PhotographyBB Magazine Online. The PhotographyBB Magazine Online is a leading resource in the future of free information distribution, offering readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, and image post processing tutorials in Adobe Photoshop, and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom.

The June 2009 edition features articles on photography techniques and issues facing today’s digital photographer. Readers will learn tips on composition and how keeping things simple can lead to great photography. The issue also examines how to overcome “photographer’s block” when lack of inspiration occurs. Included is also a Photoshop tutorial on creating an urban “grunge” type effect for dramatic impact.

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“Issue 17 is all about stunning photography; from photography techniques down to our reader submissions, this month the magazine is packed with photos. Last month we launched a new column on Frequently Asked Questions, and the response has been phenomenal. Readers have emailed in some brilliant questions, and our columnist (Colin Bell) has done a superb job with the responses.

In our Photography Around the World column, photographer Ian Miller takes us to Cambodia, a place of interesting history and rich culture. We also have some tips on how you can make money with your photography, an editorial for the film purists, a look at 50mm prime lenses, and an interview with one very talented photographer!”

By way of download in either PDF or ZIP formats, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. In a completely ad-free format, each issue contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers.

In addition to articles which aide photographers in getting the most from their DSLR cameras, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and applicable tutorials on how to use post-processing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom, to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

Download the PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue #17
in PDF or ZIP Format:

PDF (8.23 MB) | ZIP (7.77 MB)

Photo Slideshow of Michael Jackson Remembrance – Hollywood Boulevard – June 2009 – Song is Will You Be There

One of the greatest photographers of the 20th century, Robert Capa was born in Budapest, on October 22, 1913, as Endre Ernő Friedmann. He started to work as a photographer in the 1930s, first as a correspondent of Dephot, a Berlin-based agency. In 1933 he moved to Paris, where he befriended André Kertész, Henri Cartier-Bresson and David Seymour (Chim), and met with the great love of his life, Gerda Taro, also a photographer. He changed his name to Robert Capa in 1935, and his pictures of the 1936-1937 Spanish civil war were already published under this nom de plume. He immigrated to the US in 1939. Between 1941 and 1945, he worked on the European scenes of the war for Life magazine. He was one of the founders of the Magnum Photos agency. He died in May 1954, when he stepped on a landmine in Vietnam.

In 2008, a government grant enabled the Hungarian National Museum to buy 985 of Robert Capa’s photos from the collection of the International Center of Photography, New York. 48 of these are original prints by Robert Capa, and 937 form the so-called Robert Capa Master Selection III. Founded in 1974, the International Center of Photography holds about seventy thousand negatives made by the Hungarian born Robert Capa, considered the greatest war photographer of all time. In 1995, Cornell Capa (Robert’s brother, who died last year) and Richard Whelan (Robert Capa’s friend and biographer) selected 937 of these negatives to represent the oeuvre. Of these, three identical, limited-edition series were made, each excellent 40×50 cm print marked with Robert Capa’s dry seal. No further prints will be made. One of the series stayed in New York, the second was bought by the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, Japan, and the third by the Hungarian National Museum. Not only does the series offer a comprehensive overview of the oeuvre, it also enables exhibition-goers to have a visual experience of important events in the history of the 20th century through high-quality material. The 937 pictures were made on four continents, in 23 countries. 461 were made before the Second World War, of which images of the Spanish civil war are the most important. 276 of these photos he made on the fronts of the World War – the poignant pictures of the D-Day landing in Normandy were later to inspire film director Steven Spielberg. 154 photos from after the world war illustrate more struggle and suffering during the establishment of the state of Israel and the Indochina War. 46 images bear testimony to the talent of Capa the portrait photographer, with pictures of Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock, John Steinbeck, Pablo Picasso and others. ICP made a gift of large prints of 20 negatives considered especially important in the series, and five portraits of Robert Capa. In all, the national collection was enriched with 1010 photographs.

Robert Capa was a war photographer, with all the important traits of an excellent correspondent: he owned the right amount of persistence, aggressiveness to get to the scenes, resourcefulness and communication skills to match the capacities of a great artist: a high degree of sensitivity, the talent to recognize and choose subjects, and composition skills. Bravely, though not fearlessly, he was there in all of the large wars of the middle of the 20th century, and he struggled with the eternal dilemma of journalists and photographers, whether he is a hyena when his participation stops at recording the events, and does not extend to helping those who flee or are wounded. His vocation, to which his dedication was always complete, was thus a source of moral conflict for him, while also compelled him to show what he considered really important. To show things in a way no one else could because no one else was close enough. “If your pictures are not good enough, you weren’t close enough,” he said. He was close when the militiaman died, he was there in the bloodbath of the landing in Normandy, and he was of course close enough to the Indochina War when he stepped on that fatal mine. He lived an intensive, passionate life, taking risks, even gambling; a life that promised childlessness, social solitude, homelessness and a preordained mode of death. This was probably the only way to live through and show all that surrounded him.

The first large exhibition of this exceptional material opens in Ludwig Museum on July 2, and can be seen until October 11. A travelling selection is also planned, to be shown in ten Hungarian cities.

Curator: Lívia Páldi.

Wildlife Conservation Society Photographer to Share Photo Tips and Experiences in Free Bogen Imaging Webinar

WCS Staff Photographer Julie Maher Will Share Tips and Tricks for Better Wildlife Photography

Ramsey, N.J. (June 2, 2009)—Bogen Imaging, a leading distributor of top quality photographic support products and accessories in North America, announces a free webinar titled “A Budget Safari – Wildlife Photography at Your Local Zoo: Roundtable with Julie Larsen Maher.” Part of the company’s Bogen Café series of free instructional webinars, the seminar will be held from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. EDT, on Friday, June 19th. Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Staff Photographer Julie Larsen Maher, and David Fisher, Bogen Imaging’s Gitzo, Metz, Gossen and Litepanels Product Manager, will discuss the best practices, gear, and times to visit when shooting wildlife at a local zoo.

Maher was named Staff Photographer for the WCS in 2005 and has since traveled the world, using digital photography to capture the beauty and diversity of the animal residents and their caregivers at WCS wildlife parks. She works with leading scientists and animal experts to create breathtaking photographs that reveal the wonder   and importance of wildlife conservation. During this Bogen Café webinar, Maher will share experiences from her recent trip to South America and will report on the ongoing conservation photography efforts of the WCS.

Topics for Discussion Include:

-      The best practices for shooting through fences, wires, and glass partitions
-      Selecting the best gear for a day trip
-      The best times to visit when shooting at a local zoo
-      How to develop a unique perspective when capturing wildlife

Webinar participants will have access to a number of exclusive benefits, including one‑on‑one interaction with the guest speaker, and will be automatically entered in a chance to win one of three National Geographic Walkabout Medium Satchels, each valued at $195. Winners will be announced at the end of the webinar, so participants must attend the event in its entirety to be eligible to win. A free recorded version of the webinar will also be available to registered participants within 24 hours of the event. Winners must be US residents.

To register for the free Bogen Café webinar and for additional information, please visit http://www.bogenimaging.us/webinar/

Additional information about the Bogen Café as well upcoming webinars can be found at http://www.bogencafe.us.

About Bogen Imaging

Bogen Imaging Inc is a leading distributor of key accessories brands for the photographic, video, cine and lighting production markets. Bogen is an international company within the Imaging Division of the Vitec Group, which owns the following leading international brands: Manfrotto, Gitzo, Kata, National Geographic Bags and Tripods, Avenger, and I.F.F. As the exclusive US distributor of Metz, Gossen, Elinchrom, Lastolite, Reflecmedia, Formatt Filters, and Rotatrim, Bogen offers the most complete range of exceptional camera and lighting accessories in the business. The Bogen Imaging international network covers the USA, Germany, France, Italy, UK and Japan.

PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the 16th edition of the PhotographyBB Magazine Online​. The PhotographyBB Magazine Online is a leading resource in the future of free information distribution, offering readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, and image post processing tutorials in Adobe® Photoshop™, and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom™.

The May 2009 edition is packed with helpful tips for beginners to intermediate level digital photographers. This month the magazine explores positive ways to engage law enforcement officials, preparing your gear for rainy day photography, and a brand new “readers questions” column. Additionally there are Photoshop™ and Lightroom™ tutorials for photographers to get the most out of their post processing techniques.

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“Issue 16, for me, is a bit more down to earth. We wanted to put together an issue that would be helpful to beginners as well as intermediate level photographers. That’s why this month I am really happy to welcome a new column to the magazine which addresses actual questions sent in by our readers. We’re also exploring various issues that all photographers face, such as photography when it comes to the law, and this month’s feature on preparing your gear so that you don’t have to stay indoors on those rainy days.

Additionally, my ‘vacation spot’ list is getting longer thanks to our Photography Around the World column, where this month we visit the vibrant Isla de Mujeres. We’ve also got out photo assignment top picks from the PhotographyBB Forum assignments as well as the top images from our Flickr group – some truly inspiring work from all the participants!”

By way of download in either PDF or ZIP formats, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. In a completely ad-free format, each issue contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers.

In addition to articles which aide photographers in getting the most from their DSLR cameras, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and applicable tutorials on how to use post-processing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom, to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

PhotographyBB was founded in Oct, 2006, and is a division of PowerButton Central (2004).​ For more information, visit the PhotographyBB website at: http://www.photographybb.com​​Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/photographybb

Download the PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue #16
in PDF or ZIP Format:

PDF (4.48 MB) | ZIP (4.13 MB)

The 2010 Sony World Photography Awards are open for entries from today, Monday 1 June 2009.

With categories for both professional and amateur photographers, the Sony World Photography Awards is one of the world’s largest photographic events. The awards are a platform for both established and emerging photographers and in 2009 the competition attracted over 60,000 entrants from 139 different countries.

The competition for professional photographers incorporates 12 categories across three genres – commercial, fine art and photojournalism/documentary. The overall winner will take the coveted L’Iris D’Or title together with $25,000 (USD) along with Sony camera equipment. The 36 category finalists will then be exhibited in galleries across the world as part of the Sony World Photography Awards Global Tour throughout 2010 and 2011.

New for the 2010 awards, a documentary category has been introduced for amateur photographers. Whether documenting a person, place or current issue, the category is looking for an image which captures momentous occurrences of every day life. From the nine categories, one photographer will be chosen as the Sony World Photography Awards Amateur Photographer of the Year and win a grand prize of $5,000 (USD) and Sony camera equipment.

The Campaign Award 2010 also launches on 1 June. A special category for amateur photographers, the award seeks to uncover imagery that captures the emotion and the passion of football from the fan’s point of view – the highs, the lows, and the incredible lengths supporters will go to support their teams. The winning photograph will be selected by renowned sports photographer Delly Carr and the prize will include two tickets to a 2010 South Africa World Cup game, a Sony Alpha DSLR camera and lens plus the opportunity to a photographer in a Sony digital campaign.

The Sony World Photography Awards is supported by the World Photographic Academy. It includes nearly 100 of the world’s leading photographers including Elliott Erwitt, Mary-Ellen Mark, Susan Meiselas, Bruce Davidson and Tom Stoddart; gallery owners; representatives of international photo agencies; international Guilds; photo editors; critics and publishers. The judging panel for the competition will comprise of members of the World Photographic Academy and will be announced later this year.

Key dates

2009

1 June Amateur and Professional categories open for submissions
2 – 15 June Global Tour at Gallery 21, Tokyo, Japan
4 December Closing date for professional and amateur categories

2010

February Shortlist announcement
March Category winners announcement
April The World Photography Awards Forum and Sony World Photography Awards ceremony in Cannes

Categories

* Professional categories are:

o Architecture

o Arts and Entertainment

o Advertising

o Conceptual and Constructed

o Contemporary Issues

o Current Affairs

o Fashion

o Landscape

o Music

o Natural History

o Portraiture

o Sport

* Amateur categories are:

o Architecture

o Conceptual & Constructed

o Documentary

o Fashion

o Landscape

o Music

o Natural History

o Portraiture

o Sport

For further information about the awards and to enter the competition please visit http://www.worldphotographyawards.org

New Creative Alliance Tour: Seven Leading Companies Join Forces to Enhance Professional Photographers’ Entire Digital Experience

28 May 2009 – Seven of the industry’s most influential technology suppliers have joined together to bring cutting-edge, digital workflow solutions to professional photographers across Europe. Adobe Systems, Apple, Hewlett Packard, Nikon, Nik Software, Wacom and X-Rite have joined forces for a unique, nine-city Creative Alliance Tour. The tour has been set up to provide creative professionals with a comprehensive insight into a complete digital workflow. A full-day seminar will take place at each city stop, hosted by renowned photo professionals and evangelists – Robin Preston, Boudewijn Krijger and Guy Gowan, among others. These influential master photographers will demonstrate live shoots, and talk about why colour profile and calibration is key to getting the best end product.

From image capture to printing and marketing, delegates of the Creative Alliance Tour will learn how to achieve optimum results (high resolution in, high resolution out) using the most innovative techniques available to photographic professionals. The seminars will consist of inspirational presentations and in-depth technical workshops, with the opportunity to share questions and experiences with the experts.

“The long-established professional photographic community has seen dramatic changes to photographic technology in the past few years, with the transition from silver halide to digital, and from traditional SLR to digital SLR. Combining the resources and expertise of the seven companies, this tour will provide a unique platform for the photographic community to learn about the latest technological innovations and take advantage of a complete digital workflow within their existing production process,” said world-renowned digital artist, Robin Preston. Photographers should not miss this fantastic opportunity to gain valuable insight into the latest workflow tools that could help their business maintain its competitive edge.

Registration and dates
The Creative Alliance Tour will begin in autumn 2009, with stops in the Netherlands, UK, Spain, France, Germany and Italy. For the exact dates and registration information please visit: http://www.thecreativealliancetour.com For further information about the Creative Alliance Tour, please contact:
Blue Projects
Tel: 0031(0) 297382500
info@thecreativealliancetour.com

About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe revolutionises how the world engages with ideas and information – anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit http://www.adobe.com .

About Apple
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in
innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music
and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone. http://www.apple.com/

About HP
HP, the world’s largest technology company, simplifies the technology experience for consumers and businesses with a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT
infrastructure. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com/.

About Nikon
Nikon Corporation, a world leader in cameras, imaging and optics, was founded on July 25th, 1917, in Tokyo, Japan. Beginning as an optical firm, Nikon manufactured microscopes, telescopes,
surveying equipment and optical measuring devices. NIKKOR was adopted as the brand name for the company’s line of photographic lenses in the 1930s. In 1946, the company began producing a 35mm rangefinder camera with an interchangeable lens, the first Nikon camera. The success of the Nikon Rangefinder was followed by the introduction of the classic Nikon F single-lens-reflex (SLR) camera in 1959, built with the technology leadership and precision that characterizes Nikon products. Nikon has continued its leadership into the 21st century with its popular and critically acclaimed film and digital cameras, from the COOLPIX consumer line to advanced professional digital SLRs. As a milestone, production figures for the NIKKOR interchangeable lenses surpassed the 45 million in September 2008.
From its industry-leading cameras to lenses, optics, accessories and software, Nikon is the choice of professional and amateur photographers alike. http://www.nikon.com/

About NIK Software
Nik Software, Inc. (formerly Nik Multimedia, Inc.) is a privately-held American company that develops software solutions for the growing digital-imaging and photography markets. Established in
1995, Nik Software has become the recognized leader in digital photographic filter development and produces award-winning technology and plug-in products for digital photography and imaging
professionals including U Point® technology, Dfine®, Viveza®, Silver Efex Pro™, Color Efex Pro™, and Nik Sharpener Pro™ software. The company’s products use a range of innovative technologies that make digital imaging and photography easier and more powerful. Nik Software is headquartered in San Diego, California with branch offices in Germany: http://www.niksoftware.com

About Wacom
Wacom’s vision to bring people and technology closer together through natural interface technologies has made it the world’s leading manufacturer of pen tablets, interactive pen displays, and digital interface solutions. The advanced technology of Wacom’s intuitive input devices has been used to create some of the most exciting digital art, films, special effects, fashion and designs around the world and provides business and home users with their leading interface technology to express their personality. http://www.wacom.eu

About X-Rite
X-Rite is the global leader in color science and technology. The Company, which now includes color industry leader Pantone, Inc., develops, manufactures, markets and supports innovative color
solutions through measurement systems, software, color standards and services. X-Rite’s expertise in inspiring, selecting, measuring, formulating, communicating and matching color helps users get
color right the first time and every time, which translates to better quality and reduced costs. XRite serves a range of industries, including printing, packaging, photography, graphic design, video,
automotive, paints, plastics, textiles, dental and medical. For further information, please visit http://www.xrite.com.

check out this video collage here

Jalbum, the popular photo sharing service and personal web album creator software connects to the bloggers around the world by introducing a brand new tool called Jalbum Blog badge. Any blogger can now conveniently display their photo album news in the sidebar of their blog. The blog badge is automatically updated and shared when an album is published with Jalbum. Photo albums can be published anywhere, to a free Jalbum account or the bloggers own site.

“We have received a lot of questions from our users on how to share albums in blogs. We are very excited to be able to provide a powerful tool for bloggers to integrate personalised photo albums with their blogs. Jalbums flexible photo albums are a great fit with the bloggers desire for self-expression. The Blog badge will connect Jalbum to a huge creative audience, people we are eager to meet”, says Carl Manneh, CEO of Jalbum.

The Jalbum Blog Badge was launched as Beta in March 2009. Since then, thousands of bloggers have already added the Blog badge to their sites. The blogs are distributed all over the world: from Andrea, a casual blogger in Brazil (andreabrava.blogspot.com), and Jon Perkins running a Karp fishing camp in France (lescroix.blogspot.com) to a real estate blog in Dallas (dallasurbanblog.blogspot.com). More examples here: http://jalbum.net/blog/entry/blog-badge-in-action/.

WordPress and Blogger integration
In addition to a general code to copy-and-paste into blogs, the Blog badge also comes as plug-ins for leading blog services WordPress and Blogger. The tool is very flexible when it comes to customization of the presentation. Any creative blogger can easily adjust the presentation of the Blog badge in terms of colors, fonts and more, to fit the site it is used on.

About Jalbum
Jalbum consists of freeware web album creator software, free hosting and a creative photo sharing community. With Jalbum you easily create and share your own photo album site, publish it anywhere and share it on http://www.jalbum.net. The first version of Jalbum software was released as a hobby project by founder David Ekholm in 2002 and has been granted numerous awards from respectable companies like Softpedia, About.com, Download.com and Tucows.

For high-resolution pictures and additional info, please contact Carl Manneh:
Mobile: +46 735 24 45 80 | 
E-mail: carl@jalbum.net | Skype: carlmanneh

New medium-format Phase One P65+ beats all other cameras for overall dxomark sensor performance.
RAW performance data for Hasselblad H3DII 50 also now available on dxomark.com

Paris, France – May 14, 2009 –DxO Labs announces today the publication of detailed RAW-based image quality data and DxOMark Sensor rankings on its popular http://www.dxomark.com website for two additional medium-format cameras, the Phase One P65+ and the Hasselblad H3DII 50.

With a DxOMark Sensor score of 89 points, the Phase One P65+ takes the lead in the overall DxOMark Sensor rankings. Up until now, shooting in low light has been challenging for medium-format cameras when compared to other digital cameras, but thanks to a newly-revised binning implementation (incorporated in its new “Sensor Plus” feature), the P65+’s low-light performance has helped closed the gap. Its higher Low-Light ISO score, combined with excellent scores for both Color Depth and Dynamic Range, has propelled it to the first-place slot among all cameras in the dxomark database, regardless of format.

DxO Labs is also pleased to publish RAW sensor results for another medium-format camera, the Hasselblad HD3II 50. Given its 2007 release date, its results are more in keeping with previously-tested medium-format cameras (with very good Color Depth and Dynamic Range, but more limited Low-Light ISO performance).

“We were pleased to see the P65+’s results, which clearly show that technological advances will keep medium-format cameras competitive with other kinds of digital cameras,” said Nicolas Touchard, Vice President of Marketing, DxO Labs Image Quality Evaluation. “Ultimately, such competition benefits the entire photographic community.”

The dxomark.com database is the only RAW sensor-based comparison resource on the web covering a broad range of sensor sizes and formats. As such, it is a unique resource for all advanced photographers who are looking for in-depth image quality evaluation tools.

About dxomark.com

Sponsored by DxO Labs, a company focusing on image processing technologies, http://www.dxomark.com is a free online resource that delivers key objective sensor performance metrics measured directly on the RAW image for a variety of cameras. As a result, dxomark.com makes it possible for the first time to assess the intrinsic quality of a camera before the impact of any RAW conversion and independent of its optics.

The site also features a simple scale, DxOMark Sensor, for analyzing and comparing RAW image quality. The DxOMark Sensor scale is mapped to real-world photographic scenarios such as portrait, landscape, and action photography, ensuring that the scale is relevant to photographers.

dxomark.com’s goal is to serve the imaging community, particularly the photo press. Photography journalists and experts can now complement their analyses and reviews with an objective evaluation of intrinsic camera performance, regardless of optics or processing considerations.

For more information, visit http://www.dxomark.com.

About DxO Labs

DDxO Labs offers products and solutions ensuring excellence in digital imaging. The company develops and licenses patented intellectual property serving the entire digital imaging chain:

* For consumer electronics OEM/ODM (such as digital camera and camera phone vendors): embedded software and silicon architectures for real time still and video image processing;
* For imaging component suppliers (camera module manufacturers, sensor vendors, and processor vendors) as well as photography journalists and imaging experts: image quality evaluation and measurement tools;
* For serious and demanding photographers: PC and Mac solutions to enhance camera image quality.

For more information, visit the DxO Labs website at http://www.dxo.com

Condé Nast Traveler’s annual Dream Trip contest is in full swing.  Just upload a photo from a trip and describe what made it a great travel moment for a chance to win a $25,000 Dream Trip to anywhere on earth!  But that’s not all!  The Condé Nast Traveler staff, including consumer news editor Wendy Perrin, will work with the winner to craft a truly unforgettable and flawless journey.

In addition: Ten finalists will each win a Sony DSLR-A350k camera.  And for every photo submitted, you will automatically be entered for a chance to win a five-night trip for two to Italy’s Hotel Cala di Volpe on Sardinia.

Check out the thousands of photos already submitted by Traveler readers at http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/contests/dreamtrip2009 for a chance at your Dream Trip!

Tamron USA, Inc. announced the re-launch of its website designed to make the navigation of its wealth of learning materials and access to product information easier for new and returning visitors. The revamped site, designed by Skylar Designs, Inc. and managed by an internal webmaster, was launched April 30th. Tamron’s current website was launched approximately 18 months ago and has consistently seen over 100,000 unique visitors a month and has a low bounce rate and a healthy percentage of new versus returning visitors. The new design will surely make the bounce rate even lower and realize significant growth as returning visitors come back on a regular basis to seek out new posts.

The most popular section of the website after the top-selling product pages is Tamron’s Learning Center. “The Learning Center has so much great information, but some pages were hard to find. We felt customers were missing out on some really important resources that would help them succeed in making the types of pictures they had in mind when they purchased a DSLR camera or new lens,” stated Stacie Errera, Chief Marketing Officer for Tamron USA. “The new design gives the website visitor a full picture right from the top page as to what types of resources Tamron offers photographers of all levels.”

The photo lens section, accessed by clicking photographic lenses at http://www.tamron.com, or directly at http://www.tamron.com/lenses/default-photo.asp, features an elegant flash sequence of images and roll-out information blocks for top products and promotions. Multiple navigation systems were also added to give users greater access to more information, all from one top-page location.  In particular, the new navigation located directly under the Flash movie uses drop-down menus, allowing our visitors the ability to “drill” deeper into the Tamron website. Something that once took multiple click-throughs can now be accessed in just one click.  Best-selling products are highlighted and links to all other lenses are found in multiple areas.

“The Tamron site features interactive tools like the ‘Lens Finder’ that help customers easily discover what focal length lens is best for them, or the ‘Depth of Field’ tool that visually demonstrates the effects of aperture and focal length selection, easily one of the hardest concepts to grasp for novice photographers,” says Errera. “Our commitment to mentor new DSLR users and Tamron lens owners, as well as keep the creative juices flowing for seasoned pros and advanced amateurs, is evident when you surf all of the information on the Tamron site that we’ve now brought to the top for easy access.”

The new site also directs visitors to educational and inspirational blogs as well as popular social media websites like Flickr™, Facebook™, YouTube™ and Twitter™. “The social media sites are crucial for Tamron owners and prospective customers to share their experiences with Tamron products and show off their amazing images,” Errera stated.

Important links like service, contact us and many more can be accessed from the straightforward tab system on top of the main navigation bar, or at the bottom of the page in a supplemental site map listing. “Giving the user several ways to find and access information was a key component of the design. We did not want anyone to have difficulty finding what they are looking for and leave the site frustrated.”

Tamron is a leading manufacturer of lenses and optical components for photographic, industrial, laboratory, video, digital and scientific applications.

Tamron  Lens Site

EC Display Solutions is expanding its NEC SpectraView® series with a hardware calibratable widescreen 24” model on the one hand, the NEC SpectraView® 2490, and with the two wide-gamut 2690 and 3090 reference LCD displays on the other hand: new benchmark standards in colour management. The IPS panel for the 2490 satisfies the requirements of top quality professional image processing, as do the H-IPS (horizontal in-plane switching) panels of the 2690 and 3090 models, since IPS panel technology is the best for colour-critical applications. The high 1920 x 1200 and 2560 x 1600 resolutions at 60 Hz (Reference 3090), an AdobeRGB colour-space coverage of up to 107 percent, and very wide and stable viewing angles of 178 degrees allow razor sharp pictures and brilliant colours without any chromatic distortions (colour shifting) whatsoever. In addition, top quality picture reproduction is also supported by the programmable 12-bit LUT (look-up table) for each RGB signal (so enabling 36-bit colour control), gamma correction, and also the X-Light® Pro feature. Whether deployed for media reproduction, digital image processing or in print-workflow, NEC Display Solutions has succeeded in combining into these models outstanding technical performance with excellent economy.
Despite their size, these three models with their high quality IPS or H-IPS panels offer excellent picture quality. Alongside an outstanding resolution, their brightness of up to 400 cd/m2 as well as a contrast ratio of 1000:1 ensures particularly high-quality imaging that is also guaranteed from every perspective by the large 178 degree viewing angles. Alongside the X-Light® Pro function, colour stability is also especially ensured by the digital uniformity control (ColorComp) feature. This automatically regulates in various gradations the distribution uniformity of colour and brightness. The hardware calibration as well as the high colour-space coverage (reaching up to 107 percent of the AdobeRGB colour-space for the two Reference models) also allows extraordinary colour fidelity and therefore the ideal performance characteristics particularly required by colour-critical image processing, such as pre-press, DTP or softproof applications. Individual calibration profiles and parameters can be created using the supplied SpectraView® Profiler 4.1 software developed for the series that can also be activated at any time. The LCD response time of 5 ms in particular also provides an excellent basis for video processing.
Exemplary energy efficiency of the LCD displays is guaranteed by their practical functions such as the EcoModes, the Real Time Clock with Scheduler as well as AutoBright or AmbiBright. Even with these high-end, wide-gamut displays, energy efficiency and a low TCO (total cost of ownership) are still of particular importance. Ergonomic features ensure that long periods of working in front of the displays are made easier. For example, the screen can be height adjusted by up to 150 mm and can also be quickly and simply released from the monitor pedestal by the Quick Release Stand function. The ergonomic functions have also been expanded by the two landscape or portrait viewing modes. Once again NEC Display Solutions is demonstrating its pioneering leadership in providing solutions for particularly colour-critical applications by expanding its SpectraView® series with these three models. Above all, the wide-gamut H-IPS panels are the defining state-of-the-art technology for professional colour management.

Availability and Warranty
The NEC SpectraView® 2490, the NEC SpectraView® Reference 2690 as well as the NEC SpectraView® Reference 3090 are commercially available now in black. Included within the package are the SpectraView® Profiler 4.1 software on CD, the individual SpectraView Certification Report documenting the unique performance characteristic of each display, power and signal cables, a comprehensive handbook for monitor and software, the installation and drivers CD, as well as an appropriate light-shield hood free-of-charge. NEC Display Solutions offers a three year guarantee for its displays including backlight.
All hardware and software names are brand names and/or registered trademarks of the respective manufacturers. All rights are reserved, including rights created by patent grant or registration of a utility model or design.

NEC Display Solutions Europe GmbH

NEC Display Solutions Europe GmbH has its European headquarters in Munich, Germany and is responsible for all business activities in EMEA, divided into the four sales regions Northern Europe, Western and Southern Europe, Central Europe, Eastern and South-East Europe with Middle East/Africa. NEC Display Solutions benefits from the technological know-how and technologies of the NEC Corporation and, with its own Research and Development, is one of the world’s leading manufacturers offering the widest product range of display solutions in the market. The display product portfolio ranges from entry-level to professional and speciality desktop LCDs, via large-size Public Displays for Digital and Retail Signage (LCD and plasma technology) to plasma displays for home cinema applications. The Projector range offers products for all needs, from portable devices via business projectors to products for permanent operation (such as PoS applications) and digital cinema projectors. Managing Director of the European head office is Bernd Eberhardt.

Further information can be found on-line at:www.nec-display-solutions.com

NEC Corporation is one of the world’s leading providers of internet, broadband network and enterprise business solutions dedicated to meeting the specialized needs of its diverse and global base of customers. NEC delivers tailored solutions in the key fields of computer, networking and electron devices, by integrating its technical strengths in IT and Networking, and by providing advanced semiconductor solutions through the NEC Electronics Corporation. The NEC Group employs more than 150,000 people worldwide.

Further information can be found on the NEC website at: http://www.nec.com

Within the next three years, 20 percent of all printed images will be in the form of photobooks or other formats(1). Consumers have a strong desire to tell their stories, share their memories and have them printed, which has resulted in significant growth opportunities in revenue and volume for photo professionals. While only two or three copies of a traditional wedding album were usually produced, digital technology now enables different versions to be printed and personalised for each guest.

Therefore, transitioning to digital printing will enable fine art and professional photographers in portrait, nature and school segments as well as print service providers (PSP), to expand their businesses and create new services using HP Indigo presses.

“Professional photographers offer higher quality printed images than mass market sources but their narrower portfolio results in a decline of market value and revenue losses for them,” says Pierre Meleuc, photo segment development manager, EMEA, HP. “As the leader in digital printing, HP believes there is still a market for high end, custom-made photo products and that digital printing will be the answer for professional photographers looking for a solution that can transform their businesses.

Thanks to digital printing, professional photographers will be able to bring a wide range of new products to market, such as posters, large format portrait, fine art and interior design applications as well as photobooks. These new products can be created using a range of formats, page thicknesses and different finishes such as glossy, textured, smooth or coloured. As high-value prints, they can attract premium prices and ensure a good margin.

An increasing number of professional photographers are also discovering that photobooks are an efficient way to market their pictures in the portrait, nature or social segment. The American specialist in personal publishing, blurb.com, which is exclusively working with HP Indigo presses, estimates that 30 percent of its business now comes from professionals such as photographers as well as architects, designers and hotels – those working in industries where quality imaging is key to their competitive differentiation.

Today, in a lively market, art photographers and photojournalists sell prints in galleries or via the internet. Thanks to digital printing technology, they are also able to develop their own imaginative marketing collateral and promote their work through self-publishing and books-on-demand.

Make the right move with HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press
Designed for large photofinishers, book printers and professional photo labs, HP’s new high-volume, high-productivity photo specialty solution uses a customised version of the new simplex roll-fed HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press. Printing at a speed of 120 A4/letter-size pages per minute in four colours, the press’s larger image size (317mm x 980mm) enables high-volume production of lay-flat photo book and book covers. It also facilitates more efficient impositioning and higher productivity for photo cards and similar products.

This customised photo specialty solution, expected to be available in July, comes configured for HP SmartStream print server solutions for high-volume commercial print production. The HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press connects with HP Indigo commercial unified workflow and provides the same HP Indigo print quality across the different applications and platforms. The digital printing replicates the media structure and coating, removes wet processes and offers superior gloss uniformity while the thin layer requires less colorant.

The end-to-end enhanced workflow solution from file creation to finishing facilitates the HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press integration with existing HP equipment. All printing components can be managed from the same print server with the same ripping and colour management.

HP has worked with Photobook Technology and AB Graphic International to develop new finishing solutions that ensure a better productivity and result. Other services can be developed around new large format devices like the HP Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer with an embedded spectrophotometer, ideal for the professional market. In addition, HP has worked with other leading suppliers to create a selection of image imaging software solutions that currently include Adobe® Photoshop® CS4 and Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom, the X-Rite APS, and Nik Software.

About HP
HP, the world’s largest technology company, simplifies the technology experience for consumers and businesses with a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com/.

Other World Computing (OWC®) http://www.macsales.com, a leading Mac and PC technology company, announced today the new OWC USB 2.0 Display Adapter, the easiest way to add an additional display to Macs and PCs via any standard USB 2.0 port. Functioning like a bus powered “external video card,” the OWC USB 2.0 Display Adapter adds an additional monitor to desktop and laptop computers that offer only one built-in display/video-out port.  In addition, the adapter also eliminates the cost and hassle of installing a video card into a computer.

Single monitors often do not provide enough viewing area to display desired content; and since the OWC Display Adapter is lightweight and bus powered with no AC adapter needed, it’s easy to bring on the road. The OWC USB 2.0 Display Adapter makes adding an additional monitor to any computer an easy three-step process:

1. Plug the OWC USB 2.0 Display Adapter into any of the computer’s available USB 2.0 ports.
2. Plug the second monitor into the Display Adapter.
3. Load the included driver software.

Clone Your Screen, Extend It, or View a Different Display – Supports up to 6 Simultaneous Displays

The OWC USB 2.0 Display Adapter connects to HDMI, DVI, and VGA equipped displays (including the latest HD flat panel LCDs, standard CRT monitors, and projectors) in full 32-bit color at resolutions of up to 1600 x 1200. Up to 6 adapters can be configured to either clone a user’s primary screen or extend the desktop, allowing visibility of more applications at the same time on up to 6 individual displays.

Multiple Monitors Increase Productivity 10%-50%

Previously used primarily by financial traders, graphic designers, and video gamers, multiple displays are now a common requirement for modern, everyday computer users that require viewing a volume of personal content and websites simultaneously. Studies have shown productivity gains of 10% to 50% with multiple monitor use, because users are able to perform more work in less time and with fewer errors.

OWC USB 2.0 Display Adapter Multiple Display Uses:

·      Spreadsheets: view large spreadsheets across 2 screens with display continuity.

·      Multitasking: multitask more effectively without overlapping windows.

·      E-mails:  open attachments on one screen while reading the e-mail on the other.

·      Reference:  type documents on one screen while viewing reference material on the other.

·      Photoshop:  design on one screen and use 2nd display for Photoshop pallets/tools.

·      Presentations: use a laptop to run multiple screens during a large audience presentation.

·      Charts/Data:  view investment charts and live market data at the same time.

·      TV/movies:  view Internet TV or DVD movies on one screen and your desktop on the other screen.

The OWC USB 2.0 Display Adapter is ready to use straight from the box, so there’s no need to purchase anything extra.  It comes complete with:

·      USB to DVI adapter

·      DVI to VGA adapter

·      DVI to HDMI swivel adapter

·      Four foot USB 2.0 cable

·      CD-ROM with user guide and software

·      One year warranty

Available immediately, the OWC USB 2.0 Display Adapter is priced at $99 MSRP from Other World Computing at http://www.macsales.com. Up to 4 adapters can be used with Intel based Macintosh computers running OS X 10.4 and later as well as up to 6 adapters on PCs running MS Windows XP SP2, Windows 2000 SP4, or Windows Vista with Aero support. For more information on the OWC USB 2.0 Display Adapter, visit: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/VIDU2DVIA/

About Other World Computing (OWC)

Other World Computing (OWC) has been providing quality hardware products and support to the computer industry since 1988. The Illinois based company operates the popular e-commerce portal http://www.macsales.com, which features one of the largest online catalogs of computer, iPod, and iPhone enhancement products, including Mercury, Neptune, and NewerTech® acceleration, storage, and FireWire® product lines.

As a Premiere Level Apple Developer Connection member, OWC provides extensive US based technical support for Macintosh users around the world. OWC is also a strategic partner with Axiotron and exclusive US distributor of the award winning Axiotron Modbook™.

OWC is the winner of numerous awards, including Computerworld Magazine’s Top Green-IT Companies for 2008, BizRate’s Gold Circle of Excellence for 2008, and the 2008 “Business Champion Award” from McHenry County Economic Development Corporation. The company’s management umbrella includes leading Internet Service Providers http://www.fastermac.net and http://www.owc.net and is the leading technology employer as ranked by the McHenry County Business Journal. For more information, visit http://www.macsales.com.

10 free Wood Textures

Count on a Whole New Cooliris Experience with v1.10

If you’re coming out with your 10th release, you gotta be sure to make it count. We’ve been putting in a lot of late nights around here making sure that Cooliris version 1.10 comes with great new features that will majorly impact your experience.

In the past, Cooliris has allowed you to browse and search popular websites like Google Images and Youtube, as well scan images from the latest news headlines. Now, check out these new additions:

View Photos from Your Computer
Up until now Cooliris has been an almost exclusively online experience. Now you can search through the My Computer icon and be able to access any of your image galleries in Cooliris, wherever they’re hiding – your Hard Drive, Desktop, iPhoto, My Pictures, et cetera!

Get the Full Facebook Album Experience
We’ve completely rewritten how we interact with Facebook. Now when you’re browsing your friends’ photos on the streaming 3D Wall, they’ll be complete with title, tags, and more. When someone’s tagged in a photo, you can click through to visit all their tagged photos. Now your Facebook image navigation is every bit as versatile as the browser experience, with a more fluid interface.

Context Is Everything – Get the Whole Story
Cooliris now supplements your multimedia experience with rich metadata optimized to enhance the wall. View shutter, aperture and ISO of Picasa Photos, see image size and source of Google images, view ratings and related videos on YouTube, and view more product descriptions in Shopping.

More information, more versatility, more Cooliris. What are you waiting for? Download version 1.10 here, or you’re missing half the experience!

Release Notes:

Additional Support
- Support for Linux platform
- Support for Flock- This version fixes a compatibility with Flock
- Blinkx Support – Search through 35 million hours of video from Blinkx.com directly within Cooliris
- Metacafe videos are now supported again
- RAW Camera Support for images on your computer

Bugs and Other Enhancements
- Embedded Color Support for Windows- embedded color profiles should now be honored when viewing images on PCs
- Fixed Bug with Graphical Corruption for certain Mac-Based ATI Cards
- We now respect EXIF tags in images and draw them with the correct orientation

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DIGITAL MEDIA UNVEILS NEW IMMERSIVE WEB 2.0 PHOTOGRAPHY APPLICATION – ‘INFINITE PHOTOGRAPH’

New app offers unprecedented interaction with shared online photos; Launching with shots of natural world dubbed ‘As Seen on Earth’

National Geographic Digital Media (NGDM) today launches Infinite Photograph, a cutting-edge Web 2.0 photography mosaic application that will allow users to interact with shared online photographs by clicking on color patterns to create an infinite array of stunning mosaics in a variety of themes.

Gearing up for Earth Day, the first Infinite Photograph theme debuts April 15 at http://www.ngm.com/infinite, featuring mosaics created from user-submitted photos of the natural world as part of National Geographic’s My Shot “As Seen on Earth” hub, found at http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/myshot/infinite-photograph/earth.

An Infinite Photograph digital mosaic is composed of 200 to 500 photographs culled from National Geographic’s user-generated My Shot photography database. NGDM will roll out more functionality for Infinite Photograph over the next few months, including features that allow users to select search terms from the entire My Shot database of tagged photos, build Infinite Photographs from their own catalog of digital photography and interact with the program through such social networking sites as Facebook.

“Infinite Photograph taps into avid social media users and photography enthusiasts in a way no Web technology has done to date,” said Rob Covey, NGDM’s senior vice president of content development and design for online material. “National Geographic has long been known as a leader in stunning photography and for its commitment to preserving our planet. Infinite Photograph supports that longstanding identity and simultaneously represents a significant leap forward into using advanced technology to increase engagement with the brand.”

National Geographic launched My Shot last year, generating an online destination where viewers can build their own photo-based National Geographic Web page as well as create and share albums, puzzles and games with fellow users. To date, My Shot has garnered more than 50,000 members, who have uploaded more than 250,000 photos featuring images of people and places around the world.

About National Geographic Digital Media
National Geographic Digital Media (NGDM) is the multimedia division of National Geographic Ventures, the wholly owned, taxable subsidiary of the National Geographic Society, one of the world’s largest educational and scientific nonprofit organizations, which works to inspire people to care about the planet. Holding many top industry’s awards, NGDM publishes Nationalgeographic.com; produces short-form video for broadband markets; manages marketing and content partnerships across broadband, mobile, gaming and other consumer digital platforms; and provides video and film footage to commercial, theatrical, educational and other digital footage markets.

Eastman Kodak Company has achieved the milestone of recycling 1.5 billion single-use cameras, including both Kodak cameras and those from the company’s competitors. Started in 1990, the Kodak single-use camera recycling program, works with photofinishing outlets to return used single-use cameras to Kodak sorting centers, where they are then routed for recycling. Nearly every piece of the camera is either recycled or reused in the ongoing production of more single-use cameras, bringing down costs for consumers and keeping huge amounts of waste out of landfills. Laid end-to-end, the 1.5 billion cameras would stretch 120,000 miles, which is enough to circle the earth five times or reach more than halfway to the moon. Of the 1.5 billion, nearly 1 billion were Kodak single-use cameras. In the U.S., the rate of recycling rate for Kodak single-use cameras is 84%. That is up from 75% just a few years ago and is the highest rate of recycling of any consumer product in the U.S., handily beating the national recycling rates for items such as aluminum cans (52%) and consumer electronics (less than 20%). With these increased recycling rates, it means that today most Kodak single-use cameras are produced from recycled camera bodies. “We’re excited to remain a leading champion of recycling in the U.S. and beyond with this program that is now in its 19th year,” said Joel Proegler, general manager, Film Capture and vice president, Film, Photofinishing & Entertainment Group. “Even in this digital age, there continues to be strong demand for single-use cameras, and we’re continuing to meet this demand in an environmentally responsible manner.” How does it work? A photofinisher returns used single-use cameras to a collection center. Kodak then pays a fee for returned single-use cameras, including those from other manufacturers with whom Kodak has an exchange agreement. The cameras are collected after the film is processed and, in the U.S., sent to Rochester to be sorted and routed. Through a mutual agreement, major competitor single-use cameras are sent to their original manufacturers while Kodak single-use cameras are sent to a Kodak factory in Guadalajara, Mexico, to be recycled and reused. The body and internal parts in good condition are put into new single-use cameras, while the rest of the camera, such as the plastic outer casing, is ground and recycled. Kodak will feature new packaging to inform customers of the benefits of the recycling program. “This is truly an impressive accomplishment. We work with electronics, appliance and automobile manufacturers around the world to help them ‘close-the-loop’ by recovering plastics from their end-of-life products and remanufacturing them so they can be used in new products. Kodak has accomplished this and more, even re-using some of its recovered components in new single-use cameras,” said Dr. Mike Biddle, President and Founder of MBA Polymers, Inc. “Additionally, Kodak has embraced a ‘design for recycling’ philosophy, made its cameras easier to dismantle, and used compatible materials and components to assist the recycling process.”

PhotoShelter, the leader in portfolio websites, photo sales and archiving tools for photographers, today released the first comprehensive, free guide to getting photography websites listed on search engines and achieving top results with search engine optimization (SEO). The PhotoShelter SEO Toolkit is essential internet marketing guidance for serious photographers looking to grow their businesses online.

It can be used by photographers to understand, plan, and carry out a complete SEO effort. The toolkit can be requested here: http://pa.photoshelter.com/mkt/seo-kit-for-photographers.

PhotoShelter also today released an SEO Grader tool – an exclusive feature that scans photographers’ websites and rates their progress along 30+ factors within PhotoShelter that can be customized to improve search engine rankings.

“Google search is by far the world’s most powerful online marketing tool,” said PhotoShelter CEO Allen Murabayashi. “Photographers today must become masters of self-promotion, with their website as the central platform to connect with new customers, book assignments or make direct photo sales. Yet nobody is providing photographers with clear guidance and easy tools to help implement basic SEO tactics. Today, PhotoShelter is filling that void with the result of months of research and testing.”

The free PhotoShelter SEO Toolkit includes several multimedia components. The primary content is PhotoShelter’s SEO Cookbook – a 30-page, step-by-step e-book covering every tactic, on and off the photographer’s web page, that can be employed to garner better search engine results. The Toolkit also includes video tutorials and downloadable worksheets to assist photographers in optimizing their websites. No technical experience is required to benefit from the expert advice assembled in the Toolkit. The SEO Toolkit is sponsored by Adorama Camera, http://www.adorama.com.

The PhotoShelter SEO Grader, which is available only to PhotoShelter members, is designed to be a photographer’s companion in the long-term effort to tailor a website for maximum search engine placement. On demand, the SEO Grader scans and analyzes a complete PhotoShelter website, and produces a weighted score based on which of 30+ critical SEO factors have been completed by the photographer. The score can be updated every time changes are made within the member’s PhotoShelter account, enabling photographers to track their progress as their SEO improves. PhotoShelter gives photographers an unprecedented level of control in managing SEO variables by providing a simple interface to enter keyword-rich text for key areas seen by search engines. PhotoShelter also extracts individual photos’ metadata to populate additional website areas with keywords that can attract the search engines’ attention. Finally, PhotoShelter members can use Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to update their sitemaps and track SEO performance. The result is a keyword-rich website that has virtually every possible SEO factor covered to help the photographer get found – and that continues to evolve as search engines evolve.

“SEO is intimidating to photographers in part because the ways search engines work are mysterious, and the educational information that exists has not previously been tailored to photographers’ needs,” said Murabayashi. “With the free content and exclusive tools we’re releasing today, we’re making it as easy as possible to plan and implement an SEO strategy that serves one purpose – helping photographers generate more business via their websites.”

PhotoShelter’s easily customizable portfolio websites help photographers display and sell their work online. In addition to advanced SEO tools, PhotoShelter websites feature e-commerce for selling stock photos, prints, and personal use downloads, unlimited galleries with flash slideshows, keyword search, advanced security, and many more rich features – all tied to a bulletproof archive and pro-strength back-end that supports workflow for serious photographers.

About PhotoShelter

PhotoShelter is the leader in portfolio websites, photo sales and archiving tools for photographers.

Over 40,000 photographers worldwide use PhotoShelter to power their success online, with customizable website templates, searchable galleries, e-commerce capabilities, and bulletproof image storage. Photographers can create a professional PhotoShelter website in under five minutes, or customize PhotoShelter to power their existing website. A true solution designed to make the business of photography easier to manage – PhotoShelter offers security, global accessibility, and advanced marketing tools so photographers can make their images work harder for them. To join our community, visit www.photoshelter.com.

For photographers looking to show their work to photo editors, life should now be easier than ever. If once they had to stuff a pile of prints into a envelope or make an appointment to show off their portfolio, today they can wow editors with the images on their website even while they’re out completing another job.

But that easy option throws up a bunch of new difficulties. With websites so effortless to build — and with so many to choose from — how does a photo editor decide which photographer’s online portfolio to examine in detail, which photographers to hire and which to ignore?

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PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the 14th edition of the PhotographyBB Magazine Online. The PhotographyBB Magazine Online, now into its second year of publication has grown into a leading resource for beginner to intermediate digital photographers. Each issue offers information such as digital photography techniques, DSLR camera function training, image post processing tutorials in Adobe Photoshop, and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom.

The March 2009 edition explores some of the issues facing photographers as of late; Photography and the Law. This month’s issue also features an in depth look at DSLR sensor sizes and how they relate to lenses, focal lengths, and crop factors. Additionally there are Photoshop and Lightroom tutorials for photographers to get the most out of their post processing techniques.

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“I’m very excited about the release of our 14th Issue. We’ve been constantly making small changes to the magazine, which is exactly what this month’s release is all about. This month we take a deeper look into the life and issues facing photographers, such as photography safety, legal concerns, and debates such as the validity of contemporary photography as art.

Additionally, we are transported to the mountains of Ireland, namely Croagh Patrick, on a photo hike with our contributing author Kenneth Fagan.”

By way of download in either PDF or ZIP formats, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. In a completely ad-free format, each issue contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

PhotographyBB was founded in Oct, 2006, and is a division of PowerButton Central (2004). For more information, visit the PhotographyBB website at:http://www.photographybb.com by email at: magazine@photographybb.com or Twitter: PhotographyBB

Download the PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue #14
in PDF or ZIP Format:

PDF | ZIP

This year’s Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day will be held on April 26, and the organisers invite everyone who uses a pinhole camera to participate. Anyone who takes a pinhole photograph on the last Sunday of April (26th) and scans it can upload it to http://www.pinholeday.org where it becomes part of a public gallery. Pinhole cameras are the oldest photographic tools, which are used to create photos without a lens. So if you as a photographer are looking for routes to your roots, Pinhole Day may be just your ticket.

Pinhole Visions Press Release

The coordinators of the ninth Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day are busy preparing for this upcoming major global festival. It will be the traditional last Sunday in April; the next one will be April 26, 2009. Anyone, anywhere in the world, who makes a pinhole photograph on Pinhole Day, can scan the image and upload it to the http://www.pinholeday.org website where it will become part of this premier gallery of lenless photography.

Last year, 2628 participants from 62 countries contributed images to the WPPD 2008 Gallery. Over 100 events – workshops, exhibits, lectures, etc. – were held throughout the world. All of these events were coordinated locally by volunteers.

If you don’t have this celebration marked on your calendar please do it soon! Join the world in this joyous celebration of simple photography.

Watch the www.pinholeday.org website for more information.

HOW YOU CAN HELP…
- We are looking for help with our publicity efforts in various countries and regions. These local or regional coordinators would be part of the team that our Publicity Coordinator, Paolo Aldi, is assembling to spread the word about our sublime, yet joyously wacky, annual pinhole exhibit. Mostly this would be emails to publications, schools, galleries and other groups in your area. If you would like to help with this effort, please contact publicity at publicity@pinholeday.org.

- If you’d like to organize an event, such as a workshop, lecture or a photo shoot, you can add it to the events calendar at http://www.pinholeday.org/events or contact events at events@pinholeday.org. An event can be as simple as a pinhole excursion with friends or interested photographers, or it can be a workshop or exhibit. Check the “Workshop Resources” documents on the Pinhole Day Resource page for ideas.

- If you are a teacher, your students can participate in WPPD as a group. To do this, enter your class’s participation as an event at http://www.pinholeday.org/events/addevent.php. Choose “classroom” as the type of event. Your class will be listed as a “group” in the gallery. When your class is selected from the group list, it will create a virtual exhibit of your students’ work.

- If you are a graphic designer… we’re interested in suggestions for a new, or alternative, logos. Please submit your ideas to support@pinholeday.org.

Another major holiday is in the works for April 26, 2009! We all look forward to your photograph in the 2008 gallery.

WPPD 2009 Coordinating Team
Tom Miller (Lead & Events – USA)
Nick Dvoracek (Support – USA)
Chuck Flagg (Education – USA)
Paolo Aldi (Publicity – Italia)
Jason Schlauch (Webmaster – USA)
Wolfgang Thoma (Translations – Belgium)

Great, a dinosaur just crashed into my street …

An article dealing with several ways to sell your photos via products and gadgets.

There are many different ways of selling your photos. You can hang them in a gallery and hope they sell for thousands of dollars. You can submit them to stock companies and hope that someone buys them.

And you can stick them on t-shirts, mugs and mousepads and see people walking around in them, drinking from them and running their mouse over them.

That might not be quite as prestigious (or as lucrative) as having a one-person show at the Irvine Contemporary Gallery in Washington, D.C. but it can steal be a useful way to turn your images into cash.

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Undisclosed Sony G Super Telephoto

28-75mm f/2.8

DT 30mm f/2.8 Macro

DT 50mm f/1.8

DT 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6

DT 55-200mm f/4-5.6

image : PhotographyBay – check here for more photos

“Twelve megapixels is, I think, enough for covering most applications most customers need,” said Akira Watanabe, manager of Olympus Imaging’s SLR planning department, in an interview here at the Photo Marketing Association (PMA). “We have no intention to compete in the megapixel wars for E-System,” Olympus’ line of SLR cameras, he said.

Instead, Olympus will focus on other characteristics such as dynamic range, color reproduction, and a better ISO range for low-light shooting, he said.

Increasing the number of megapixels on cameras is an easy selling point for camera makers, in part because it’s a simple concept for people to understand. Even though having more megapixels can enable larger prints and enlargement of subject matter through cropping, adding megapixels comes with some drawbacks.

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Photographers keep facing more and more questions and charges for breaking the law, making it important now so more than ever to understand your rights and responsibilities as a photographer. In this article, we’ll go over such rights, as well as Model Releases.

The general rule is that you can photograph mostly anything you like as long as it’s in a public place. You do not need to have permission to photograph in public, this include photographing building and parks as well as people that are in public areas.

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PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the 13th edition of the PhotographyBB Magazine Online. The PhotographyBB Magazine Online, now into its second year of publication has grown into a leading resource for beginner to intermediate digital photographers. Each issue offers information such as digital photography techniques, DSLR camera function training, image post processing tutorials in Adobe® Photoshop™, and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom™.

The February 2009 release features techniques on shooting concert photography along with issues to consider when shooting in concert environments, a photographic view of skiing in Italy, and an article for the aspiring pro-photographer entitled “How to Get Your Photos Published.”

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“This issue marks a major milestone for PhotographyBB; our one year anniversary issue. Our team has worked so hard over the past 12 months with their informative and thoughtful contributions to the magazine, and the reader feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. It’s a pleasure to be able to provide a free resource to the digital photography community, and to guide those who are just getting started with digital photography. All of the authors are avid digital photography enthusiasts who have such different perspectives on issues concerning the digital photographer, that we end up with a great mix of articles with every release.”

By way of download in either PDF or ZIP formats, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. In a completely ad-free format, each issue contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

PhotographyBB was founded in Oct, 2006, and is a division of PowerButton Central (2004). For more information, visit the PhotographyBB website at: http://www.photographybb.com by email at: magazine@photographybb.com or Twitter: PhotographyBB

Download the PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue #13
in PDF or ZIP Format:

PDF (5.79 MB) | ZIP (5.33 MB)

From today, anyone taking a photograph of a police officer could be deemed to have committed a criminal offence.

That is because of a new law – Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act – which has come into force.

It permits the arrest of anyone found “eliciting, publishing or communicating information” relating to members of the armed forces, intelligence services and police officers, which is “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”.

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Call for the wild: Entries for Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 open

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition today begins its annual global search for the best and most creative visions of nature, whether they come from the wildest places on Earth or urban gardens.

Entries for the world’s most prestigious wildlife photography competition open on 19 January and close on 27 March (20 March for postal entries). The 2008 contest attracted a record 32,351 entries from 82 countries.

This year the competition is being sponsored by Veolia Environnement, a world leader in environmental services, and will be known as ‘Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009’.

CEO of Veolia Environmental Services (UK) Plc Jean-Dominique Mallet said ‘Veolia Environnement works with businesses, communities and governments to minimise our daily impact on the environment. It is therefore our privilege to sponsor a competition that features the world’s best wildlife photography and puts into clear focus the beauty and richness of nature which we all have a communal responsibility to protect.’

The 2008 winning images are currently on exhibition at London’s Natural History Museum as well as touring internationally to a total of 60 cities. The photos are also published in a hardback book and in a special supplement of BBC Wildlife Magazine. The competition, owned by the Museum and the Magazine, has been running annually since 1964.

Chair of the judging panel, zoologist, writer and photographer, Mark Carwardine said ‘Each year this great showcase for photographers raises the bar for innovative nature photography and plays an increasingly crucial role in provoking awareness of wildlife conservation’.

Mark said ‘Millions of people see the winning photographs through the exhibition and the media coverage it generates. They not only get enjoyment from the visual impact of these images, they also gain new insights into the natural world.
‘The most important element for a winning photograph is originality. The judges will be seeing thousands of technically perfect, well-composed images. The ones that leap from the screen are those where the photographers have worked creatively to capture a different way of showing the drama, beauty or unique behaviour of the subject.’

Last year’s overall winner was American photographer Steve Winter for his image Snowstorm leopard. Mark said ‘Everything comes together in this striking picture – the drama of the snow, the mystery of the darkness, the posture of the rarely photographed snow leopard and the intriguing composition’.

Other successful photographs from the 2008 competition included Brian Skerry’s Underworld shot of a blue cod strolling on its fins through an otherworldly garden of vibrant soft corals and starfish. The soft corals are sea pens – usually found at considerable depths. But they grow in the shallow waters of Long Sound Marine Reserve in New Zealand, where tannin-stained surface water blocks out sunlight, ‘tricking’ deep-water animals into settling at shallower depths.

Macro-photographer Danny Laps was highly commended for Saffrondrop bonnets. He found these diminutive mushrooms in a dark Belgian wood, and was charmed by their delicate, glowing colours, softened by the light streaming through the beech leaves.

The judges were taken by how David Hall’s Soft-coral community resembled a Japanese print for colour and delicacy, and how the simplicity of Miguel Lasa’s Polar sunrise – a polar bear backlit by the first rays of sunlight – provided a fresh look at a well-photographed subject.

Mark explained ‘It’s not what you photograph – it’s the way you do it. Pictures of common or familiar species, close to home, stand just as much chance of winning as pictures of more exotic or rare ones. I’d particularly like to urge professional and keen amateur photographers to consider the Urban and Garden Wildlife category. It’s often overlooked, but our gardens and parks provide most of us with our best access to photographing wild animals and plants.’
Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 has 17 categories (14 for adults and three for children). The adult categories range from animal behaviour and plants to urban wildlife and underwater photography. There are also special awards for images of endangered wildlife and portfolios taken by photographers aged 18–26.

Photographers can enter online at http://www.nhm.ac.uk/wildphoto or by posting a CD of images to the competition office. All images must be in digital format – scans of transparencies, or originally captured digital images. Up to three images can be entered in each category for a flat fee of £20 (£27 if entering by post). Prize money is £10,000 for the overall winner and up to £1,000 for the category winners.

Entry is free for the three youth categories, 10 years and under, 11–14 years and 15–17 years.

The overall winner of the Veolia Environnement Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year title receives £500 and a day’s workshop with a professional wildlife photographer. Category winners receive £250.

Photo Credit – Snowstorm leopard – Steve Winter / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year is owned by the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine

Shape Collage creates a collage by taking a bunch of photos and moving them around on a page so that they form a shape. When arranging the photos, they should be spread apart as far as possible so that you can see each one. The photos should cover the entire shape.

This sounds easy, but it’s actually a lot harder than it sounds. Figuring out how to perfectly place the photos is an “NP-complete” problem, which is Computer Science lingo for “really, really hard”.

check more

15 High Resolution Rusty Textures available here

With spring just round the corner, now is a great time to get out and about and capture the beauty of the season on camera. If you enjoy the outdoors and taking photographs, then come along to one of the nine WWT wetland centres and you could win some fantastic prizes in this year’s WWT Nikon photography competition.

Spring is a great time to take photographs – with trees blossoming, birds busy building their nests and plants and animals coming out to play. With all of this activity taking place, there are plenty of reasons to visit one of the centres and, you never know, you could be the next winner.

The competition is open to both WWT members and visitors of all ages. There are three categories: WWT Nikon photo of the year, WWT Nikon junior photo of the year and WWT Nikon digiscoping photo of the year with winners each taking a share of the £5,000 worth of superb Nikon equipment. Winners will also have the chance to see their images published in WWT’s Waterlife magazine.

The judging panel will be chaired by wildlife photographer Chris Packham, alongside representatives of both WWT and Nikon UK. Giving advice to prospective entrants, Chris explains: “The panel will be particularly looking for variety, and imagination within the entries – images that capture a special moment, depict humorous behavior, or tell a story are often more appealing than images we have all seen before.

WWT Chief Executive Martin Spray said: “The quality of the images entered over the last two years has been outstanding, and are a wonderful representation of life at WWT. I’m thoroughly looking forward to seeing what I’m sure will be even better images this year.”

The main rule of the competition is that all submitted photos must have been taken at one of the nine WWT centres in the UK and the brief is to capture any aspect of the WWT experience, from the people to the wildlife to the landscape.

Competition rules and terms and conditions are available at the WWT website.

Check out this design by Sharad Haksar of a calendar made out of a ‘lens’. Dirty rumours claim it does not soft focus and has a hidden polarizer behind the month of July.

Design by :  Sharad Haksar

Here are some photos of a scam in Russia concerning vacuum cleaners labeled and branded as Canon’s

A selection of creative movie posters of 2008

]]> http://www.digitalpixels.net/2009/02/varia/the-web/creative-movie-posters-of-2008/feed/ 0 http://www.digitalpixels.net/2009/02/varia/the-web/create-your-lighting-diagrams-online/ http://www.digitalpixels.net/2009/02/varia/the-web/create-your-lighting-diagrams-online/#comments Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:37:58 +0000 admin http://www.digitalpixels.net/?p=3188

Have you ever wanted to create nice and clean diagram to share you lighting setup? You can use Photoshop or GIMP for this but it’s not so practical to copy/paste from one PSD into another one, then go thru menus to rotate the object etc…

Here is the online Lighting Diagram Creator/Editor beta, simpler to use.

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A selection of covers featuring Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration

ExpoImaging Inc., developer of innovative camera accessories, including the ExpoDisc Digital White Balance Filter and the ExpoAperture2 Depth-of-Field Guide, and One Model Place, the world’s largest online portfolio and talent community, today announced a contest in which the best images shot with ExpoImaging’s Ray Flash ring light adapter will be published in national photo trade magazines. In addition to this valuable publishing opportunity, the winning photographers will receive high-end photo gear, as well as a Platinum+ membership to One Model Place.

Photographers interested in entering the contest must be members of One Model Place and should log onto http://www.onemodelplace.com/expoimaging to complete the simple entry form. Submitters must include both the contest photo taken with a Ray Flash, plus a photo of themselves shooting while using the product. Photos may be submitted for consideration from January 16 through March 31, 2009. All entries will be judged by a team of professional photographers and winners will be announced on April 15 at http://www.onemodelplace.com.

“This is a great opportunity to showcase the results that Ray Flash can offer to creative photographers,” said Erik Sowder, president of ExpoImaging, “Having just recently reduced the price of Ray Flash to make it more accessible to hobbyists and professionals alike, we expect to receive a lot of high-quality contest entries.”

The Ray Flash is a portable, lightweight adapter for shoe-mount flash units that creates a distinctive lighting effect, producing a virtually shadowless look on the front of the subject, while leaving a soft, even shadow around the edges. The versatile adapter is ideally suited for fashion, wedding, portrait, journalist and macro photography, as either a main or fill light.

The winning photo will be published in a full page ad in the June issue of Rangefinder, and its photographer will receive a complete set of Honl Photo Speed System light modifiers, an ExpoDisc, a Lensbaby Composer from Lensbaby, an 8GB Pro Card from Lexar, and instructional videos from Kelby Training and Software Cinema.

The second place image will be included in a half page ad in the June issue of Shutterbug, along with a starter set of Honl Photo Speed System light modifiers, an ExpoDisc, a Lensbaby Muse, a 4GB Pro Card from Lexar, and the Kelby Training and Software Cinema instructional videos.

First and second place winners will also receive a Platinum+ membership to One Model Place which allows photographers access to all of the community’s premier features and functions.

“The Ray Flash Photo Contest is an excellent way to present and promote the inspired work that the highly-talented One Model Place community produces,” said Sean Murdock, professional photographer and director of creative marketing at One Model Place. “The Ray Flash Photo Contest is one of many valuable opportunities a photographer can uncover in visiting One Model Place.”

About One Model Place
One Model Place is an online community designed for models, photographers, agencies, publishers, makeup artists, stylists and clothing designers to share their online portfolios with clients. With more than 250,000 members, One Model Place provides an outlet for the photography industry to plan and coordinate events, where photographers book models and find new talent, and models build portfolios and book jobs. For additional information, please visit http://www.onemodelplace.com

About ExpoImaging, Inc.
ExpoImaging Inc. markets and develops innovative camera accessories and is the pioneer in digital white balance filters. Ray Flash: The Ring Light Adapter, Honl Photo Speed System, ExpoDisc Digital White Balance Filters, and the ExpoAperture2 Depth-of-Field Guide are available at select photography dealers worldwide, or online at http://www.expoimaging.net.

Theme hotos that make effective use of filters.
(The filters used may be from any manufacturer.)

Application prerequisites :Anyone who has a photo taken with a filter can enter the contest, regardless of age, gender or nationality.

*1 Entries are restricted to unreleased and unpublished original photos for which the copyright is entirely owned by the applicant. Photos that have won prizes in other contests or are being screened elsewhere are not eligible. (Photos that have been entered in another contest but have not been awarded a prize are eligible). Photos that have been published in non-commercial publications, such as club exhibitions for which the photography was not remunerated, or websites operated by individuals.

*2 Entries will be disqualified if the sponsor deems that the subject matter
is in breach of the law, public order and morals, or the purpose of this contest.

*3Interested people who are under the age o f 18 are requested to first

obtain the approval of their parent or guardian before applying. If an applicant is under the age of 18, we assume that they have the approval of their parent or guardian.

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Polaroid is transforming itself from an analog Instant Film Production Company to a global Consumer Electronics and Digital Imaging company.

Production of analog Instant Film stopped in June 2008, closing the factories in Mexico (Instant Packfilm production) and the Netherlands (Instant Integral production).

Impossible b.v. has been founded with the concrete aim to re-invent and re-start production of analog INTEGRAL FILM for vintage Polaroid cameras. Therefore Impossible b.v. has acquired the complete film production equipment in Enschede (NL) from Polaroid, has signed a 10-year lease agreement on the factory building; and has engaged the most experienced team of Integral Film experts worldwide.

The Impossible mission is NOT to re-build Polaroid Integral film but (with the help of strategic partners) to develop a new product with new characteristics, consisting of new optimised components, produced with a streamlined modern setup. An innovative and fresh analog material, sold under a new brand name that perfectly will match the global re-positioning of Integral Films.

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For the first time, the official photo of the President of the United States was taken with a digital camera , the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. This must have been one of the changes of the changes of the changer change.

“Pete Souza, the new White House photographer, is a Canon shooter.  Previously, he shot with the 5D.  Since being named the “First Photographer”, however, he picked up the 5D Mark II.”

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If you get strange colors : the photo has been uploaded to the web on adobe rgb instead of srgb, somebody better mail the ‘save for web’ option to DC …

Feel free to join our FaceBook page

Contact Sheet X (CSX) is a script-based package for Adobe Photoshop CS2, CS3 and CS4 that provides a full featured contact sheet generator. The core of the package has capabilities that include everything found in Contact Sheet II (bundled with Photoshop) and the contact sheet facilities found in Adobe Lightroom.

vPDF Documentation is available describing how to use it. Most stuff is obvious, though, so go right ahead and skip the docs.

This release runs under CS2, CS3 and CS4, however better integration with CS4 will happen in later releases.

There is a list of CSX Extensions that may be implemented in future releases. If you have features you would like to see, put in a feature request or send me an email.

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October 7th marked the seventh anniversary of US and allied troops in Afghanistan. Four weeks after September 11th, 2001, troops were sent into the nation in retaliation for the attack and on a mission to find Osama Bin Laden and root out Taliban soldiers.

2008 has been the deadliest year for coalition forces in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001. Below is a photo collection of coalition troops over the course of the last seven years in the country.

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We’re spoiled for choice these days and that’s no good thing. If you want to create a website to promote your photography, you can take your pick of templates, tools and portfolio sites.

If you want to learn how to shoot better pictures, you could (if you’re not selective) lose an entire month browsing the back posts of Strobist and Digital Photography School, and that’s before you’ve even started looking for the most interesting groups on Flickr.

And if you want to make money from your images, there’s a whole raft of different ways to do it, from postcards and posters to Rights-Managed and Royalty-Free licenses and prints.

Actually, that choice is a little easier. While you’ll only need one website to show off  your images, you’ll want to sell your pictures in as many different ways as possible

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Try as we might, it’s not always possible to capture what’s needed in a single photograph. Though I prefer to do as much as possible in the camera, digital tools now allow us to create most anything. The trick is pulling the elements together to make a quality photo and not a “Frankenshot”. Luckily, my business partner (Bob) is an expert Photoshop user and enjoys a good challenge.

Shown here is an example of when we rely heavily on retouching and I thought you might be interested in the back story. This was a last minute assignment that had to be completed under less than ideal conditions. Though I wouldn’t want to run a business this way all the time, sometimes it keeps things interesting when a good client calls up in a panic and we’re forced to “shoot first and ask questions later”.

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iStockPhoto

The idea was simple, horrible, successful and completely revolutionary. To inject some competition into a stock photography market now dominated by one big company was no bad thing. But to do it by making the images royalty-free and to charge a price that many photographers saw as insultingly low was, in their eyes, outrageous. It wouldn’t last they said. No one would want to contribute.

They were wrong. Bruce Livingstone, the site’s founder, had spotted that the relatively low cost of digital photography meant that good quality cameras were now in the  hands of talented amateurs who would be happy to shoot for small payments, especially if they were getting those payments multiple times.

Flickr

Not everyone who owns a digital camera wants to sell with it though. Most people just want to show what they photographed. When Flickr gave camera-owners a place to store their images, show them to friends and family, and even join groups where they could chat about picture-taking, photographers had a home on the Web.

They could improve their skills, make friends, pick up new ideas and, we’ve found, even generate sales and build careers.

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Nikon D3x price satire spoof video

Reuters photos of the year 2008 Gallery

Jalbum.net, the premier community of photographers and cutting-edge digital presentation tools, today launched Jalbum Widgets and expanded the reach of digital images across the Web. Already the software of elite photographers, Jalbum offers its millions of users a free and simple way to display images on any web site, as well as limitless options for personalizing custom displays. With the release of Jalbum Widgets, anyone with digital images can now incorporate face detection and tagging, build conversations around images, monitor popularity and enable any viewer to spread the word.

“By incorporating the best of modern interactive features into millions of Jalbums, we’ll let the world’s most forward photographers finally challenge the notion that a picture is worth a thousand words,” said Andreas Sjölund, CEO of Jalbum. “We will continue to develop Jalbum to meet the needs of the people who enhance our understanding of the world.”

The Widgets launched today, and incorporated in the free download available at http://www.jalbum.net , are:

Comments – enabling end users or creators to add context to albums or individual photos. The most demanded feature from existing users, this dialog will enhance the creative process.

Visitor Counts – simple tracking counter to determine the popularity of individual images will eliminate the need for configuring logging tools and let photographers build understanding of their audience’s interests.

About – displays more information about the album and the photographer. It also allows for easy browsing between different albums from that user.

Sharing – allowing Facebook, Myspace, Digg and other social interaction site sharing in a simple and intuitive way.

Face Recognition – award-winning Polar Rose Face Recognition Widget lets users sort, search, and share their albums based on who appear in the photos.

“We are thrilled to partner with Jalbum.net to establish new standards for high- quality sharing of digital photos,” said Nikolaj Nyholm, CEO of Polar Rose. “By incorporating Polar Rose’s unobtrusive face recognition, Jalbum users are given an easy option to see familiar faces in scenes from their world.”

“Our users trust Jalbum to continuously leap-frog static photo sharing tools,” said David Ekholm, Jalbum Founder and CTO. “The widgets we release today are a reflection of the Jalbum community’s desire to challenge the frontiers of digital image display.”

About Jalbum
Stockholm, Sweden based Jalbum.net is the premier community of photographers and cutting-edge digital presentation tools. Jalbum was started as a hobby project by David Ekholm in 2002. Over four million downloads of Jalbum software have enabled amateur and professional photographers alike to create more than 22 million custom and expressive albums. Creators may display photographs on the Jalbum.net network or host them on their professional or personal websites. Funded by Nordic Venture Partners since 2006, Jalbum currently has 10 employees.

GPhotospace.com announced today the launch of PC and Mac versions of the GPhotospace Add-on for Firefox and Flock. Leveraging the Gmail platform, the GPhotospace Add-on shares albums online many times faster than most solutions. GPhotospace also announced today that proceeds from the software will be donated to help sustainability in rural Africa through the relief organization Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief.

Using GPhotospace, private photo sharing becomes extremely straightforward. In a seamless experience within the Add-on, users simply select their photos, upload them to their GMail storage, select their recipients and send album viewing invitations through email.

Says founder Colin How, “I was on my phone with my brother while he was getting started with GPhotospace. Within seconds he had selected 170 megs of images and was sharing them with me. The speed is the difference maker.”

Addressing privacy concerns, GPhotospace has engineered a unique solution where users’ Gmail credentials are used to log-in, but these credentials are never actually sent or stored on any servers other than Gmail’s servers, using an encrypted https connection. Additionally, users who choose not to use their main Gmail account with GPhotospace can simply create a new Gmail account specifically for their photo storage.

“This is really the best of both worlds for those wanting quick private sharing,” says GPhotospace CTO John Harley. “For Gmail users, the familiar interface will have them sharing photo albums in seconds. For those not using Gmail as their main email program, GPhotospace is a compelling reason to grab a free Gmail account and use it exclusively to share their photos, quickly and securely.”

GPhotospace founders Colin How and John Harley are excited to give their user-base the ability to make a real difference in people’s lives. In lieu of payment, they are asking those who rely on GPhotospace to make a donation to help plant a tree in Africa through CPAR (http://www.cpar.ca/youcanhelp.asp?page=planttree). “CPAR is very excited about the opportunity that this partnership with GPhotospace presents. We believe that this joint effort which links technology with eco-friendly sustainable solutions such as tree-planting in Africa, is an excellent way to support communities on a global scale,” says Roxane Tracey, Communications & Fundraising Manager, CPAR.

GPhotospace is now available for immediate download for Mac and PC at http://www.gphotospace.com/download.html

About GPhotospace.com
GPhotospace was created by a group of photo enthusiasts and Internet veterans eager to break down the barriers of photo-sharing online. The result is a Firefox extension that leverages Gmail to provide quick, easy uploading with loads of free storage.

The GPhotospace team has over 30 years experience working in the digital imaging software space for companies such as Adobe and ACD Systems. The combination of industry knowledge and shared frustrations led to the creation of this new extension that facilitates online photo sharing among friends and family.

Learn more about GPhotospace or contact GPhotospace at http://www.gphotospace.com/.

While doing the annual purging of the tryptophan ritual ysterday I came across Photojojo, which listed 12 contests on their website.  As usual, appropriate disclaimers were given as you may or may not surrender your copyrights to images even for entering the various contests.  I took a look through them, and one of them struck me by surprise:  National Geographic.  Here is the copyright condition for participating:

]]> http://www.digitalpixels.net/2008/11/varia/the-web/be-careful-with-photo-contests/feed/ 0 http://www.digitalpixels.net/2008/11/varia/the-web/the-artist-who-can-turn-a-market-stall-into-a-masterpiece/ http://www.digitalpixels.net/2008/11/varia/the-web/the-artist-who-can-turn-a-market-stall-into-a-masterpiece/#comments Thu, 27 Nov 2008 22:15:34 +0000 admin http://www.digitalpixels.net/?p=1095

Field of dreams: The countryside landscape has broccoli for trees, potatoes for rocks and basil and herbs for the grass. The path is made from nuts, while the basket is bread with a mushroom wheel.

The balloons were crafted out of apple, mango, a strawberry, bananas, garlic, lemons and a lime

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GPhotospace.com announced today the launch of PC and Mac versions of the GPhotospace Add-on for Firefox and Flock. Leveraging the Gmail platform, the GPhotospace Add-on shares albums online many times faster than most solutions. GPhotospace also announced today that proceeds from the software will be donated to help sustainability in rural Africa through the relief organization Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief.

Lightning-Fast Photo Sharing: GPhotospace Leverages Gmail to Create Firefox Add-On for Free Private Photo Sharing-Proceeds to Support Sustainability

GPhotospace.com announced today the launch of PC and Mac versions of the GPhotospace Add-on for Firefox and Flock. Leveraging the Gmail platform, the GPhotospace Add-on shares albums online many times faster than most solutions. GPhotospace also announced today that proceeds from the software will be donated to help sustainability in rural Africa through the relief organization Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief.

Using GPhotospace, private photo sharing becomes extremely straightforward. In a seamless experience within the Add-on, users simply select their photos, upload them to their GMail storage, select their recipients and send album viewing invitations through email.

Says founder Colin How, “I was on my phone with my brother while he was getting started with GPhotospace. Within seconds he had selected 170 megs of images and was sharing them with me. The speed is the difference maker.”

Addressing privacy concerns, GPhotospace has engineered a unique solution where users’ Gmail credentials are used to log-in, but these credentials are never actually sent or stored on any servers other than Gmail’s servers, using an encrypted https connection. Additionally, users who choose not to use their main Gmail account with GPhotospace can simply create a new Gmail account specifically for their photo storage.

“This is really the best of both worlds for those wanting quick private sharing,” says GPhotospace CTO John Harley. “For Gmail users, the familiar interface will have them sharing photo albums in seconds. For those not using Gmail as their main email program, GPhotospace is a compelling reason to grab a free Gmail account and use it exclusively to share their photos, quickly and securely.”

GPhotospace founders Colin How and John Harley are excited to give their user-base the ability to make a real difference in people’s lives. In lieu of payment, they are asking those who rely on GPhotospace to make a donation to help plant a tree in Africa through CPAR (http://www.cpar.ca/youcanhelp.asp?page=planttree). “CPAR is very excited about the opportunity that this partnership with GPhotospace presents. We believe that this joint effort which links technology with eco-friendly sustainable solutions such as tree-planting in Africa, is an excellent way to support communities on a global scale,” says Roxane Tracey, Communications & Fundraising Manager, CPAR.

GPhotospace is now available for immediate download for Mac and PC at http://www.gphotospace.com/download.html

About GPhotospace.com
GPhotospace was created by a group of photo enthusiasts and Internet veterans eager to break down the barriers of photo-sharing online. The result is a Firefox extension that leverages Gmail to provide quick, easy uploading with loads of free storage.

The GPhotospace team has over 30 years experience working in the digital imaging software space for companies such as Adobe and ACD Systems. The combination of industry knowledge and shared frustrations led to the creation of this new extension that facilitates online photo sharing among friends and family.

Learn more about GPhotospace or contact GPhotospace at http://www.gphotospace.com/

We all do it. Even the sort of cutting-edge, super-cool street photographers who are more likely to get excited by a pile of concrete than a glowing sunset will find themselves in a spot of nature, holding a camera and thinking “That will make a nice picture.”

It’s why just about every photographer has a folder marked “landscapes” (or “nature” or just “outdoors”) on their hard drives, and just about every commercial photographer wonders what on earth they’re going to do with it. With the number of landscape images available clearly outstripping demand – even if only a fraction of them are professional quality – is it really possible to turn images of sunsets, woods and hills into hard cash?

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Tsuneji Uchida also told Reuters that Canon was aiming to cut $1 billion in costs with a new computer system to be completed by 2010 and that he was in no rush to join an acquisition spree by other cash-rich Japanese firms.

The economic slowdown has started to hit sales of digital single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras — high-end models that use interchangeable lenses — but overall Canon’s camera sales are solid ahead of the year-end shopping season, Uchida said.

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PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the tenth edition of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine. The PhotographyBB Online Magazine is quickly becoming a leading resource in the future of free information distribution, offering our readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, and image post processing tutorials in Adobe® Photoshop™, and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom™.

This month’s release includes a tutorial on better night photography, a guide on keeping your camera gear (and yourself) safe when shooting in winter conditions, Photoshopping your own personalized (to each recipient) holiday cards, “Is CS4 worth the upgrade?,” a look at infrared photography, and much more.

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“What began as a small PDF e-zine for digital SLR beginners has now grown into a popular resource for digital photographers of all skill levels. We’ve been so fortunate in receiving article contributions from a generous team of hard working volunteer writers. As a result, we’ve been able to expand the magazine considerably, giving our readers new article columns with useful tutorials and techniques for every digital photographer.”

By way of download in either PDF or ZIP formats, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. In a completely ad-free format, each issue contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers.

In addition to articles which aide photographers in getting the most from their DSLR cameras, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and applicable tutorials on how to use post-processing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom, to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

Download the PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue #10
in PDF or ZIP Format:

PDF (7.38 MB) | ZIP (6.82 MB)

There’s an old cliché about a picture being able to speak a thousand words, so you’d imagine that having shot a great image, you wouldn’t need to say any more. You could just edit it, make it available for sale and let the eloquence of its colors and composition do the talking.

If only. Images made available for sale online also need a long list of keywords; they help buyers track down the photos they need. While keywording sounds like a chore, in practice, it’s not as hard as it sounds. Andres Rodriguez, a top microstock photographer, describes his process as: typing the first keywords that come to mind; checking his own previous images on similar themes to make sure nothing was forgotten; cross-checking with three or four images from other photographers; then saving his list as a template for the future.

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One of my favorite photography resources – along with  DigitalPixels.net  – is Steve Paxton’s website www.paxtonprints.com , nice photos ( love those hdr’ish – lucisart’ish – dave hill’ish detailed portraits , the latest news, and well written photography articles from Steve himself, check it out.

“I’ve been a photographer in the Seattle area for over fifteen years. I am passionate about wedding and portrait photography – I love capturing unique images that reflect my clients’ personality! Head over to Paxton Portraits to check out my portrait and wedding work”

Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.
Search tip

Add “source:life” to any Google image search and search only the LIFE photo archive. For example: computer source:life

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This past year has been one of the roughest years for the newspaper and magazine industry — and truth be told — the outlook for the next few years looks even grimmer.

It seems that there isn’t a day that goes by without reports of a newspaper chain cutting dozens or even hundreds of jobs, circulation and general public interest in the mainstream media dissipating, and advertisers slashing their spending as well.

Then there’s the constant threat to our livelihood by those wanting to work for “free” or in exchange for “access” or to get “published” and clients expecting that dangling such carrots are enough to entice us to work for “free”. With the explosion of digital cameras and easy ways to easily e-mail/transmit photographs (at the perceived near zero cost other than the initial investment in equipment, which is later realized to be a falsehood) the market is now and forever changed.

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In light of the demise of Digital Railroad, a few readers have written expressing concern about the future of PhotoShelter, and what their
closing of the PhotoShelter Collection means. So, we thought we’d ask them how things are going, and we turned to Grover Sanschagrin for answers.

1) Some readers were concerned about the closing of the PhotoShelter Collection and seem to be confusing that with the entire PhotoShelter service. Can you shed some light on this?

We closed down the PhotoShelter Collection because it wasn’t cost-effective to keep it running considering the current economic climate. The last thing we wanted to do was put the PhotoShelter Personal Archive in jeopardy. This is the product we started with over 3 years ago, with over 35,000 photographers subscribing to it. It was a difficult decision at the time, but it was the right decision. Doing so allowed us to cut the burn rate – and “cutting the burn” is the key to survival right now.

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FotoNation FaceEnhance Solution Improves Portraits in Camera Phones and Digital Still Cameras

SAN JOSE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Tessera Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq:TSRA) today announced its new FotoNation® FaceEnhance solution, which beautifies captured images of human faces by smoothing lines and blemishes to improve the capabilities of digital still cameras (DSCs), camera phones and other camera-enabled devices.

The FotoNation FaceEnhance solution automatically reduces the appearance of wrinkles and other skin imperfections from human faces in an image, without the need for additional editing with PC software. It can be applied automatically upon image capture, or applied manually in the display setting when viewing an image. The solution can also be used in display devices, such as digital picture frames.

“The FotoNation FaceEnhance solution is the latest addition to our portfolio of image enhancement technologies that are transforming the next generation of camera-enabled devices,” said Michael Bereziuk, executive vice president, Imaging & Optics, Tessera. “Our goal is to enhance and simplify the user experience in taking images of the highest quality whether those images are taken on a digital still camera (DSC), or cell phone camera.”

The FotoNation FaceEnhance solution is available for licensing now from Tessera.

About FotoNation Technology
The FotoNation family of technologies from Tessera provides a full portfolio of in-camera image enhancement solutions for digital photos. The FotoNation Red solution automatically detects and removes red- and golden-eye defects. The FotoNation FaceTracker solution, which includes the SmileCheck and BlinkCheck extension modules, detects the presence of human faces in pictures to ensure optimal focus, exposure, color balance and image quality.

About Tessera
Tessera Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq:TSRA) is a leading provider of miniaturization technologies for the electronics industry. The company licenses its innovations, as well as delivers products based on these innovations to promote the development of the supply chain infrastructure, enabling manufacturers to get the right product to market, at the right time. Tessera is headquartered in San Jose, California. For information call 1.408.321.6000 or go to http://www.tessera.com.

Sponsored by leading image science company DxO Labs, this free online resource delivers in‐depth, objective RAW‐based image quality data to enable fair analysis and comparison of digital cameras.

San Diego, California, USA, and Paris, France – Nov 17th, 2008 – At the Image Sensor 2008 conference in San Diego, DxO Labs today unveils dxomark.com, a new website delivering key objective metrics of sensor performance for a variety of cameras measured directly on the RAW image. Available as a free online resource, dxomark.com makes it possible for the first time to assess the intrinsic quality of a camera before the impact of any RAW conversion.

“There are many valuable resources reviewing the image quality of digital cameras, but none of them consider the actual RAW signal straight from the camera sensor,” explains Nicolas Touchard, Vice President of Marketing, DxO Labs Image Quality Evaluation business. “Demanding photographers who shoot in RAW should only care about the genuine quality of the RAW image, yet until now they have had to rely on measures based on converted RAW images, obviously biased by the processing applied to them, whether embedded or performed offline with a software RAW converter. Furthermore, as RAW converters evolve and improve, the latent potential of RAW images can only be gauged by analyzing the RAW images themselves, projecting the potential quality achievable with the ultimate RAW converter. This is why we believe that our approach will dramatically change the way photographers evaluate digital cameras.”

dxomark.com provides in‐depth measurements of all the relevant characteristics of a sensor: actual ISO sensitivity (which generally differs from the value reported by the camera), SNR, dynamic range, tonal range, color depth and sensitivity, metamerism, etc. dxomark.com already covers 50 popular cameras,
including DSLRs, medium‐formats and bridges. The site will be updated on a regular basis with new cameras.

dxomark.com RAW image quality database relies on DxO Analyzer, the world’s leading turn‐key laboratory solution for image quality evaluation. Thanks to its accuracy, completeness, and reliability, DxO Analyzer has become the reference tool for numerous leading imaging industry players, photography magazines and websites.

DxOMark Sensor, a simple scale for RAW image quality
DxOMark Sensor aggregates dxomark.com’s large and complex set of measures into a simple scale, allowing for easy comparison between camera performances. The DxOMark Sensor scale is designed to map to real world photographic scenarios such as portrait, landscape and action photography, ensuring that the scale is relevant to photographers.

DxOMark Sensor is naturally an open scale, as it will need to cope with performance improvements driven by the evolution of sensor technologies.

dxomark.com Insights, the view of an insider
To help understand the ramifications of such a new tool, and to assist those who want to take advantage of the RAW image quality database, dxomark.com features a number of technical papers, collectively referred to as “insights,” written by DxO Labs scientists. These technical articles aim in particular to give an original perspective on the technology challenges faced by the imaging industry.

Early Insights include a paper on how pixel count impacts noise, providing an unexpected yet well supported contribution to this controversial topic, along with an analysis of the evolution of camera sensor performance over the past few years.

The Insights section will be updated on a regular basis with more technical papers.

A free resource for photography journalists and experts
Accessible for free to visitors, dxomark.com has in fact been designed to serve the imaging community, and more precisely the photo press. Photography journalists and experts can now complement their analyses and reviews with an evaluation of the intrinsic performance of cameras, regardless of optics or processing considerations.

About DxO Labs
DxO Labs offers products and solutions ensuring excellence in digital imaging. The company develops and licenses patented intellectual property serving the entire digital imaging chain:

• For consumer electronics OEM/ODM (such as digital camera and camera phone vendors): embedded software and silicon architectures for real time still and video image processing;
• For imaging component suppliers (camera module manufacturers, sensor vendors, and processor vendors) as well as photography journalists and imaging experts: image quality evaluation and measurement tools;
• For serious and demanding photographers, PC and Mac solutions to enhance cameras image quality.

Kodak Asserts that Samsung and LG Camera Phones Infringe its Digital Camera Patents

ROCHESTER, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE:EK) announced today that it has filed complaints against Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and other related entities for infringement of Kodak patents.

The Kodak actions specifically allege that Samsung and LG camera phones infringe Kodak digital camera patents. The patents in question cover technology related to image capture, compression and data storage and a method for previewing motion images.

Kodak filed against Samsung and LG in the United States District Court for the Western District of New York, as well as in the U.S. International Trade Commission. Kodak’s District Court complaints request compensation for damages resulting from the companies’ infringement, and both the District Court and ITC actions seek injunctions prohibiting Samsung and LG from further importation and sale of products cited in the complaints. Kodak did not disclose the amount of damages it is pursuing.

“Kodak has a long history of innovation and we have invested many millions of dollars developing our digital camera technology,” said Laura G. Quatela, Chief Intellectual Property Officer, and Vice President, Eastman Kodak Company. “We’ve held discussions with both companies in an attempt to resolve this issue and have not been able to reach a satisfactory agreement. Consequently, we must take this legal action in order to ensure that we protect the interests of our shareholders and existing licensees of Kodak digital camera patents.”

Kodak has licensed its imaging patents to several leading technology companies including: MEI/Panasonic, Motorola, Nokia, Olympus, Sanyo, Sharp, Sony, Sony Ericsson and others.

What sets the good photos apart from the ever-increasing stack of common photos, are the people and actions photographed. A photo of a person feverishly grabbing his belongings before his house floods, is almost certainly going to be a more gripping photo than the one of the flood water and nothing else. At least, that’s the case in the world of photojournalism.

More information is derived form photos like these. Document the people affected by the news you are covering and you will be a step ahead of most other amateur photographers.

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The Tamron User Entering the Best Image of Americana Will Receive a Tamron AF18-270mm VC Lens

November 12, 2008, Commack, NY— Baseball, apple pie, diners, drive-ins, folk art. From its music to its main streets, America is defined by its history and its present, how we live and breathe within the fabric of our society. Enter the 2009 Tamron User Photo Contest and showcase your image of what makes America tick!

The Grand Prize Winner of the 2009 contest will receive a Tamron AF18-270mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC LD Aspherical IF Macro zoom lens—the world’s first 15X ratio zoom— featuring Tamron’s new Vibration Compensation mechanism (a $599 value).

This year’s guest judge is Judith Pishnery, professional photographer and SCAD/Atlanta professor. Pishnery has been immersed in the field of photography for over 25 years. She was always artistic, encouraged by her grandfather, and when she discovered photography her future was determined. She has worked with corporate, editorial and advertising clients creating images for brochures, magazines and other printed materials, throughout the US and abroad.

Her fine art photographs have been shown and collected internationally. Along with creating photographs, she has been sharing her passion and expertise by teaching photography students in various art colleges and schools for more than 20 years. She leads creative photographic workshops in the US and abroad and is currently a professor at SCAD/ Atlanta. See her work at http://www.pisconeri.com/

Pictures submitted must be original, the property of the photographer, and photographed using a Tamron lens. The contest is open to Tamron users residing in the United States and all entries must be received no later than October 31, 2009. Complete details about uploading entries to the “Tamron Share Your Photos” section of the website and an entry form can be found at http://www.tamron.com. Submissions are limited to a maximum of three per person.

In addition to receiving the latest Tamron lens featuring new VC (Vibration Compensation) technology, the winner’s picture will be showcased in the Tamron Viewfinder newsletter, and a complete album of images by the winner will be posted in the gallery section of the popular Tamron website and on the Tamron Page on Facebook®. In addition, twenty photographers whose images were selected by our judges as Favorites will have their names and winning images published on the website and on the Tamron Page on Facebook® for all to admire.

About Tamron
Tamron is a leading manufacturer of photographic lenses. Among its many optical and mechanical innovations since the founding of the company in 1950, Tamron’s development of mass-produced hybrid aspherical elements paved the way for today’s compact high ratio zoom lenses when, in 1992, this technology was incorporated into the groundbreaking 28-200mm. Tamron continues to lead in this category with the new 18-270mm — featuring an unprecedented 15X zoom range—and featuring Tamron’s proprietary Vibration Compensation (VC) system. Tamron has garnered international acclaim for its high ratio zoom lenses.

“The CNN hologram during the US presidential election bought the news network a wave of positive publicity.

But the fizz has gone out of the much-vaunted new technology as bloggers and hologram experts lined up today to point out that the holograms were, in fact, not really holograms.”

“There was no live, glowing 3-D picture that people could walk around,” wrote analyst Sascha Segan.

“The ‘image’ of Jessica Yellin and Wolf Blitzer standing in the same room existed only on TV screens.”

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“The network won’t divulge the cost of the technology, which allowed Wolf Blitzer to speak to what viewers saw as a flickering image of correspondent Jessica Yellin, who was in Chicago. (An even more weird moment came when CNN’s Anderson Cooper interviewed musician will.i.am from Black Eyed Peas via hologram — or was it hol.o.gram?)”

“To create the image, CNN used 40 cameras to film Yellin, a green-screen environment inside a specially constructed tent, a TV screen that allowed Yellin to see the combined image of her and Blitzer, a set of computers that made Yellin’s image camera-ready, and “a mix of mechanical and infrared camera-tracking technology to create a realistic holographic image,” according to CNN spokeswoman Erica Puntel.”

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PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue 9 is out for free download :

PDF (6.94 MB) | ZIP (6.42 MB)

New Products and Services Leverage Kodak’s ‘Connect with Professional Quality’ Commitment across the Entire Professional Photography Spectrum

NEW YORK, Oct. 22 /PRNewswire/—Eastman Kodak Company continues to bring new products and services to the professional photography market, combining product innovation, service expertise and marketing assets, to drive business for the professional market. At this year’s PhotoPlus show Oct 23 – 25 in New York City, Kodak will kick off an initiative to highlight the work of professional photographers on the Kodak Times Square Gallery, starting with this year’s crop of Photo District News (PDN) “PDN 30.” Also, at PhotoPlus, attendees can hear from some of the PDN 30 photographers at PhotoPlus on Saturday, Oct. 25, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM, in a discussion entitled “PDN’s 30: Strategies for the Young Working Photographer.” At the Kodak booth, #624, Kodak will showcase its new KODAK PROFESSIONAL EKTAR 100 Film, the enhanced KODAK Network of Professional Photographers program and Kodak’s Pro Lab Locator, and new KODAK PROFESSIONAL Papers.

“Underlying every initiative undertaken at Kodak is our commitment to exceeding the expectations of our most discerning professional customers, through the products and services we offer and the way in which we strive to assist the professional market in a continually changing environment,” said Mary Jane Hellyar, president, Film, Photofinishing and Entertainment Group and executive vice president, Eastman Kodak Company. “We also strive to help our professional partners connect with each other, as well as the customers they serve, from individual consumers to large, multinational corporations. Each relies on the professional market for quality capture and output and KODAK Products and Services help ensure that the results will meet the highest standards.”

Kodak’s products and services for the Professional market include:

Kodak Times Square Gallery: Beginning with the PDN 30, Kodak will feature professional photographers on the Kodak Times Square Gallery, Kodak’s large-screen outdoor display located in the heart of New York City. Throughout 2009, visitors to Times Square can experience the work of some of the world’s top photographers and learn more about their work. Kodak will identify photographers to highlight on the Times Square Gallery through partner nominations and Kodak’s photographer relationships. The initiative serves to highlight the value of professional photographers and professional labs, and drive awareness and engagement with the professional market.

KODAK PROFESSIONAL EKTAR 100 (EKTAR 100 Film): The new film, with ISO 100 speed, high saturation and ultra-vivid color, offers the finest, smoothest grain of any color negative film available today. EKTAR 100 Film is the ideal choice for commercial photographers and advanced amateurs for applications such as nature, travel, fashion and product photography, where the emphasis is often on color. The new film incorporates KODAK VISION Motion Picture Film technology to achieve its unparalleled fine grain. It’s great for photographers who prefer the ease of working with 35mm, and who look for extraordinary enlargement capability when scanning and printing.

KODAK Network of Professional Photographers: Kodak revised its KODAK Network of Professional Photographers, its professional photographer locator. It continues to be the trusted source for consumers to find high-quality photographers to capture, print and preserve important life events. The newly improved site, http://www.findapro.Kodak.com, provides a quicker, easier- to- access and more useful catalog of services by professional photographers. Users can view sample images from across the country and link directly to photographers’ Web sites. Whether in need of a professional photographer for a wedding, portrait, special event, commercial assignment or more, the improved site allows consumers to sort by photographic specialties and geography while also showing examples of photographers’ image types to help consumers in their searches.

Pro Lab Locator: For photographers who find themselves working on location or on specialty projects, either cross town, cross country or cross continent, Eastman Kodak Company provides them with a one-stop, online location to find a lab that offers the highest quality services and output. The ProLab Locator, part of the KODAK Pro Lab Resource Center (PLRC), comprises hundreds of professional labs, searchable by specialty and location. To access the ProLab Locator, photographers can visit http://www.prolabresourcecenter.kodak.com.

KODAK PROFESSIONAL Papers: New papers augment the full portfolio of professional papers from Kodak. Kodak introduced wide-format offerings of its highly popular KODAK PROFESSIONAL Inkjet Photo Paper, now available in 36-inch and 44-inch roll widths. The new wide format allows photographers to create enlargements, reprints, proofs—right in their studios. It is available in Lustre and Gloss surface finish options and is instantly dry to the touch. It works with all inkjet printers, and Kodak provides downloadable custom ICC color profiles optimized for most printers. Along with the new wider format, KODAK PROFESSIONAL Inkjet Photo Paper is available in 10-, 16-, and 24-inch roll widths, as well as 8.5 by 11-inch and 13 by 9-inch sheets. In addition, Kodak delivered the new KODAK PROFESSIONAL SUPRA ENDURA VC Digital Paper to market.

More information on all KODAK Professional Products and Services is available at http://www.kodak.com/go/professionalproducts.

About Kodak
As the world’s foremost imaging innovator, Kodak helps consumers, businesses, and creative professionals unleash the power of pictures and printing to enrich their lives.

Almost every bride has that one thing that they will consider the most important part of their wedding day, and will usually spend the most amount of money on it. Remember that once the cake is cut, the guests are gone, and the dress is cleaned and preserved, all you really have left after are your photos. But how much should you spend on your wedding photography?

How do you know if you’re paying fair price? What about determining a photographer’s skills and your anticipated quality standard to match your budget? In this interview, we ask many such questions to photographer and one-time bride herself: Caroline Ghetes; on her take of the professional photographer and consumer views on the subject of wedding photography cost

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You can use it on your blog/website or desktop in order to follow our latest news.

Corel is delighted to announce a new Corel® Paint Shop Pro® Photo X2 ‘Before and After’ competition. This summer, we want you to show us how far you can improve a photo using Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2. Paint Shop Pro Photo users, photography consumers and enthusiasts alike are welcome to enter the competition and have the opportunity to win a prize – a Sony® Alpha 300 DSLR Camera.

To enter this fun new competition and have a chance to win this amazing prize, visit http://www.corel.co.uk/beforeandafterand follow these four simple steps:
1.  Download your free 30-day trial of the award-winning Corel® Paint Shop Pro® Photo X2—Corel’s flagship digital imaging software package which provides easy-to-use, professional-quality photo editing at an affordable price
2.  Go through your photos and choose the most dreadful photo that wasn’t worthy of a place in your album
3.  Now, the transformation can begin. Using your downloaded trial of Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2, you can edit the photo as desired. Use the Unique Learning Centre for tips on what tools to use
4.  When your work of art is complete and you are happy to reveal it, simply submit the two photos – both the ‘before’ and ‘after’ image by sending them to ‘beforeandafter@corel.co.uk’.

We have also provided you with video tutorials for that extra bit of help. There are some really simple edits that you can do, such as reducing red eye, removing blemishes, whitening teeth, adding a bit of a tan or removing objects out of photos. Choose from over 500 effects or why not be more adventurous and try the Skin Smoothing feature to remove wrinkles or change the colour of something within the photo such as clothing or an object with the Colour Changer.

So, get photo-editing today and enter our competition for your chance to win.

All entries submissions must be in by Thursday 18th December 2008.

For full details and terms and conditions, please visit http://www.corel.co.uk/beforeandafter

For most workaday photographers, the world of auctions, collectors and the art market can seem very far away. But that doesn’t stop just about everyone who picks up a camera from dreaming about it. While few photographers seriously expect their wedding formals or baby portraits to change hands for six-figure sums, many would certainly like to believe that one day, just maybe, they’ll see their landscapes or their street photography hanging in a gallery, reviewed by critics, adored by curators and fought over by collectors.

Not only it could happen for photographers with the right talent but according to art expert, Lauren Gentile, photographers might even be in an enviable position in comparison to some other artists.

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RAW image files are proprieties of the cameras manufacturer their file extensions are unique to its own and do not exchange well over other programs they consist of “.RAF” for Fuji “.ORF” for Olympus, “.NEF” for Nikon and “.CRW”, “CR2″ for Canon, just to name a few. Adobe has also developed a RAW image file extension, “.DNG” meaning digital negative in 2004, Abodes DNG was created with the intention of unifying the individual RAW camera file formats.

Your RAW image is at its most pure, but there is no guarantee that your cameras RAW image will be recognized by available software applications sometime in the future. You may have the most up to date software to read your Pentax RAW images today, but long-term archival of your RAW files do present some concerns

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Official Call For Entries: 2009 International Underwater Photo & Video Competitions

PRESTIGIOUS INTERNATIONALUNDERWATER PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEO COMPETITION SERIES ANNOUNCE 2009 COMPETITIONS – OVER $75,000 IN PRIZES AND GLORY UP FOR GRABS

The “Superbowl” of International Underwater Image & Video Competitions Celebrates The Beauty, Mystery & Plight of The Oceans With Categories For All Levels From Novices To Professionals

New York, NY (Oct. 14, 2009) – Photographers of all levels will help celebrate the beauty, Mystery and delicacy of the marine environment as the 4th annual international underwater photography and video competition series hosted by UnderwaterCompetition.com kicks off this week. The competition has become the “Superbowl” of international underwater imagery competitions, with over $75,000 of world-class prizes, major industry involvement, and the opportunity to have your images showcased to the world as some of the best. Esteemed judges include leading professional underwater photographers, cinematographers and magazine editors from around the world.

The unique competition series was founded by professional underwater photographers Jason Heller & Eric Cheng and hosted by popular websites DivePhotoGuide.com and Wetpixel.com. The series is held in association with two leading scuba diving expos on opposite sides of the world, simultaneously – Our World Underwater, now in its 39th year and one of the largest consumer scuba diving expos in the US, and DEEP Indonesia, the first and only scuba diving and watersports expo in Indonesia.

Due to the overwhelming growth of the competition series, the official competition website has been given an overhaul and relaunched at http://www.underwatercompetition.com.

Participants will compete in technical, themed and video categories, to win more than $75,000 in prizes including premium dive travel, underwater photo and video equipment, scuba diving gear and more! Dive packages include trips to some of the top photo destinations in the world. A complete list of sponsors and prizes are listed on the website.

New this year is a novice category in the Our World Underwater competition, which opens up the competition to a far greater number of scuba divers who are casual underwater photographers.

Deadline for submissions Jan 15, 2009

Winners for each respective competition will be announced live on stage at either the Our World Underwater film festival in Chicago (February 20-22, 2009), or at DEEP Indonesia in Jakarta (March 27 – 29, 2009), and will be published by our supporting media partners worldwide. Winning videos will be broadcast via podcast as episodes of the iTunes-featured DiveFilm Podcast Video and DiveFilm High Definition Podcast Video

As with all UnderwaterCompetition.com events, 15% of entry proceeds will be donated to marine conservation efforts.

If turning photography into income has a downside, it’s this: it doesn’t always work. You’ll pitch for jobs you won’t get, enter competitions you won’t win and submit images to stock companies who will send them back encouraging you to try again.

While for some photographers that might be the best option – at least until they’ve practiced a little more and honed their techniques – for others, it’s a lost opportunity. Rejection might be as much a part of photography as model releases and memory cards but it’s also a chance to spot weaknesses and make your photography better and certainly more commercial.

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Getting accepted into stock collections can be daunting and many professional photographers are rejected from stock collections regularly. Stock can be a difficult area to break into, so we’ve compiled some secrets to help you get started in stock photography and build a business for yourself in this competitive field.

1. Do Something Different

One of the biggest issues in stock photography is that most traditional stock photos all look the same. Stock buyers are increasingly looking for more “real” looking photos (ie. people who look like real, normal people vs. models with huge fake smiles). We have heard that buyers are looking for diversity in ethnicity, age and weight in the stock photography they purchase. Rather than taking the same typical photo, try a new different angle. In product photography there is room as well – think of how to shoot the product in context, or how to make certain features really stand out.

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Always, always, always edit down. This is the mistake I used to make. I’d shoot like a bat outa hell, determined to get at least a handful of great shots from each sitting, then I’d deliver nearly all the images to my client on a disk. Thus the hideoderous image framed on my friend’s wall. The image was poorly lit, poorly composed and just plain YUCK. It’s an image that never should have seen the world beyond my computer. Period.

Remember that once those images have been delivered, they’re out there. 10 years from now, when you’re the best photographer the world has ever known, those images may still be gracing people’s walls. . . a very poor representation of your work and perhaps a hindrance to gaining future clients.

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A selection of photos of Paris

The Fujifilm Student Awards 2009 is now open for entries.

Following the success of the 2008 Awards, Fujifilm Professional has again tied-in with Penguin Books to provide an amazing ‘money can’t buy’ first prize.

In addition to being named Fujifilm Student Photographer of the Year 2009 the winner will see their image on the cover of the next edition of Rachel Carson’s revolutionary work Silent Spring. They will also receive £200 worth of Fujifilm Professional film and 25 Penguin Classics titles of their choice.

The Awards, now in its 24th year, is the longest running and most prestigious student photography awards in the UK. This year’s brief is to capture the significance of the book’s subject: the human destruction of our environment. All images must be taken on Fujifilm Professional film and submitted via http://www.fujifilmstudentawards.co.uk – entry is free and students can enter as many photographs as they wish.

Each short listed Merit winner will receive 10 rolls of Fujicolor PRO160S professional colour negative film, a Penguin Classic of their choice and a copy of The Language of Things. Each Merit winner will be asked to submit a print for final judging.

The college or university that submits the most entries will win £250 worth of Fujifilm Professional film and 100 Penguin Classics titles for their college or university library. Closing date for entries is 28 February 2009.

Jerry Deeney from Fujifilm Professional commented on the Awards: “I regularly speak to college tutors and they are delighted that Fujifilm actively encourages students to learn how to use film in a creative and artistic way. The Awards are now a major part of the curriculum for many colleges. We receive entries from students of all ages and from right across Britain, the Student Awards is seen as an ideal ‘stepping stone’ to a successful career as a professional photographer.”

Jim Stoddart, Penguin Press Art Director, Adam Freudenheim, Penguin Classics Editor and the Publisher of Foto8 magazine, Jon Levy will judge the Awards.

For further details and examples of previous winners, go to http://www.fujifilmstudentawards.co.uk

It’s hard enough figuring out the photography. Professional quality cameras might be affordable these days but they’re still complex tools stuffed with strange features we’re sure we should be using, accessories that come with their own manuals and of course, editing software that demands a whole set of professional skills of its own.

Nor do the demands of photography stop there. Although becoming a skilled and talented image-maker is difficult, the popularity of taking pictures means that there are plenty of people prepared to invest the time, effort and yes, money too, in picking up those abilities.

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Making your first sale is a big step. The second, third and fourth sales feel much easier and once they’re coming in regularly, you can soon find yourself wondering whether you shouldn’t be selling images for a living.

Surely it would just be a matter of stepping up the pace and producing more photos. In no time at all, you’d be able to swap the day job for full days of photography.

Not quite. There are a number of important differences between professional photographers and even semi-pro shooters.

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Hoping to make some money to pay for a new camera or a bigger lens? Anyone can earn money from there photography hobby. Below is a list of events that you can shoot (it is often as easy as picking up the phone) and make some money to support your habit…..er…..hobby.

1. Recreational Sports Playoffs – Sounds bizarre, but for lots of adults, playing on a rec team (and going to the local watering hole afterwards) is an important part of their lives. Take action shots and planned team shots for the playoffs of a local rec sport league. You’ll shoot over a hundred people in one evening, so only a small # have to buy for it to be worth your while.

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The Goal of this Website is to provide RAW-Files of nearly all available Digitalcameras.

There are actually more than 125 different RAW-Files of Digital cameras available.

All available images of RAW-Samples are offered to you under the CCL (Creative Common License)

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Bogen Imaging, a leading distributor of top quality photographic support products and accessories in North America, proudly announces a free webinar titled “Selling Your Products Online? Learn How to Shoot Products that Sell Themselves.” The course will be held from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m EDT, on Friday, October 3, and will provide businesses, especially the growing number of online retailers that shoot their own product photography, with valuable information on how to produce more effective, ready-to-use digital images.

Lastolite product managers, Mark Astmann and Christopher Abbiss, will share tips on how to use items like the Cubelite, a quick portable lighting system, in order to get the most out of a product photo shoot. Online business professionals will learn the importance of positioning and lighting and how to effortlessly produce high-quality, professional-looking product images without having to commission the services of outside professionals.

Topics for Discussion Include:
- The Cubelite: an easy-to-use portable lighting system perfect for producing high-quality product photography to master the complexities of lighting, shadows and reflections and take ready to use digital images
- Exciting lighting options
- Tips to achieve great images with a digital point and shoot camera
- Positioning and placing light on products
- Utilizing white balancing to eliminate unwanted colors

Webinar participants will have access to a number of exclusive advantages, including one-on-one interaction with instructors, and will be automatically entered in a chance to win one of three Lastolite 20-inch Ezybalances. Winners must be US residents and will be announced at the end of the webinar, so participants must attend the event in its entirety to be eligible to win. A free recorded version of the webinar will also be available to registered participants within 24 hours of the event.

To register for the free webinar course and for additional information, please visit http://www.bogenimaging.us/Jahia/site/bius/pid/18094

About Bogen Imaging
Bogen Imaging Inc is a leading distributor of key accessories brands for the photographic, video, cine and lighting production markets. Bogen is an international company within the Imaging Division of the Vitec Group, which owns the following leading international brands: Manfrotto, Gitzo, Kata, National Geographic Bags and Tripods, Avenger, and I.F.F. As the exclusive US distributor of Metz, Gossen, Elinchrom, Lastolite, Reflecmedia, Formatt Filters, and Rotatrim, Bogen offers the most complete range of exceptional camera and lighting accessories in the business. The Bogen Imaging international network covers the USA, Germany, France, Italy, UK and Japan.

Collaboration with The Prince’s Rainforests Project
• Environment is central theme of this year’s awards
• Student programme to span six continents

A major new initiative, in association with The Prince’s Rainforests Project (PRP), was announced on Monday 22 September, at the launch of the second annual Sony World Photography Awards 2009 – a truly global competition which honours both professional and amateur photographers.

Speakers at the launch at the Seippel Gallery in Cologne included Scott Gray, Managing Director of the Sony World Photography Awards, James Kennedy, General Manager of Marketing Communications at Sony Europe, Vanessa Winship, winner of the 2008 I’iris d’or and Briony Mathieson from The Prince’s Rainforest Project. Also speaking were Ruth Eichhorn, Director of Photography, GEO Magazine and photographer and President of Magnum Photos, Stuart Franklin.

In addition to the 12 categories for professional photographers and the nine categories for amateurs, the Sony World Photography Awards are delighted to announce the partnership with The Prince’s Rainforests for the PRP Awards which complements this year’s theme of the environment.

Professional photographers will be submitting their portfolios in the hope of being selected for a fully-funded project to document the rainforest regions of the world. Amateur photographers will also be invited to submit their images for a global awareness campaign, using photography to educate and inform.

Also new to this year’s awards:

* An extended university programme which has grown from 10 universities in Europe in the inaugural year of the awards to 60 universities across six continents. The brief for this year’s student competition is to produce one image which highlights a single environmental issue specific to their country.

* The Festival @ The Sony World Photography Awards: a week-long festival of photography that takes place throughout the city of Cannes. Through talks, seminars, screenings, networking events, book signings and many other programmes and events, The World Photography Awards have created a programme for the photographic community to participate and network through. The Festival @ SWPA is also creating a new annual cultural event for the general public and all who enjoy contemporary art.

* A new category list for professional photographers spreading across the three photographic genres – photojournalism and documentary, commercial and fine art

* The introduction of the Sony Campaign Award for amateur photographers, which joins together a global obsession for football with the enthusiasm and passion of photography. Amateur photographers are invited to enter the Campaign Award with a single image that captures the beauty and spirit of football in unexpected places, with the winner having the chance of being one of the photographers used in Sony’s forthcoming digital imaging 2009 campaign work.

* A global touring exhibition – Discovering a World of Images – showcasing images by the 2008 winners and finalists which through the course of a year will visit Belgium; Cologne; Tokyo; Delhi; New York; Singapore; Rio de Janeiro; Moscow and Melbourne.

The Sony World Photography Awards welcome submissions from every corner of the world. Last year – the first year of the awards – over 70,000 entries were received from 178 countries. For both professional and amateur photographers, the categories cover a broad range of subjects from photojournalism to sport, architecture to fashion, offering an all-encompassing competition for the photographic world.

Now, in just their second year, the awards have grown to become much more than an awards programme. It is a mix of festival events, exhibitions, award schemes and student programmes throughout the year. In April 2009 the WPA will host Festival @ The Sony World Photography Awards, a week-long celebration of photography at the Palais des Festival in Cannes attended by some of the most influential names in the photography industry from around the world. The highlight of the week is the awards ceremony gala dinner when the winners in all the categories will be honoured and the Sony World Photography Awards Photographer of the Year will be announced.

Through its many initiatives, the Sony World Photography Awards aim to unite the international photographic community.

Vanessa Winship, winner of the 2008 I’iris d’or comments: “In its in augural year, Sony World Photography Awards have provided an opportunity for me to have had my work judged by some of the photographers whose own work I most respect and admire. In an industry as competitive as my own I was delighted to have been singled out with this series of portraits. I am not a new photographer, but this award has certainly assisted in allowing new audiences to see my work, an important and necessary aspect to anyone working in a visual medium.”

World Photographic Academy
The awards are judged by the World Photographic Academy which today comprises close to 100 of the world’s leading photographers including Elliott Erwitt, Mary-Ellen Mark, Susan Meiselas, Bruce Davidson and Tom Stoddart; gallery owners; picture agencies; international Guilds; picture editors; critics and publishers. Their role is to promote excellence in photography and set the standard for award selections.

Key dates

2008

22 September Professional and amateur categories open for submissions

9 October Global tour opens in Tokyo

31 October Student Focus participating universities announced

25 November WPA Judges announced

2 December Global tour opens in New York

31 December Closing date for professional and amateur categories

2009

24 February Amateur and professional awards shortlist announcement

3 March Student Focus winners’ announcement

17 March Amateur and professional winners’ announcement

14-19 April Festival @ The Sony World Photography Awards – exhibitions and events in Cannes

16 April Sony World Photography Awards gala evening and ceremony

I’ve gathered up all the 16 articles, that make up the Microstock Photographer’s Guide, and turned them into one pdf-file. I did this after having looked the list over, and realized how long it would take to sit and read it all here on my blog. Not being a big fan of reading page after page on screen myself, I figured most of you probably feel the same way. Now, it’s easy to print it all out and read it on paper.

Now, I’ve said all along that I might very well turn the series into an actual book. Of course, the articles would only serve as a starting point. I would have to add many more examples, post-processing tips and so on. On that note, anyone who have read the series are welcome to give me their suggestions. Previously, people have suggested adding more interviews with successful photographers as well as a chapter on legal issues one might encounter in the world of microstock.

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Canon Professional Services Will Enhance Benefits for Pro-Level Shooters In New Three-Tiered Membership Program

LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., September 18, 2008 – Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging, announced today that it will be instituting a new Canon Professional Services (CPS) program beginning in the first quarter of 2009. The new CPS program, which will require all existing members to reapply, will offer three levels of membership – Silver, Gold and Platinum – to qualifying members, with each level receiving better and more extensive service benefits. The new CPS program is designed to provide the appropriate level of service for each professional demographic and support members with faster service, loan equipment, and a range of other benefits to be announced in the coming months.

“A day without a camera is a day without revenue. It is with this sense of urgency that Canon U.S.A. is upgrading the level of service provided by our CPS program to better support our Canon professionals in the field,” stated Yuichi Ishizuka, senior vice president and general manager, Consumer Imaging Group, Canon U.S.A., Inc. “We recognize that our responsibilities to full-time professional Canon photographers extend beyond providing them the tools they need to support their livelihood. As a company, we must also provide an exemplary service and support structure for professionals, indicative of our commitment to the art of photography.”

CPS Silver level membership will be offered free-of-charge to qualifying photographers. This level of membership includes a welcome kit, access to the CPS phone hotline and a 20 percent discount on repairs. For professional photographers requiring a higher level of Canon support, CPS Gold level membership additionally includes access to loan equipment for a two-week trial period and an expedited three-day turnaround on service items.

[ii] Along with a 30 percent service discount, CPS Gold level membership includes two free Check & Clean vouchers. CPS Gold level membership will have an annual fee of $100*.

The CPS Platinum membership level will include priority access to loan equipment for two-week trial periods, 60 percent discount on repairs

[iii], expedited two-day turnaround on equipment service and backup equipment loans if service is longer than two days.

[iv] CPS Platinum level membership will have an annual fee of $500*.

The current CPS program is no longer accepting new members. All current members, regardless of when their existing membership term expires, will continue in the current program through the launch of the new program, and all current memberships will then effectively terminate as of the new program launch date. The new CPS program will begin accepting membership applications via the CPS website, http://www.usa.canon.com/cps, sometime during the 1st quarter of 2009. Existing members may reapply as soon as the new application process becomes available.

For more information on Canon U.S.A., Inc.’s new Canon Professional Services program including qualification requirements and benefits for Silver, Gold, and Platinum level memberships, please check the CPS web page at: http://www.usa.canon.com/cps

About Canon U.S.A., Inc.
Canon U.S.A., Inc. delivers consumer, business-to-business, and industrial imaging solutions. Its parent company, Canon Inc. (NYSE:CAJ), a top patent holder of technology, ranked third overall in the U.S. in 2007†, with global revenues of $39.3 billion, is listed as one of Fortune’s Most Admired Companies in America and is on the 2007 BusinessWeek list of “Top 100 Brands.” To keep apprised of the latest news from Canon U.S.A., sign up for the Company’s RSS news feed by visiting http://www.usa.canon.com/pressroom.

†IFI Patent Intelligence Press Release, January 2008
All referenced product names, and other marks, are trademarks of their respective owners.

Specifications, benefits and availability of the program are subject to change without notice.

*Pricing subject to change at any time.

Discount applies only to items listed on the CPS Service Items list
[ii]Three day turnaround will be subject to certain conditions and limitations which will be announced when the new CPS program launches
[iii]Discount applies only to items listed on the CPS Service Items list

[iv]Two day turnaround will be subject to certain conditions and limitations which will be announced when the new CPS program launches

Debate continues among photographers about the pros and cons of shooting JPEG versus Raw images. Opinions vary depending on who you ask. This can be particularly confusing for new photographers trying to nail down an efficient workflow. The bottom line is that the file format you choose to capture your photographs with will have a significant impact on your workflow. Let’s take a few minutes to examine both formats!

The original JPEG file format was created in 1992 (approved by the ISO setting body in 1994) and is supported by virtually all image editing software and operating systems currently on the market today. This makes it incredibly convenient to use for consumers and professional photographers alike. A big advantage of shooting JPEG is that your camera applies all of the necessary processing adjustments prior to being saved.

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From September 23 to 28 at photokina 2008, the “who’s who” of the international photo and imaging sector will once again present the entire spectrum of products and services in the areas of modern image technology and image application for consumers and professionals. With 1,523 companies from 49 countries exhibiting, the turnout for the sector’s leading trade fair remains strong.

“No other trade fair offers such a comprehensive range of products and services from the world of imaging and for the photographic and imaging sector. In the world of global digital communications, photokina can truly claim to be one of the leading events of its kind,“ said Koelnmesse Executive Vice President Oliver P. Kuhrt. The fair’s organizers — Koelnmesse and the Photographic Industry Association — are expecting approximately 160,000 visitors from all over the world, who will learn about the latest products, services, and trends related to all aspects of imaging media. With 66 percent of the exhibitors coming from abroad and an increase in the number of countries represented (2006: 46 countries), there has once again been a moderate increase in the fair’s international character. photokina thereby strengthens its position as the imaging industry’s most important global business platform, Kuhrt said.

This year many of the exhibiting companies — including Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, and Canon — are also once again expanding their exhibition areas. photokina’s organizers also are pleased to report their success in attracting new exhibitors. More than 200 companies have decided to exhibit at photokina for the first time. Kuhrt said he is particularly delighted this year that photokina’s importance on the international stage has convinced the global player Microsoft to once again take part with a large stand at the fair, following the presence of the company from Redmond at the 2004 event. In addition, General Imaging, a new supplier in the camera segment, will for the first time present its products at photokina.

Optimized workflow concept

As Kuhrt reported, the fair’s successful concept of aligning the entire imaging workflow with the event’s hall structure will be further improved and optimized for photokina 2008. The previous five product areas have been reduced to only four this year, representing the entire imaging workflow: Image Capture, Image Processing, Image Storage, and Image Output. Moreover, accessories will now be presented in the imaging workflow product area they are used in, said Kuhrt. This optimization measure reflects the wishes of the market for effective implementation of the workflow concept in the form of a stronger consolidation of the individual product areas supplemented by accessory presentations. At the same time, the new setup results in a clearer and more compact hall structure.

The trends at the fair – for professionals and private users

Along with displays of new cameras, lenses, printers, services, and accessories for specialist users, professionals and consumers, the event’s organizers expect photokina to be dominated by the questions of which simple and creative methods will be offered to consumers for printing images, and which new possibilities for displaying images will be used in the digital age. Particularly noteworthy here is the dynamically growing area of individually produced photo books.

In the consumer segment, the organizers report, this year’s trends include new camera functions such as intelligent face-recognition, GPS functions, and the increasingly tightly meshed and improved networking of devices with electronic products and appliances in the home. Sector experts also expect entirely new solutions to be presented in the image processing segment, products that will greatly expand creative freedom in post-processing — all with even better image quality and increasingly intuitive operation.

Multifunctionality and mobility are the defining trends for the coming generation of high-tech cameras. This also will mean a further increase in the pixel counts of the new camera models’ resolutions. On exhibit will be cameras featuring more and tinier pixels on increasingly small sensors as well as products equipped with larger and larger pixels on sensors with image areas that correspond to those of traditional medium-format film images. photokina 2008 exhibitors also will present single-lens reflex cameras for HD video recordings as well as HD video cameras with high-resolution photography features.

Hot topics in the professional segment are new high-end digital camera backs with resolutions of up to 65 million pixels, as well as the trend toward high light-intensity lenses for professional users, which stand out by virtue of delivering very high quality images despite a rather small zoom area. When it comes to professional image output, trade visitors will find many new products — from single-pass inkjet printers and UV-LED printers to water-based latex inks and the possibility of printing in excellent quality on a nearly endlessly diverse spectrum of paper and materials, even including textiles, plastic film, and metal plates.

First class supporting program offers more value for trade visitors

The photokina organizers also presented some of the initial highlights of the supporting program for the 2008 event. Returning this year will be the traditional GfK Market Briefings, which provide retailers and industry representatives from around the world with concise, up-to-date basic and background information and detailed market studies. Further highlights include the “Memories on demand” International Business Forum, where top international decision makers in the sector will discuss the effect digital imaging technology is having on consumer lifestyles. Rather than focusing solely on technological innovations, the forum will primarily address the question as to which new business models are best suited to meeting modern consumer requirements. photokina’s organizers expect international top managers from the industry and the retail sector to participate in the forum.

In an event titled “Digital storage – film-based archiving?“, the science and technology section of the German Society for Photography (DGPh) will be joining photokina organizers to stage a presentation forum at photokina 2008 that will showcase the opportunities and limitations of film-based and digital archiving.

XXL Photo Album

One of the most unusual attractions at photokina 2008 will certainly be the world’s largest photo book, the XXL Photo Book. With its ten pages measuring three meters in length and two meters in height, it’s not only the largest photo book in the world, it’s also sure to be the highlight of the trade fair in Hall 10.2. The giant photo book will be surrounded by photo kiosks and photo printers. All visitors to photokina can contribute to the photo book by printing out their digital images at one of the print stations and gluing it into the blank XXL Photo Book.

XXL Impressions – large format image presentation and projection

The “XXL Impressions” Projection Arena, which will be located in an impressive special area, will focus on image presentation and projection. It will demonstrate to trade visitors and end consumers how to underline the emotional impact of good images by presenting them in an impressive manner. The aim of this event is to show photographers that there’s a presentation and projection solution for every requirement, no matter how large or small the budget. Professional users, such as photographers, advertising agencies, travel agents, museums, architects, and companies, will also receive practical instructions on how to choose customized solutions that meet their particular needs.

Dennis Hopper’s photos in the Visual Gallery

The Visual Gallery will once again serve as a cultural highlight at photokina 2008 by presenting the best works of internationally renowned photographers and award-winning young talents. The “top act” at this year’s Visual Gallery will be photographs by the U.S. actor and director Dennis Hopper. The exhibition includes portraits of David Hockney, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol. In addition, the internationally renowned top photographer and photojournalist Thomas Höpker, who now lives in New York, will be presenting works that are high points of his career in photography. In the 1950s, he had just turned twenty when two of his early works received awards in the photokina competition “Jugend photographiert”. Further highlights at the Visual Gallery will include exhibitions from the “Cicero Gallery for Political Photography,” MAPHO (Museum for Architectural Photography), the C/O Berlin Cultural Forum, and the German Association of Freelance Photo Designers (BFF).

Fascinating photos all over Cologne: “photokina: cologne takes photos!”

With a brand-new photo event, the organizers of photokina want to spread a passion for photography beyond the trade fair grounds to encompass the entire city of Cologne. The new event format “photokina: cologne takes photos!” will accompany this year’s photokina, with visitors to the city being asked to take their own photographs from September 6 to 28, 2008. In cooperation with Cologne-based companies and institutions, an extensive program will be on offer in the city center, including workshops, photo shoots, photography city tours, competitions, and exhibitions. Thanks to unusual locations and exciting events, participants are certain to have enormous fun while learning more about the medium of photography. “photokina: köln fotografiert!” (“cologne takes photos”) will take place under the auspices of the mayor of Cologne, Fritz Schramma, and is co-sponsored by the city, the 19th International Photoscene Cologne, and various public and private institutions throughout the city. With this, Cologne aims to establish a top-notch image-based festival every two years in order to complement the photokina trade fair and to prove the city’s importance as a major center for photography.

The Atlantic offered an apology to John McCain this week after the photographer for the October cover, Jill Greenberg, posted doctored pictures of the Republican nominee on her personal Web site. It also emerged that Greenberg, a fierce anti-Republican, had photographed McCain for the magazine while he stood over a deliberately unflattering green light.

In 2006, Jim Lewis discussed whether “the photographer who makes kids cry” unfairly exploits her subjects.

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After getting that shot, Greenberg asked McCain to “please come over here” for one more set-up before the 15-minute shoot was over. There, she had a beauty dish with a modeling light set up. “That’s what he thought he was being lit by,” Greenberg says. “But that wasn’t firing.”

• How Jill Greenberg Really Feels About John McCain

• Jill Greenberg’s McCain Out-Takes
• Jill Greenberg’s McCain Photos for Atlantic Monthly

Install a piece of software or register at a website and there’s a good chance that you’ll be asked to click a button saying that you’ve read and agreed to the service’s terms and conditions.

There’s an equally good chance that you’ll click that button without even looking at those terms.

That’s understandable. The terms page is usually long, dull and written in legalese. It rarely contains anything of interest and we usually feel that we can trust the companies not to slip in anything to which we wouldn’t agree.

If you’re thinking of uploading images — or anything else — to Facebook though, that would be wrong.

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Even during the last economic boom, times have been hard recently for professional photographers. The price of digital equipment might have fallen, cutting expenses, but with high-end cameras now within reach of amateurs the result has been an increase in the supply of photographers and of images too. At the same time, the Internet has created new distribution channels available to anyone with a memory card, and cut into the sales of print publications, a major revenue source for pros.

Magazines and newspapers have responded by hiring fewer photographers and even passing out video cameras to the photographers they do use. Media organizations as large as the BBC and The Economist have turned to Flickr as one source of free images.

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Adobe will launch the new Adobe Creative Suite CS 4 applications thourhg a special webcast on September 23th.

adobe webcast site : http://adobe.istreamplanet.com/

I LOVE ALL THE DIFFERENT FILMS! When I buy film, I buy 2 or 3 rolls of about 10 different films rather than boxes of the same film. I love to experiment with new films and see how they all result in vastly different photos. Though I’m starting to prefer certain types of film for certain cameras of mine, I’m certainly not excluding any specific type of film. This is another point that digital can’t reproduce with Photoshop.

I LOVE THE DYNAMIC RANGE OF FILM! I’ve pulled off some pretty amazing shots with b/w film — shadows, straight into the sun, and water reflecting sunlight all in the same frame. Right now, digital can’t keep up.

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We help you explore your passions by collecting stories about “all the topics” on the web. We’ve grouped these collections — “aggregations” — into individual Alltop sites based on topics such as environment, photography, science, Muslim, celebrity gossip, military, fashion, gaming, sports, politics, automobiles, and Macintosh. At each Alltop site, we display the headlines of the latest stories from dozens of sites and blogs.

You can think of an Alltop site as a “digital magazine rack” of the Internet. To be clear, Alltop sites are starting points—they are not destinations per se. The bottom line is that we are trying to enhance your online reading by both displaying stories from the sites that you’re already visiting and helping you discover sites that you didn’t know existed. In other words, our goal is the “cessation of Internet stagnation” by providing “aggregation without aggravation.”

Check AllTops Photography feeds, including DigitalPixels.

Whereas Photoshop Express began life as an experimental, web-based offshoot of the Photoshop brand, Adobe’s new strategy to automatically sync photos from desktop to web to phone and back again now gives Photoshop Express a starring role on the Photoshop playbill, albeit using a different alias.

Although the product will now be Photoshop.com, it will retain its editing features and the ability to post photos to Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket and Picasa. The bigger difference is that the new Photoshop.com will sync with the two Photoshop Elements applications and the new mobile software.

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Adobe® Photoshop.com Mobile is the easiest way to upload, view, and share your photos online from your phone. All you need is a supported Windows Mobile® phone and your Photoshop.com account ID. Photoshop.com Mobile beta will be available as a free download in September.

continue to Photoshop.com Mobile

With a face recognition feature set to launch at noon PDT Tuesday, Google’s Picasa Web Albums will help users label their photos with the names of subjects. That and other changes to the photo-sharing site are joined by a new beta version of the accompanying Picasa 3.0 photo-editing software.

The “name tag” feature presents users with collections of photos with what it judges to be the same person, then lets them click a button to affix a name. Once photographic subjects are named, users can browse an album of that individual on the fly.

The name tag feature groups like faces together to let users tag them with names a batch at a time.

The Picasa Web Albums name tag feature groups like faces together to let users tag them with names a batch at a time

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Film is a four-letter-word. It’s a hideous part of our photographic past, and we’ll be better off once it’s been eliminated from society. I’m ashamed to admit that I tried film once, but I quickly learned just how disgusting it really is and I’ve been clean ever since that occasion. Just take my word for it — FILM IS BAD (mmmkay). Here are ten things I hate about film:

1. DIRTY DIRTY GRAIN

Seriously, this has to be one of the things I hate most about film. That grain you get all over the photos is absolutely terrible! And the worst part is that you can’t entirely get rid of it with Photoshop — so you’re stuck with it. Those awful little specks show up all over the photo and add unwanted texture and inconsistencies. I don’t know about you, but if I want grain in my photo for “artistic reasons” I’d like to be able to at least have the choice of adding it in during post processing. That’s why digital is the way to go.

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ps: note the satire

China is a country that has drawn more and more attention lately for many reasons, but only a few parts of the country are well known by foreigners. Chances are you know someone who has been to Beijing or Hong Kong or one of the other major metropolises that lie along the eastern side of China where many of the cities have been assimilated into the international community.

One such area is the Chongqing municipality. Known by Chinese for its spicy food and spicy people, the area is situated on hills and mountains dotted with hundreds of small villages that are well isolated, some so well that even the Chongqing people don’t know about them. I’ve lived in Chongqing city for many years and become intimately familiar with its many hidden corners that are easily overlooked by passing tourists and Chinese from other parts of the country.

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Marketing is a neverending business. As soon as you win one client, you know it won’t be long before you need to pick up another. That’s why it makes sense to ensure that your marketing plan contains streams that are set up to bring in repeat business.

In the past, we’ve suggested teaming up with Realtors. Photographers can do a much better job of photographing homes than they can, and when a property is sold for a six- or seven-figure sum – delivering a handy commission to the Realtor – it’s in the agent’s interest to make sure that the marketing material looks professional. That’s a steady stream of demand for photographers who are in a position to make the most of it. Every time a Realtor has a new property to sell, you’d have a new job.

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First there was the snapshot, and then came video. Now there is Microsoft Photosynth, a new service from Microsoft Live Labs that goes far beyond how you now view, experience and share photos.

You can share or relive a vacation destination or explore a distant museum or landmark; with a digital camera and your own creativity and inspiration, you can use Photosynth to transform regular digital photos into a three-dimensional, 360-degree experience. Anybody who sees your “synth” is put right in your shoes, sharing in the same sense of exhilaration and wonder that you did at the time, with detail, clarity and scope impossible to achieve in conventional photos or videos.

Imagine yourself beneath the Eiffel Tower or in the heart of Times Square. Now imagine being able to see that exact scene in an amazing new way. With Photosynth, you can look up or down, pan from left to right, zoom in, or pull back to reveal the full sense of where you were. Photosynth provides incredibly realistic close-up detail of a place as seen in the collaboration with National Geographic. Exclusive synths of some of the world’s most renowned locations, such as Machu Picchu and the Parthenon, were created using photographs taken by National Geographic.

An Entirely New Medium
Synths constitute an entirely new visual medium. Photosynth analyzes each photo for similarities to the others, and uses that data to estimate where a photo was taken. It then re-creates the environment and uses that as a canvas on which to display the photos. The potential uses of Photosynth can range from sharing experiences to storytelling and documentation:

– Share experiences. Think about the times you have been in the midst`of a beautiful location or having a once-in-a-lifetime experience and wished you could share it with more immediacy and sense of place than still photos or video can capture. Photosynth puts viewers in the center of the moment and in control of how they experience it.

– Tell a story. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a synth composed of 20 or 50 photos makes visual storytelling as rich and compelling as a short story. Synths capture the totality of important
moments in time, such as the anticipation and joy of an entire wedding party and guests at the moment vows are exchanged, or the elation of a child scoring a winning soccer goal as the fans cheer.

– Form a community. Synths can bring the best of your digital photos together with the best of everybody else’s. Imagine if you took a trip to Rome with your friends and each of you took photos of the Trevi Fountain. Later, you can tag and upload all of the photos from each person’s camera to create a synth of it. In addition, you can share that experience and your favorite places with others by embedding the synth in your profile on a social networking site.

– Educate or archive. If you want to re-create how you decorated your home for the holidays or how you planted your garden last season, the ability of Photosynth to provide intricate detail allows documentation impossible to achieve with conventional photos.

Using Photosynth
Getting started with Photosynth is easy:
– To begin, just take a few dozen digital photos—20 to 300 photos are required, depending on the size of the place or object—with overlap between each shot, from a number of locations and angles.

– Next, download a small, free software application to your computer from http://photosynth.com. This software works in concert with the Photosynth Web site, which is also a free service.

– Build your synth in just two easy steps: First, from the Photosynth Web site, click on Create and select the pictures you want to use. Then, give your creation a name and click on Synth, and Photosynth automatically creates and uploads your synth. In about the same amount of time it would take to upload the pictures to a photo-sharing site, you can enjoy your pictures in dramatic and detailed 3-D.

– The finished synth can be accessed from any Windows XP- or Windows Vista-powered computer with a broadband connection. If you want to comment on other people’s synths or create your own, you’ll also need a free Windows Live ID.

– Once created, synths can also be embedded on Web sites, blogs and social networking sites or virtually any Web site where HTML can be edited.

Following this release, the Photosynth team will join MSN—an important step in continuing to improve Photosynth and share the experience with an even wider audience. In addition to letting users create and share synths at http://photosynth.com, over the next year Photosynth will begin to become a key part of the experience for MSN’s 550 million monthly visitors worldwide. Synths will be prominently featured on MSN.com. To create a more absorbing experience for its visitors, MSN will use synths of popular destinations and notable events in many of the places where static images are used on the site today.

About Microsoft Live Labs
Microsoft Live Labs is an applied research organization focused on the incubation of innovative, Internet-centric technologies to improve and accelerate the next evolution of Microsoft’s Internet products and services. Through rapid prototyping of emerging technologies and incubation of entirely new inventions, Live Labs aims to advance the state of the art of Internet technologies and enable new scenarios for its users. Live Labs believes that collaboration with other groups at Microsoft, government and academic research labs, and industry labs and pioneers, is key to fulfilling its mission, and works to build strong relationships with these groups.

About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

For many photographers, the ultimate goal is see their images not on websites or even in magazines but on walls. And ideally, those walls will be in galleries, and carry next to each photograph a label, a large price tag, and a red dot indicating that the image has been sold.

Of course, that’s not easy. Galleries are choosy and the art market is small. Getting shown involves lots of phone calls, a rich portfolio and an ability to cope with rejection. But there are alternatives for photographers who want both to create art and generate income from it.

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A picture may be worth a thousand words (or even more) but is it worth a thousand dollars? How do you decide what your photography is worth?

Pricing your photography is difficult for many photographers, and there is no “magic formula” for pricing. Photography has many different markets, with different price expectations, and photographers have different skill levels. Despite the wide ranges in the marketplace, there are a number of tools that you can use to establish prices for your work.

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“A 360 degree high resolution panorama, shot by Kari Kuukka from a photographer’s corral about 30 minutes before the start of the men’s 100m final at Beijing National Stadium on Saturday, gives an up close look at the working shooters in attendance and the Canon and Nikon gear they were using.”

check the image here

Have you ever dreamed of seeing your travel photos published on the cover of Lonely Planet?  Well now’s your chance…

Lonely Planet, the world-leading travel guide publisher and Pikeo.com, the new photo-sharing website, are inviting photographers to submit their most unique and inspiring pictures of London, Paris, Barcelona and Istanbul.

Four winning shots will be chosen for the cover of Lonely Planet’s ‘Encounter’ guides to each city. The panel of judges consists of travel photography experts including representatives from the Association of British Photographers and Lonely Planet Images.

The winners of each cover will also receive a free trip to India, Russia, Morocco or Kenya courtesy of Intrepid Travel. In addition, twelve runners-up will receive prizes, as will a small selection of highly commended entries.

The winning images, plus Lonely Planet and Pikeo’s favourite shots, will be launched and showcased at a gallery exhibition in London when the guides go on sale next year.

To enter, simply visit the competition page on Pikeo at http://lonelyplanet.pikeo.com and follow the instructions.  Photographers can also take advantage of Pikeo’s many presentation features, including the ability to organise photos into albums and create a professional online gallery.

The competition is open to those in the UK, France, Spain, USA and Canada and entries close on September 8, 2008.

Lonely Planet and Pikeo tips for a winning image:
- Images must be taken from a street perspective
- Use a reportage/documentary style
- Make the viewer feel they are actually there
- Have a central focal point
- Ensure composition is bold and colours are rich
- Avoid things looking staged by showing locals going about their everyday life
- Use iconic sights or architecture in an everyday context
- Always include people within your shots

Pikeo (http://www.pikeo.com) is a groundbreaking new photo-sharing website, launched in 2007. It incorporates the latest mapping and mobile technology, allowing users to upload photos via internet or mobile from anywhere in the world, share them with friends or publish them to the whole world.

According to a new research report from InfoTrends entitled Online Photo Services End-User Research: 2008, social networks are dominating the photo viewing and uploading space. Among survey respondents, nearly 40% of those who upload photos to the Internet do so most often on MySpace or Facebook. Those same sites were named as favorites by nearly half of the respondents who view others’ photos online.

Not surprisingly, online photo printing remains the domain of traditional online services such as Snapfish, Shutterfly, and Kodak Gallery, and retailers such as Wal-Mart and Walgreens. Net-to-retail printing continues to rise in popularity, particularly among younger users. Respondents that had used both net-to-mail and net-to-retail printing stated that they tried net-to-retail so they could get their prints faster and avoid paying for shipping.

InfoTrends Associate Director Alan Bullock commented, “While many respondents see benefits to both delivery methods, net-to-retail is clearly taking some business away from net-to-mail services, and some 60% of survey respondents indicated that they expect their online printing to shift even more toward net-to-retail in the coming year. Online photo services should continue to differentiate their products and services from those available at retail, focusing on items that cannot be easily produced at retail locations.”

Online Photo Services End-User Research: 2008 provides an in-depth analysis of the results from InfoTrends’ 2008 Online Photo Service End-User Study, which was conducted in April. This survey questioned consumers about the primary activities of uploading, viewing, and printing photos online. Uploading video clips and the purchase of custom photo gifts and merchandise were also covered, but in less detail. Where appropriate, the report also considers how this study compares to results obtained from our previous study on the same topic.

InfoTrends has also released a special edition of this report called Spotlight on Moms: Online Photo Services. This report takes a closer look at the results of the 2008 InfoTrends Online Photo Services survey, focusing on mothers and their online photo uploading, viewing, and printing activity. Where appropriate, mothers’ behavior is compared to the total survey population.

This is the first in a new series of InfoTrends reports that will provide insight into this important consumer segment, as mothers are more active than the general population in terms of all photographic activity. Future reports in the Spotlight on Moms series will cover topics such as digital cameras, video, home photo printing, and retail photo printing.

For more information on either report or to make a purchase, visit our online store or contact Michelle Boczanowski at 781-616-2100 ext. 109 or via e-mail at michelle_boczanowski@infotrends.com.

VANCOUVER, CANADA, AUGUST 14th, 2008 – PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the seventh edition of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine. The PhotographyBB Online Magazine sets the stage for the future of free information distribution, offering its readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, and tutorials for all of the major post processing software suites such as Adobe® Photoshop™, Photoshop Lightroom™, Photoshop Elements™, Dreamweaver™, and Corel Painter Pro.

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“Continuing in the growth of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine, Issue #7 has exceeded my expectations. This month we are continuing several multi-part columns, such as our series on HDR Photography Techniques, Darkroom Photography, our Photography 101 class, and our brand new Lightroom™ tutorial series. Additionally, we are taking a photographic look at London, one of the world’s most spectacular cities. Our magazine started out as a small project aimed at helping DSLR beginners to improve their techniques and to learn more about digital SLR photography. However, our journey up to our current seventh issue had seen us become one of the top digital photography resources for beginners. We just launched an ongoing photography challenge, in which the top 3 winners will have their images published in the magazine every month. Many thanks to the readers for coming back each month, and my hat goes off to all of our contributing writers for their quality contributions to the PhotographyBB digital photography community.”

By way of download in either PDF or ZIP formats, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. In a completely ad-free format, each issue contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers.

In addition to articles which aide beginners in getting the most from their DSLR cameras, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and applicable tutorials on how to use post-processing tools such as Photoshop, Elements, and more, to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

PhotographyBB was founded in Oct, 2006, and is a division of PowerButton Central (2004). For more information, visit the PhotographyBB website at: http://www.photographybb.com or by email at: magazine@photographybb.com

Companies Collaborate to Enable Geotagging and Hotspot Access Upgrades – for Free

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., August 13, 2008 – Today online photo sharing site SmugMug, and Eye-Fi, makers of the world’s first wireless memory card for digital cameras, announced a partnership that will provide free geotagging and hotspot access for SmugMug members using an Eye-Fi Share card or original Eye-Fi Card.

The Eye-Fi cards automatically upload pictures from a digital camera to a computer and to the Web for effortless photo sharing. For a limited time, Eye-Fi Share and Eye-Fi Card users who choose SmugMug for photo sharing will receive one year of free hotspot access, allowing photo uploads on-the-go from more than 10,000 Wayport hotspots, and geotagging, which automatically adds geographic information to each photo to indicate where the image was taken.

“SmugMug users who have Eye-Fi cards love how easy it is to upload photos and share those memories in cool ways on our site. Our photo map has become extremely popular and sets us apart from other online sharing sites,” said Chris MacAskill, president and co-founder of SmugMug. “This opportunity makes it even easier for people to spend more time enjoying their photos, and less time uploading and tagging their images.”

Through the end of this year, existing SmugMug members and those who sign up for a new account can automatically upgrade their Eye-Fi Share or Eye-Fi Card to include one year of free geotagging and hotspot access. Also through the end of this year, SmugMug will provide new and existing members a 20% discount on their membership plans.

“SmugMug offers one of the best photo mapping applications on the Web today, and SmugMug members will now be able to take advantage of Eye-Fi’s automatic geotagging,” said Ziv Gillat, co-founder and VP of business development for Eye-Fi. “Together, we’re making sure that even more users can enjoy their photos in unique ways.”

SmugMug is a family-owned and operated photo sharing and storing site. It offers premier services to amateur and professional photographers without the outside pressures of other online photo destinations. SmugMug backs-up its users’ photos to three servers across the United States to ensure the images are safe and secure.

Eye-Fi’s family of products, including the Eye-Fi Home, Share and Explore cards that range from $79-$129 USD, can be purchased at major online retail locations or at Circuit City and Ritz Camera Centers nationwide. Eye-Fi has garnered numerous awards, including PC World’s “The 100 Best Products of 2008” and Yahoo! Tech’s “Last Gadget Standing 2008.” For more information, please visit http://www.eye.fi.

About Eye-Fi
Founded in 2005, the company is dedicated to building products and services that help consumers navigate, nurture and share their visual memories. Eye-Fi’s patent-pending technology works with Wi-Fi networks to automatically send photos from a digital camera to online, in-home and retail destinations. Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., the company’s investors include LMS Capital, Opus Capital, Shasta Ventures and TransLink Capital. More information is available at http://www.eye.fi.

About SmugMug
Since 2002, snap-shooters, passionate amateurs, and pro photographers have uploaded more than 225 million photos to SmugMug. Founded by father and son Chris and Don MacAskill, SmugMug was created based on the duo’s love for the Internet and digital photography. SmugMug is the largest independent profitable photo sharing site, one that continues to follow its vision for a destination free from outside pressures. With more than 350,000 paying customers, the company continues to double annually. With a great sense of responsibility for the photos stored on the site, SmugMug has become the trustee for the priceless images of amateur and professional photographers all over the world. For more information, point your browser to SmugMug.com. For more information visit http://www.smugmug.com

Lenovo today has unveiled the ThinkPad W700, a widescreen 17 inch Windows laptop that has been developed expressly for the working digital photographer. In addition to CPU options that include Intel’s new mobile quad core processor, a maximum of 8GB of RAM, up to three internal hard drives (two if you don’t want to forsake the optical disc drive) and top-end Nvidia Quadro FX 3700M graphics, the W700 features an integrated screen calibrator and mini Wacom tablet plus both SD and CompactFlash card slots.

The ThinkPad W700 has many of the accoutrements you would expect from a premium performance, 8.3lb (3.77kg) desktop replacement. As mentioned, it can be configured with Intel’s newest and most powerful CPU for portables, a quad-core mobile processor in the Core 2 Extreme line, plus up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM and up to three 320GB, 5400 RPM hard drives (the third in the computer’s user-swappable Ultra Bay).

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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC – August 12, 2008: Lenovo today introduced the ThinkPad W700, a 17-inch widescreen mobile workstation engineered with game-changing technologies and innovations to exceed the demands of the most data and graphics-intensive users. Lenovo brings the industry’s first built-in digitizer and color calibrator to a mobile workstation and combines these innovations with first-in-market technologies such as new NVIDIA® Quadro FX mobile graphics and supporting the upcoming Intel® mobile quad core processor. Other features such as optional dual hard drives with RAID configurations, up to 8 GB of high speed DDR3 memory, a range of wireless connectivity options and excellent multimedia capabilities including an optional Blu-ray™ DVD burner/player make the ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation the standard-bearer for power and performance in a mobile workstation.

“Lenovo has engineered a new breed of mobile workstation with the ThinkPad W700,” said Peter Hortensius, senior vice president, Notebook Business Unit, Lenovo. “No other PC manufacturer has a mobile workstation that delivers the sheer power, performance and cutting-edge innovation that Lenovo has packed into the ThinkPad W700. The ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation flat out delivers the command performance our customers demand at the desk as well as in the field.”

According to IDC, the compound annual growth rate for the worldwide mobile workstation market has been more than 60 percent per year since 2002.1The ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation extends Lenovo’s commitment to workstation users, complementing Lenovo’s W500 mobile workstation and ThinkStation S10 and D10 workstations. As workers in fields such as digital content creation, computer-aided design and manufacturing, digital photography and science fields including the oil and gas industries become increasingly mobile, they are demanding the full-featured performance of a desktop workstation in a mobile workstation.

First-in-Industry Engineered Innovation
The ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation takes customer driven innovation to a new level with an optional built-in palm rest digitizer and color calibrator. Lenovo and Intel collaborated to integrate the color calibrator and digitizer into the ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation. Designed for digital content creators and users, the mobile workstation’s digitizer helps them easily configure an image, either mapping it to the entire screen or to an area defined by the user. High performance users, especially digital photographers, will benefit from models with the built-in color calibrator as color continues to play an important role in their work. The calibrator automatically adjusts the display’s color in up to half the time of many external calibrators and with higher accuracy, resulting in the most accurate, true-to-life images in an integrated package. Together with the upcoming Intel® mobile quad core processor, multimedia designers and animators now have outstanding quad-core processor performance and true color replication that is critical for realistic digital creations and workflow efficiencies.

Super-Charged Performance Unleashed
Supporting the latest Intel processor technologies including the upcoming mobile quad core processor, the mobile workstation can be configured with up to 8 GB of memory with an additional 2 GB of Intel Turbo Memory. Lenovo also offers models with Intel® vPro™ technology for complete manageability. The mobile workstation can be equipped with dual internal hard drives, including solid state drive storage. The ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation offers both the NVIDIA® Quadro® FX 2700M and 3700M Open GL graphics processors with up to 1 GB of dedicated video memory for exceptional graphics performance in a 17-inch mobile workstation. The hard drives can be configured for RAID 0 to help users access and save their data faster than traditional disk-writing methods, or users can choose RAID 1 for mirrored data redundancy.

The mobile workstation includes WiFi wireless connectivity. Additionally, users can connect to other devices wirelessly using mobile workstation models featuring Bluetooth and ultra wideband technology. Models supporting WiMAX will be available later this year.

New Heights in Display Technology and Multimedia Excellence
As the company’s first product with a 17-inch display, the ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation delivers an unparalleled viewing experience with a combination of leading technologies. Its optional 400-nit WUXGA display provides up to twice the brightness of earlier ThinkPad mobile workstation models, and the 72 percent wide color gamut provides more than 50 percent greater color intensity. The high resolution, extreme brightness and wide color gamut coupled with the NVIDIA Quadro FX MXM graphics solution results in a user experience unequalled in a mobile workstation today. For external connectivity, the ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation provides support for Dual Link DVI, Display Port and VGA. A 7-in-1 multicard reader, and five USB ports give users flexibility in transferring and accessing digital content. Additionally, the workstation comes with an optional compact flash reader and Blu-ray™ DVD burner/player. An optional mini-dock extends the mobile workstation’s capabilities with eSATA and digital audio ports as well as convenient cabling for power, external monitors and peripherals.

Packed for extreme performance, the mobile workstation also features BIOS/port disablement and an optional fingerprint reader, a smartcard reader and hard drives with full-disk encryption. It will carry more than 20 certifications from independent software vendors.

“Our engineers use Lenovo ThinkStation workstations to help them design the next-generation Williams – Toyota FW31 race cars, aiming to make them faster and more agile, with greater performance than the competition,” said Chris Taylor, IT manager, AT&T Williams. “We’re

thrilled to see Lenovo deliver the workstation performance we’ve come to rely on – now in a mobile, portable solution.”

Pricing and Availability2
The ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation will be available beginning in September with models starting at $2,978. It is available through Lenovo Business Partners and http://www.lenovo.com.

About Lenovo
Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) is dedicated to building exceptionally engineered personal computers. Lenovo’s business model is built on innovation, operational efficiency and customer satisfaction as well as a focus on investment in emerging markets. Formed by Lenovo Group’s acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, the company develops, manufactures and markets reliable, high-quality, secure and easy-to-use technology products and services worldwide. Lenovo has major research centers in Yamato, Japan; Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, China; and Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information see http://www.lenovo.com.

1IDC. 1Q2008 Worldwide Quarterly Workstation Forecast.

2Prices do not include tax or shipping and are subject to change without notice and is tied to specific terms and conditions. Reseller prices may vary. Price does not include all advertised features. All offers subject to availability. Lenovo reserves the right to alter product offerings and specifications at any time without notice.

Dripbook Moves Out of Beta

Professional visual artists get increased services and new features to display portfolios

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK – Dripbook today announced that it has moved out of Beta into full release and is offering its network of professional visual artists more tools and services to promote their work. The site, which launched into Beta in October 2007, features a simple-to-use interface that enables artists to easily display, promote and distribute their portfolios online.

Photographers, illustrators, fashion stylists and a host of other professional visual artists make up the site’s worldwide community where membership is by invitation or application in order to ensure the highest quality of work within the network. Dripbook has been designed with an emphasis on browsing and searching for art, making it a destination for Art Directors, editors and others looking to hire artists, commission work or browse contemporary commercial art.

On Dripbook, artists upload images to create an online portfolio, assemble digital books and distribute them electronically to promote their work. A key feature to the Dripbook’s service is the ability for members to export their books as dynamic Flash-based widgets that may be embedded on social networking sites, blogs and other Web sites. When a member updates his book within the Dripbook site, it will automatically and seamlessly be updated in all sites where the artist is displaying the widget, making managing a digital presence easy and hassle-free.

Premium account holders at Dripbook may also export their portfolios as a fully customizable, professionally designed, dynamic, Flash-based Web site. Each artist may choose from presentation templates, fonts, colors and settings, as well as include bio and contact information. Just like the widget, a member may simply update his Dripbook account to have the changes reflected wherever the exported Web site is hosted.

“The folks at Dripbook have taken the time to understand the needs of their artists community, and created an application that really addresses what has been lacking with online portfolio management systems,” says Dripbook member and fashion photographer, Alex Covo of New York.

With the full release of Dripbook, new members will have three levels of paid service to choose from: Standard, Pro and Premium. For added flexibility, Dripbook offers billing by the month, quarter (15% savings) or year (25% savings).

• Standard accounts accommodate up to 4 books, 200 images, the ability to create private books, inclusion in 2 searchable genres and the dynamic widgets. Subscription rates are: $90.00 per year, or $25.50 per quarter, or $10 per month.
• Pro accounts allow up to 16 books, 800 images, 50 images per book, 3 searchable genres, private books, dynamic widgets, enhanced search ranking within Dripbook, enhanced feeds for exporting books, additional components for customizing presentation and advertisement-free. Subscription rates are: $162.00 per year, or $49.95 per quarter, or $18.00 per month.
• Premium accounts offer a maximum of 50 books, 2,500 images, 75 images per book, 3 searchable genres, private books, dynamic widgets, ultra enhanced search ranking within Dripbook, enhanced feeds for exporting books, additional components for customizing presentation, advertisement-free, Google tracking and fully-customizable, dynamic, Flash-based Web site. Subscription rates are: $225.00 per year, or $63.75 per quarter or $25.00 per month.

In appreciation of their early support, Dripbook has granted users of the Beta service lifetime memberships at the 2007 introductory rates.

“After more than a year of testing, we are happy to be moving out of Beta into full release and are thankful to our members for their feedback and encouragement. We are confident that Dripbook will continue to offer the easiest online portfolio service with the highest quality collection of work from professional visual artists,” said Alex Wright, Creative Director, Dripbook. “We look forward offering our community even more new enhanced features and services later this year.”

About Dripbook
Dripbook offers its worldwide community of professional visual artists the easiest, most stylish way to display, promote and distribute their portfolios online. Dripbook becomes a destination site for Art Directors, editors and others who are looking to hire an artist, commission work, or simply browse the best in contemporary visual art. Dripbook is the power behind innovative and functional online promotional tools, using a clean and elegant environment to showcase great visuals.

Find and Be Found.

Privately-held, Dripbook was launched in June 2007 by Alex Wright, a Brooklyn-based artist and photographer, and Bo Blanton, a California-based web developer and digital imaging specialist.

http://www.dripbook.com

© The respective photographers.Click on each photo for its author’s photostream.

Nikon Europe today announced the opening date for the Nikon Photo Contest International 2008-2009. This year is the 32nd edition of the hugely-popular contest that last time attracted over 16,000 entrants from 135 different countries and the submission of more than 47,000 images.

Entries for the competition will be accepted from 1 September to 30 November 2008. The theme for the competition is At the Heart of the Image, which is also the brand statement of the Nikon Imaging Company. With this theme, Nikon challenges photographers to capture in an image what stirs their passion, demonstrating the richness and human diversity of life.

As in previous competitions, there will be two categories. In the first ‘Free Subject’ category, photographers can submit any image that ignites from their imagination. The second category is called My Planet, encouraging people to enter submissions that involve the environment, or scenes from daily life.

Professional photographers from around the world will judge all entries. Celebrating the 75th anniversary of the NIKKOR brand, there will be an extra prize awarded to an outstanding entry, next to the 54 regular prizes and the Grand Winner. The competition is open to all who love taking pictures – amateurs, as well as professional photographers – from any part of the world. The winning photographs and the names of the winners will be published on the NPCI website, at NPCI exhibitions and through a press release.

With the NPCI 2008-2009, Nikon Europe continues to support the international humanitarian organisation “Right to Play”, by donating 2 Euros for each participant from Europe and Africa. “Right to Play” aims to develop life skills, improve health and foster peace for disadvantaged children, by means of sports and play programmes.

Martina Beckmann, Manager Communications and Marketing Services at Nikon Europe B.V.: “With NPCI, Nikon wants to stimulate people around the world to discover the joy of photography, letting them and others experience the communicative power of images. We are convinced that all contestants will again rise to the exciting challenge. This year, we hope that even more photographers will take part, for the sake of the competition, and at the same time supporting our contribution to “Right to Play’s” great cause.

For NPCI competition rules and entry form, please visit http://www.nikon-is-different.com/npci

Kingston Technology Adds 8GB microSDHC Cards to Growing Mobile Phone Memory Family

Larger Capacity Cards Offer Wireless Consumers Handy Storage Options to Maximize Device Performance, Manage Digital Content

FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the addition of 8GB microSD High-Capacity (SDHC™) Flash memory cards to its mobile memory storage line. Shipping immediately, the new 8GB microSDHC cards offer greater storage options to the latest mobile phones and digital devices in the smallest footprint available.

“Consumers are demanding more from their mobile phones, expecting them to double as music and portable game players, instant cameras, email communicators, browsers and navigators. Having enough storage capacity, particularly in the form of memory cards, keeps internal device memory free to deliver all this multi-functionality,” said Wendy Lecot, Flash card business manager, Kingston®. “Our 8GB microSDHC cards are so roomy that mobile users can easily move entire digital libraries from a PC to their mobile phones — and beyond.”

Kingston 8GB microSDHC cards can store more than 1,500 digital songs (a), more than 4,000 images from a 5MP cameraphone (b), or up to eight hours of video (c), greatly surpassing storage limits on mobile phones without Flash memory card slots.

The microSDHC format is emerging as the predominant mobile memory standard as more handset manufacturers, including HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia, RIM, and Samsung, embrace it with compatible mobile phones. Recent models tested with the new Kingston 8GB microSDHC card include the BlackBerry Pearl 8120; the LG evV2 (VX9100) and Voyager (VX10000); as well as the Samsung BlackJack II (i617) and Glyde (U940).

The new microSDHC 8GB card, Kingston part number #: (SDC4/8GB) has a suggested price of $58.00 (MSRP U.S.). Although the microSDHC format is identical in physical size to the original microSD card, microSDHC is compatible with microSDHC host devices only and not backward compatible with standard microSD-enabled devices or readers.

microSDHC Features/Benefits
* Compliant: with the SD Association Specification, Version 2.00
* Versatile: can be used as full-size SDHC or miniSDHC card with appropriate adapter
* Compatible: with microSDHC-enabled devices/readers only
* File Format: FAT 32
* Reliable: lifetime warranty

microSDHC Specifications
* Capacity: 8GBd
* Dimensions: 0.43” x 0.59” x 0.039” (11mm x 15mm x 1mm)
* High-Speed Class Rating: Class 4: 4MB/sec. minimum sustained data transfer rate
* Operating Temperature: -13°F to 185°F (-25°C to 85°C)
* Storage Temperature: -40°F to 185°F (-40°C to 85°C)
* Weight: 0.05 oz (1.4g)

For more detailed information on Kingston memory products, please call 800-337-8410 or visit the Kingston Web site at: http://www.kingston.com/flash.

About Kingston Technology Company, Inc.
Kingston Technology Company, Inc. is the world’s largest independent manufacturer of memory products. Kingston designs, manufactures and distributes memory products for desktops, laptops, servers, printers, and Flash memory products for PDAs, mobile phones, digital cameras, and MP3 players. Through its global network of subsidiaries and affiliates, Kingston has manufacturing facilities in California, Malaysia, Taiwan, China and sales representatives in the United States, Europe, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, India, Taiwan, China, and Latin America. For more information, please call 800-337-8410 or visit http://www.kingston.com.

“Travel photo competition prize pool tops $70,000!

More prizes. More Categories. More opportunities to expose exceptional talent.

(Deadline for submissions extended to August 29)

The search for travel writers and videographers are just two of the new categories in RovingEye’s 2008 Expose Your World competition, as well as the Photo Essays and Single Shot photographic categories.”

“The focus of this year’s expanded competition is travel with winners sharing more than $70,000 worth of prizes from major sponsors including Abercrombie & Kent, Tarraleah Lodge, Nikon, SanDisk, AsukaBook, Asus and Vibe hotels,” says RovingEye’s Business Manager Dianne Engesser. “ As well as a bigger prize pool, we’ve extended the opportunities for photographers – both professional and amateur – to be recognised for their exceptional work.”

http://www.exposeyourworld.com

Finalists in all categories will also be part of an end of year winners’ exhibition with photos and video presented by Pixel Perfect Prolab. A selection of the winners’ images and stories will feature in the Australian Traveller magazine, be displayed in the stunning RovingEye coffeetable book by Asukabook and have the opportunity to be represented by RovingEye.

“Last year’s competition unearthed an extraordinary depth of talent both locally and internationally,” says Engesser. “Their collective of works have provided RovingEye Photo Library with an enviable edge, and we’re looking forward to discovering many more outstanding and talented artisans through this year’s competition.”

Since winning the Expose Your World competition last year with his poignant Drought series, Rodney Dekker has appeared on national television and currently has nine of his prints on exhibition in Old parliament House, Canberra, as part of the Beyond Reasonable Drought photography project.
2007 finalist Belinda Mason has since won the prestigious 2008 Moran Contemporary Portrait Prize held by the State Library of NSW. Both photographers sit well beside the RovingEye stable of contributors which includes World Press and Walkley winners who share a plethora of other international awards between them.

Entry to this year’s competition is open internationally to all levels of photographers, writers and filmmakers in most categories, while nominations for the Young Australian Photographer of the Year and nominations for the Australian Adventurer of the Year are required to be Australian citizens.

Competition categories are:
PHOTOGRAPHY
- Photo Essay
- Single Shot
- Young Australian Photographer of the Year
VIDEO
- Short Video or Multimedia Presentation
TRAVEL WRITING
- Travel Story Less Than 1,200 Words

Entering the competition is as easy as uploading images directly to the competition website where RovingEye’s new state-of-the-art system processes information automatically in readiness for judging.

This year’s panel of judges includes Alan Davies, Curator of Photography at the NSW State Library; Mike Smith, Travel Editor of The Daily Telegraph; Bruce Permezel, Director of ABC’s Logie-award-winning documentary series Choir of Hard Knocks; Mark Munro, Federal Vice-President of ACMP; Geoff Brown, Photographic Director at Singleton, Ogilvy and Mather Group; as well as other key figures in the photographic and travel industries.

And the prize pool is astounding!

RovingEye and Outer Edge magazine are calling for nominations from intrepid explorers to find the Australian Adventurer of the Year. The winner will walk away with a hand-picked explorer’s package from Anaconda, worth $2000, courtesy of Outer Edge.

On offer this year is a major photography prize from Nikon, a D300 plus AF-S 18-200mm f3.5-5.6G VR II DX IF-ED lens valued at $4,099. It’s the penultimate when it comes to DSLR cameras, perfect for travel being light in weight but not light on features. It compliments existing camera systems, meaning heavy items can be left at home, the photographer confident in knowing that everything that’s seen can still be captured.

Asus have joined RovingEye this year providing the prize for the new travel writing category. The Asus U3SGis a beautifully designed laptop that delivers in abundance while barely registering on the scales. It’s the ideal companion for any journey.

While RovingEye has been concentrating on the still image, the desire for online content and short clips has been gaining momentum. To cater for this, a new category has been introduced for the world of moving pictures. Video and camera operators are invited to submit their travel footage and the winner of the category will be rewarded with a state-of-the-art carbon-fibre tripod from Manfrotto as well as the opportunity for their work to be exhibited at the end of year show, and online.

And what would a travel photo competition be without travel holidays on offer?

Winners this year will vie for two magnificent experiences from Abercrombie & Kent and Tarraleah Lodge in Tasmania. The winner of the newly introduced Single Shot category will take part in a trip-of-a-lifetime with A&Ks Turtle Rescue program, a seven day 5-star experience in Queensland’s Cape York region. The Lodge at Tarraleah has just recently been voted one of the 65 top new resorts by Conde Nast UK. The winner of the Photo Essay category will not only take home the sensational Nikon D300 DSLR but will spend five nights, all inclusive, lapping up the luxurious surrounds set in the heart of Tasmania’s wilderness area.

RovingEye believes in encouraging new talent and supporting the industry and the search for Young Australian Photographer of the Year does just that. The overall winner will take home a Nikon D60 DSLR with an AF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6G ED II lens. The winner will choose a Vibe hotel in any Australian capital city to spend five nights shooting the urban life of the city, which will be feature in the Australian Traveller magazine. To be judged by Alan Davies, the curator of photography at the State Library of NSW, this is the ideal opportunity to be seen and judged by the best, to fast-track a young career and to be part of this exclusive community of winners.

“RovingEye’s 2008 Expose your World photo competition is setting new benchmarks in providing opportunities to profile the works of known photographers and unearthing new talent both here and around the globe,” says Engesser. “It’s a company on the move, and it wants to take as many talented photographers, writers and filmmakers along with them for the ride!”

Picture Credit: 2007 winner Rodney Dekker, 1 of 10 in the series Drought. ©Rodney Dekker/RovingEye.com

© The respective photographers.Click on the photos to go to the photographer’s photo stream.

One of the best free stuff Graphic Designers can find on the Web for free are high resolution backgrounds and textures. Long gone are the days when you had to buy very expensive CDs in order to obtain good quality backgrounds for your design projects.

By that time, marble and granite textures were all the rage. But now it seems that paper is becoming the new king. Lots of Web Designers are embracing the delicate look of a piece of paper with a subtle shadow. And if it is torn or folded, much better.

This gallery shows some paper backgrounds I collected from different sites. If you would like to add some nice effects to some of these textures, you can read a tutorial I wrote about creating paper folds and creases to paper textures in Photoshop.

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Famous examples of digitally manipulated photos (a.k.a. doctored photos)

Getty Images and Flickr Announce Exclusive Partnership to Offer New Collection of Creative Imagery

New Flickr Collection on gettyimages.com to Provide Customers Even More Authentic, Diverse and Regionally Relevant Imagery

SEATTLE & SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Getty Images, the world’s leading creator and distributor of visual content and other digital media, and Flickr™, a division of Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) and one of the world’s largest photo sharing communities, today announce a collaboration that unites the authenticity of images from the Flickr community with Getty Images’ imagery collections, photographic expertise and unrivalled experience in licensing digital media.

The exclusive partnership allows Getty Images to invite Flickr members to participate in a Flickr branded collection on http://www.gettyimages.com that will be available for licensing to Getty Images’ creative, commercial and editorial customers in the coming months.

“We are excited and proud to be partnering with Flickr to offer our customers even more choice for their projects. Our customers will be able to select and use the best imagery from a fresh collection of high-quality images chosen by us from Flickr’s diverse and prolific community,” said Jonathan Klein, co-founder and CEO of Getty Images. “Flickr is the ideal partner as we continue to move the imagery industry forward by offering the broadest range of high quality digital content to our customers.”

“This partnership is testimony to the Flickr community of photographers who have influenced the aesthetics of photography with authentic, creative and cutting-edge images which will now be available to Getty Images’ customers around the world,” said Kakul Srivastava, General Manager, Flickr. “We share Getty Images’ commitment to the power of imagery and are thrilled to be working with the unrivaled leader in image licensing. Getty Images offers an unbeatable platform, licensing expertise, and a premier brand for Flickr members who want to bring their imagery to a worldwide customer base.”

Getty Images and Flickr are working together to establish the first commercial licensing opportunity for photo-enthusiasts in the Flickr community. The Flickr collection will feature photography selected by Getty Images editors based on their expertise in licensing digital content and insights into customers’ needs. In the next several months, Getty Images will begin inviting selected Flickr members who will have the choice to participate in the collection. The two companies are collaborating to build online tools to help editors contact Flickr members, and to add images to the new collection. Over the next several months, thousands of high-quality images will be available for licensing on http://www.gettyimages.com with a goal of making many more available over time.

“Through this partnership, we will be offering an expanded choice of imagery with more regionally relevant content and a wider range in the style of photography available,” said Andy Saunders, Vice President of Creative Imagery at Getty Images. “Flickr’s philosophy of personal sharing and immediacy has already impacted commercial photography. The new Flickr collection will expand the definition of stock photography by making it even easier for our customers to find and license imagery that works in the full range of traditional and digital media.”

Getty Images will be the exclusive commercial rights manager of the photos selected to become part of the collection. Flickr members will benefit from Getty Images’ global sales and distribution teams helping to market their images and from Getty Images’ expertise and experience in rights and clearances of visual content. Getty Images’ customers will benefit from the fresh, unique and individualistic perspectives of members within Flickr’s global community. More information on the different ways imagery can be licensed on http://www.gettyimages.com can be found at: http://www.gettyimages.com/Corporate/LicenseInfo.aspx.

About Getty Images
Getty Images is the world’s leading creator and distributor of still imagery, footage and multimedia products, as well as a recognized provider of other forms of premium digital content, including music. Getty Images serves business customers in more than 100 countries and is the first place creative and media professionals turn to discover purchase and manage images and other digital content. Its award-winning photographers and imagery help customers produce inspiring work which appears every day in the world’s most influential newspapers, magazines, advertising campaigns, films, television programs, books and Web sites. Visit Getty Images at http://www.gettyimages.com to learn more about how the company is advancing the unique role of digital media in communications and business, and enabling creative ideas to come to life.

About Flickr
Flickr is one of the world’s leading online photo and video sharing communities where people explore, find and manage pictures and video clips of life’s daily moments with friends, family and the world. With 54 million worldwide visitors each month and more than 2 billion photos stored by 27 million members, Flickr serves as the ‘eyes of the world’ and has revolutionized the sharing and discovery of what people see and experience through digital imagery. Flickr was developed by Ludicorp in February 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in March 2005. To share and explore the world’s photos and videos, visit http://www.flickr.com.

The advantage of the digital age is that anyone with talent can now market themselves as a photographer. The disadvantage is that with so many photographers to choose from, buyers and clients have to make some difficult decisions. When they’re looking at portfolio after portfolio, each filled with professional-quality images and each indicating clearly that the photographer has all the right technical skills, how should the client make a choice?

One option is to look beyond the images to the person who took them, a criterion that’s particularly important in wedding photography when the photographer has to blend in, deal with nerves and emotions, and get the shot without affecting the day.

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“One of the most impressive things about professional photography is the range of people who take it up. From teenagers skipping college and shooting bands between trips to exotic locations, to former surf fans who have found a way to turn a couple of hobbies into a one full-time job, the background of the people who choose to generate an income from images can sometimes be as interesting as the pictures they take.”

“With a Ph.D. in physics from Moscow State University though, Elena Elisseeva might well have the most impressive pre-camera resume of all. After working in a number of research and corporate jobs in Canada, she eventually turned to a passion she had enjoyed since her teens. She took up stock photography full time.”

continue at PhotoPreneur

Thanks to your quick response to our call to join our Flickr Group / Pool

Here are selected images from our first pool photos :

Join us at our Flickr Photo Pool / Group and let us and co-readers see your work !

Leica Camera AG and Jenoptik conclude a cooperation agreement.

Jena und Solms, 17. Juni 2008 – The existing collaboration between the partners in the area of digital imaging is to be further intensified. Know-how bundled in order to meet stringent customer requirements.

LEICA Camera AG and JENOPTIK AG have announced that Leica Camera AG and the Digital Imaging business unit forming part of the Jenoptik Group’s Optical Systems division have concluded an agreement for long-term cooperation in the area of the development, integration, manufacture and supply of digital imaging components comprising optoelectronics and software.

“Leica is a leading manufacturer of analogue and digital camera systems and our products are synonymous worldwide with the highest standards in terms of technology, quality and reliability” says Dr. Andreas Kaufmann, Chairman of the Management Board of LEICA Camera AG, commenting on the intensification of the collaboration between the two companies. During the course of the market development Leica intends to further integrate digital technology and optoelectronics in particular into its existing and future cameras and in this way further expand its position as a leader in the premium segment. “In Jenoptik we have a reliable partner for this purpose, one which has the necessary experience in order to meet the stringent requirements demanded by our customers” continues Dr. Andreas Kaufmann.

Comprehensive product portfolio in the Digital Imaging business unit.
Jenoptik’s Digital Imaging business unit specializes in the development and manufacture of high-performance imaging systems. The components and systems are used in professional, digital photography, microscopy, including, amongst others, for applications in the field of life sciences and in biotechnology, as well as in industrial metrology and traffic solutions. The product range extends from electronic assemblies and software for imaging, to digital camera systems, up to client-specific total systems, e.g. for particle metrology. Dr. Dirk Rothweiler, Head of the Jenoptik Optical Systems division: “We are pleased to be further deepening the partnership with Leica since this provides further proof of the fact that through our Digital Imaging business unit we are meeting the stringent requirements demanded by our customers”.

“The partnership enables us to offer our customers the combined expertise of both companies” adds Wolfgang Keller, Head of the Jenoptik Digital Imaging business unit. This business unit forms part of the Optical Systems division within the new Jenoptik Group divisional structure which was introduced with effect from January 1, 2008.

Leica Camera AG
Leica Camera AG is an international company operating in the optical industry, with headquarters in Solms, Germany and a second location in Portugal. All the products from the three areas of photography, hunting lenses and field observation have one task in common: to create a better image. The product range covers a broad selection of cameras for photography, projectors for reproducing images, binoculars, scopes and distance measurement equipment for observation. These are the lenses upon which the fabled Leica brand is founded – handy, compact, practical precision lenses for analogue and digital photography. Thanks to targeted investment in the manufacture of aspheric lenses, over a period of many years the company has accumulated a broad range of know-how from the manufacture, optical calculation, measurement technology used, right up to the lens design and assembly of aspheric lens systems.

Firstcall, the mail-order photographic specialist, has launched a new and unique service that allows photographers the ability to print their images taken using a digital camera, in a traditional way in their own darkrooms.

This revolutionary approach to fulfilling the needs of photographers arose after much market research involving the frustration of photographers who still shoot using film but increasingly use digital cameras too. By using this service a “common denominator” is established making it possible to carry on printing in a darkroom regardless of original.

Firstcall has invested in a £15,000 PCR8 CCG Film Recorder that writes JPEG or TIFF files to 35mm film using a precision (3 pass) laser which then creates negatives equal to the original resolution of the film.

The service involves sending a CD to Firstcall, containing up to 36 images, and an unprocessed black and white Ilford film is returned for developing and printing at the customer’s home. The compete service, including postage, costs £15 and the CD with “burnt” film is returned by next day post.

Further Details

Transfer your digital images on to film for use in your own darkroom – a revolutionary new service

When teaching photography it is the ability to show the effect of light when making an image that most photographers agree is diminished considerably when printing digitally.

In an ideal world you would be able to take a digital image and print it in the darkroom thereby getting total creativity in a way that a digital printer is not capable.

Well now that option is available, at prices never before possible, due to our investment that makes the dream a reality. Mixing digital and film images for printing in your darkroom is now both easy and available.

The process focuses on a high-technology CCG Film Recorder which we have purchased and the idea couldn’t be simpler. Simply send us (up to 36) of your digital images in TIFF or JPEG format on a CD, they can be black and white or colour and we will record them onto Ilford film for you and then return the film and CD by return post.

The film recording of digital imaging is done by a precise set of lasers (3 pass) to a standard, equal to that of the resolution of the film itself. In other words it is like copying the digital images onto to film at full 35mm resolution.

The reasons for launching this new service should also help the education world considerably.

A cost saving is the most obvious. Assuming a digital A3 inkjet print costs around £5 to print when you cost inks and paper and outsourcing printing on RA4 using a Fuji Frontier will cost about £6. Normal processing of a black and white 12 x 16 print costs you only about £0.90 (Kentmere paper and Fotospeed chemicals) so the COST SAVING IS THERFORE AT LEAST 80% when compared to digital printing.

Other advantages include:
1. Allows you to mix digital and film-based images with common printing.
2. It makes no difference if you shoot in colour or monochrome. With digital you can convert colour to B&W easily.
3. Decreases the concern about falling numbers of film-based SLR cameras available.
4. You only need to send the best images for converting so there’s no waste when compared to straight film.
5. It is easy to combine and archive work onto one film.
6. Most work remains in-house so you retain 100% control over your images.
7. The service “future-proofs” a photographic department to carry on using the equipment and processes it is used to.

What to do. Simply send your CD with your images and complete the order form on page 161 or send us your address and payment details in the normal way you place an order. We will return it along with an unprocessed Ilford Pan 100 film for you to develop normally (if you prefer Pan 400 please indicate this at the time of ordering). All film is returned next day by 1st Class mail (volume permitting).

The cost of the transfer service is £15 per roll of film for normal customers and £10 for educational customers. Prices include VAT and FREE postage. This means each image costs as little as 28p and can then be processed exactly how you like in the darkroom. Using the A3 analogy, even adding 28p to the 90p, means you are still saving a huge amount when compared to normal digital printing.

Firstcall Photographic

Rumours about the new Adobe PhotoShop CS4 – codename Stonehenge are out.

“The compilation date of this build is November 1st, 2007 meaning it is a little dated already, and it was likely an early release sent out to key testers. Rumors have it that this build of Photoshop CS4 only contains Vista compatibility fixes, and not really anything else.”

“Release data of photoshop CS4 : at this point of posting this article, there here is no word on a release date, but in the past Adobe has released new versions of their Creative Suite every 18 to 24 months. That would mean Adobe CS4 will be available somewhere between October 2008 and April 2009.”

“I’ve been playing with Photoshop CS4 Extended version, code name Stonehenge (Version 11.0) for a couple of days but, so far, couldn’t find to much differences between CS3 and CS4. “

“Maybe this version hasn’t got any new features except for the name changes and some hidden improvements.”

Other rumour is that there will be an addition to easily create ‘gigapixel panorama’s’ featuring ‘Xrez’

[youtube]http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=VGvKLL3SF20[/youtube]

“Express your vision of an imagenary voyage and have the chance to win a Leica m-8 camera ”

link to the photo contest page

Choose a career in movies and everyone will tell you that your first years will be spent waiting tables. Set your sights on medicine and you know you’ll have to spend four years in undergraduate digs, and several more sweating through medical school.

Aim at building a professional photography business though, and you might think it’s as simple as buying a camera, renting a studio and taking bookings from the lines of people hoping that you’ll shoot for them.

The business side of photography, when it hits, can be a little shocking.

The first part of that lesson lies in the Parks Canada’s decision to call a photographer in the hope that he would enter the running for a commission. Josh started shooting to document his own outdoor sports activities and it was those pictures that led him to study photography… and to his first professional job.

continue at PhotoPreneur

“If you are a photographer, you are eligible to enter Think Tank Photo’s drawing for free round-trip airfare, hotel, spending money, and exhibition passes to photokina, the world’s leading photo and imaging trade fair.

Join over 160,000 visitors from 156 countries in exploring 1,600 exhibitors of cutting edge imaging products from almost 50 countries. And, you get to hang around Cologne with the gang from Think Tank Photo”

continue at ThinkTank

* “Your camera is light and compact enough that you have it with you at all times.
* You have about as good a lens as he does; like most first-time SLR owners, he hasn’t bothered to upgrade from the cheap low-contrast zoom lens that was included in a kit with his camera body.

* He is using the pop-up flash on his camera as his primary light. You would never be that uncreative (at least not after reading the rest of this article).
* Your camera has a better system for combining light from the flash with ambient light (“fill-flash”).”

continue at Photo.net

Canon EOS 450d – Digital Rebel XSI sample images at Photographyblog

previously : Canon EOS 450d – Digital Rebel xsi sample photos 1

“Emporio Armani fragrances are inviting designers and filmmakers to create a print or video to advertise their Get Together range of his and hers perfumes.

After the initial selection of national winners, which will be chosen by democratic vote, a jury presided over by Mr. Armani will select the two international winners (one film and one print design). The winners will see their designs broadcast worldwide and will win a prize of €10,000 (video) or €5,000 (visual print).”

continue at EmporioArmaniParfums

” Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced Adobe TV, a free online video resource for expert instruction and inspiration about Adobe products, including the company’s Creative Suite 3 family of world-class creative tools.”

“With multiple channels, original series programming, and content from Adobe, leading training organizations and the world’s leading subject matter experts, Adobe TV delivers a virtual library of entertaining and instructional videos. Designers, photographers, video professionals, and developers will find product deep-dives, innovative tips, techniques from luminaries, and behind-the-scenes tours of the hottest creative shops and Adobe product teams. “

continue at AdobeTV

“Have you always dreamed of seeing your work on the cover of a national magazine? Here’ s your chance :  Upload your photographs online today for an opportunity to be on the cover of Professional Photographer.”

Prizes: The winner will be awarded a selection of prizes from among our contest sponsors, Bogen, Canon, Kodak, Microsoft and Miller’s Professional Imaging. Prizes will also be awarded to 2nd-, 3rd-, 4th- and 5th-place winners, and as many as 25 entrants will receive prizes for honorable mention.

“Eligibility: Images will be judged on technical and artistic merit. You may submit as many images as you wish, provided they are representative of the work you sell to your clients. What we’e seeking are real-world examples of portrait, wedding, commercial and event photography. Entrant must have captured and created the original exposure. All digital manipulation must have been performed by the entrant. Failure to comply with these rules may result in disqualification of entry. The decision of the contest judges is final.”

Judging: Helping Professional Photographer magazine editors choose the best entries will be guest judge Helen K. Yancy, M.Photog.M.Artist.MEI.Cr.Hon. M.Photog., CPP, F-ASP, Hon. F-ASP”

continue at PPmag

“Founded in New York, in 2004, Magnum In Motion is the multimedia digital studio of Magnum Photos. In Motion assembles visual narratives for online and offline platforms, including screenings in museums, festivals, and workshops.”

continue at Magnum Photos

Dave Hill look at Flickr

Beers with Dave Hill at Strobist

Creating that Dave Hill look at DIYPhotography

Cool gritty look in camera raw photoshop and lightroom by Scott Kelby

Lucisart Photoshop plugin review at Scott Kelby

Dave Hill Photographer

With hugin you can assemble a mosaic of photographs into a complete immersive panorama, stitch any series of overlapping pictures and much more.

Hugin panorama photo stitcher

Capture One 4.1 is being previewed at Photo Imaging Expo this week at the launch of the companies’ new open medium format digital camera platform.

The next update to Phase One’s raw workflow software will include support for the high quality 22 mega pixels Mamiya ZD camera and digital back.  This support is a commitment to the strategic alliance between Phase One and Mamiya Digital Imaging.

Capture One 4.1 will also include two new technologies initially available for Phase One digital backs, built on Phase One’s expertise in digital backs and thorough testing with a selection of Mamiya lenses.

Lens+ technology is designed to provide photographers with a superior out-of-the-box solution for removing lens artifacts in images. Not only will lens artifacts like chromatic aberration and fringing be heavily reduced, but at the same time image texture and color fidelity are expected to achieve a previously unseen level – resulting in amazing sharp and vibrant images.

A new standard of image sharpness will be introduced through use of Focus+ technology engineered to enhance performance of the full Mamiya 645AFD lens range, enabling a new level of sharpness and resolution. Perfect pixel definition will optimize the basis for high quality image rendering and extreme scaling.

These technologies will be expanded to cover a broader range of lenses in the near future.

Top fashion photographers who demand high resolution, high capture rates and instant high quality previews for evaluation of image composition, exposure, and focus will enjoy the fastest ever tethered shooting functionality in Capture One 4.1. Image transfer and preview generation will be virtually instantaneous with Phase One backs, even with resolutions up to 39 mega pixels.

“We are committed to offering professional photographers the choice that best suits them in achieving ultimate image quality,” said Jan H. Christiansen, Marketing Director.  “Capture One is engineered to support the most rigorous imaging demands for the widest range of operating conditions and equipment.”

Pricing and Availability
Capture One 4.1, a free update to all Capture One customers, will be available for download beginning with volume production shipments of the new Phase One 645 Camera platform, expected Q2, 2008.

About Phase One
Phase One is a leading provider of digital image capture and work flow management technology.  The Phase One Camera offers open platform flexibility. Phase One P+ Series digital backs open new possibilities, putting the focus back on the moment of capture. Phase One Capture One software helps streamline the capture and post-production process.  Supporting DSLR, medium- and large-format photographic equipment, Phase One products are renowned for their superior quality, flexibility and speed — enabling pro photographers to realize their most subtle and most complex visions without compromise.

Phase One is an employee-owned company based in Copenhagen with offices in New York, London, Tokyo, Cologne and Shanghai.

For more information about the products, visit the Phase One web site on http://www.phaseone.com.

Phase One and Capture One are registered trademarks of Phase One A/S.

All other brand or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

Canon Digital Learning Center.

World Press Photo 2008 Winners Gallery.

My Shot is your chance to have your own National Geographic web page. Here you can create and share albums, puzzles, and games based on photos you upload.

To get your own My Shot page, start by submitting your best photo to Your Shot. Two photos are selected for publication each month in National Geographic and 12 are published daily at ngm.com. Once you upload a photo, you can create a My Shot page. Begin by uploading up to 100 of your favorite images.

continue at NationalGeographic.com

before you submit images, make sure you read the submission guidelines and usage policy carefully.

Click here for speedlite flashes in softbox and umbrella set-ups with sample photos.

The Innovation Curve
“We can only do it the A way.
We can’t do it the B way.
We can only do it the B way.
We can’t do it the C way……”

check article on new ideas for photojournalism @ DigitalJournalist.org

Family photos, vacation snapshots or creative artistic works: whatever images you have to present, you can present them in a variety of ways. On a big screen, in slide shows or in a thumbnails gallery. However, to convey the message of presented data effectively, it’s important to offer it in an attractive and intuitive way. Furthermore, the presentation itself can make images more valuable and simplify the browsing through hundreds of slides.

There are literally hundreds of solutions for web-based galleries out there. We’ve selected 30 scripts of impressive slideshows, lightboxes and galleries you can use for effective presentations of your images. Most of them don’t have any technical requirements, so you can use them right away. Let’s take a look.

Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from around the Web, Photosynth creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation. Its architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, shows it off in this standing-ovation demo. Curious about that speck in corner? Dive into a freefall and watch as the speck becomes a gargoyle. With an unpleasant grimace. And an ant-sized chip in its lower left molar. “Perhaps the most amazing demo I’ve seen this year,” wrote Ethan Zuckerman, after TED2007. Indeed, Photosynth might utterly transform the way we manipulate and experience digital images.

How to match the dimensions of your photos and your prints

Aspect ratio has a technical name, but is really pretty straighforward. It can be tricky getting your photos set to the right aspect ratios to print properly, but there are many software programs that will help you do it.

Aspect Ratio Definition

The aspect ratio of a digital photograph is the relationship between the width and height of the photograph. There are two common aspect ratios produced by digital cameras: 3:2 and 4:3.

read more : http://www.digicamguides.com/print/aspect-ratio.html

© Digicamguides.com

Looking at the world on a smaller scale opens up whole new possibilities for photography. Unique and interesting images are easily achievable by taking a close look! Technically, the word macro in photography means being able to take a photo that is a 1:1 full-frame-shot to film/sensor size ratio.

You can achieve greater magnification by using extension tubes, close-up filters, or reverse mounting a lens. Though the term MACRO is debatable, I like to think of macro photography as any photo taken on a much smaller scale, showing details and perspectives of things you would not normally see or take notice of.
continue @ IforPhotos.com

Possibly the most useful tool available in digital photography is the histogram. It could also well be the least understood. In this article we will look at what a camera histogram tells the photographer and how best to utilize that information.

Virtually every digital camera, from the simplest point-and-shoot to the most sophisticated digital SLR has the ability to display a histogram directly, or more usually superimposed upon the image just taken. (The Hasselblad H1, the latest generation of film & digital capable cameras, can display a histogram on the camera grips LCD while the image is separately displayed on the digital back’s LCD.) On most cameras though the histogram display takes place on the rear LCD screen, and most cameras can be programmed to do this both on the image that is displayed immediately after a shot is taken, or later when frames are being reviewed.

read more :
Luminous Landscape

DIY $10 Macro Studio

DIY:Macro Strip Lights

DIY:Digital EOS/Holga

DIY Heaven:The “Make” Photo Blog

How-To: One Synch Cord Fires Two Flashes

Get Your “Tinker Tubes” Plans!

The Art and Science of Printer Profiling, part I

Why Use the ProPhoto RGB Color Space?

GretagMacbeth Eye-One Display

The Color Management Wave

Eye-One Match: An Eye for Color

Learn how to use the amazing black and white conversion tools in Photoshop CS3. This new tool makes turning a color photo into a stunning black and white photo easy. Learn how to make the right adjustments so that your pictures look perfect @ PhotoShopSupport

In this Photoshop CS3 video tutorial you will learn the following:
How to call up the black and white adjustment conversion tool.
How to control the black and white conversion sliders.
How to create various effects using the sliders.
How to add a tint to your photo.

PhotoShopSupport

Definitions

What is Dynamic Range?

What is the unit of Dynamic Range?

What is an HDR image?

But aren’t we confusing dynamic range with bit-depth here?

Shouldn’t 24-bit be higher than 16-bit? I’m lost with all those bit numbers!

High Dynamic Range Images

How do I shoot an HDR image?

Can’t I just create the exposures from one RAW file?

Why doesn’t my HDRI have the details of the exposures I created it from?

What are HDR images used for in 3D rendering?

Do HDR images have a gamma?

Are HDR images color managed?

Processing HDR images

What do you mean by dynamic range increase?

What is Tone Mapping?

Is RAW conversion related to tonemapping?

© hdrsoft.com

High Dynamic Range on Wikipedia

Welcome to On Assignment, where you can build on your Lighting 101 skills by learning exactly how real-world assignments were lit.

The object will be to explain the process of making the photos as clearly as possible. But if you have worked your way through the Lighting 101 section, you should be able to reverse engineer the light on most photos just by looking at them. – Strobist

On Assignment: Light Like a Pro

Worth1000 is the top creative competition and photoshop contest site on the web. Don’t take our word for it. Let our 8,074 galleries of 298,598 original images speak for themselves.

Explore the world of off-camera lighting thanks to Strobist

Links to Strobist articles out of the Lighting 101 ( © Strobist ) :

Two Things Your Flash Needs to Have
Traveling Light
Light Stands
Super Clamps
Ball Bungees
Umbrella Stand Adapters

Synching: PC Cords and Pocket Wizards
Building a Pro PC Cord, Pt. 1
Building a Pro PC Cord, Pt. 2
Soft Light: Umbrellas
Soft Light – Wall/Ceiling Bouncing
Bare-Tube Style Lighting
Hard Light – It’s Better Than You Think
Balancing Flash Intensity With Ambient, Pt 1
Balancing Flash Intensity With Ambient, Pt 2
Using Gels to Balance Light Color
Cereal Box Snoots and GoBo’s
Textural Lighting for Detail Shots
Cross Lighting
Back Light as Main Light
Headshot in a Corner
Lighting for Glasses
Know The Flash
See The Flash
Be The Flash
Don’t Let Good Light Ruin a Photo
Keep a Lighting File