Press Release: Paris, France - November 28, 2006 - DxO Labs today announces the immediate availability of DxO Analyzer version 3, adding groundbreaking innovations to the product’s image quality evaluation and analysis capabilities.

Geotagging hobbyists organize pictures using maps to create a new kind of digital photo album.

Source: StarTribune via NY Times
Written by Ian Austen

Kathleen Bennett recently bought a device that keeps track of her location with help from the satellites of the Global Positioning System. But the Seattle woman is not using it to find her way through the wilderness.
Instead, the gadget is for Bennett’s personal passion, photography. She is one of many people who have taken up “geotagging,” the practice of posting photos online that are linked to Web-based maps, showing just where in the world the shutter was pressed.

Scientists who worked on the Archimedes Palimpsest are using modern imaging technologies to digitally restore a 700-year-old palm-leaf manuscript containing the essence of Hindu philosophy.

kuler is a new hosted application for creating, exploring and sharing color harmonies.

Source: Business 2.0
Written by Jon Fortt

A few days ago, two of the brightest minds from Adobe Systems (ADBE) dropped by my office to give me a rare and exciting look at what the software maker is cooking up in its imaging labs.

In the couple of hours we spent together, I learned that Adobe doesn’t just want to revolutionize photo editing. It wants to revolutionize cameras.

Source: computerarts

A revolution has taken place. The digital revolution has altered the nature of illustration beyond recognition – taking it from cottage industry to household phenomenon…

Things weren’t always this way. Before the digital revolution, life as an illustrator was fairly straightforward, or so it seemed – there was no Bill Gates, no Apple, no Photoshop, no Google, no internet, no email… no hassle. Looking back at life before the revolution, albeit through rose-tinted specs, the working day for your lone illustrator was a fairly simple affair. In fact, depending on just how far back you wish to peer, it’s clear to see just how much has changed.

Peter Krogh, author of The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers has added a new video companion for the book on his DAM Useful website.

…with a few friends for the Epson Print Academy in Salt Lake City this Saturday, November 11th. (Boy, I hope they have a Starbucks there…)

Source: Macworld
Written by Rick LePage

As I’m typing this, I’m sitting outside the exhibition hall at the Javits Center in New York, watching a stream of photographers, graphic artists and a large group of art school students pass into the packed hall at Photo Plus East. I have always liked this show—the focus on imaging is right up my alley, and I like the mix of digital tools with the traditional stuff like lighting products and wedding portfolios.

The Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidlines (UPDIG) working group has announced the release of version 2.0 of their guidelines for the delivery of digital photographs.

Adobe has publically announced a prerelease of the Adobe Color Engine (ACE) as a stand alone library that can be used by non-Adobe applications.

ACE is built into Adobe products and therefore couldn’t be used by non-Adobe products. This project takes a chunk of ACE (the color conversion engine) and packages it for use by applications that support external color management modules using ColorSync on the Mac OS and ICM2/WCS on Windows.

A French IT consultant says yes, but productivity experts disagree
Source: ComputerWorld
Written by Todd Weiss

Providing employees with 30-in. computer monitors can boost worker productivity at companies where 17- or 19-in. monitors are typically used, according to a French consultant hired for a study sponsored by Apple Computer Inc.

The study, which evaluated Apple’s 30-in. Apple Cinema Display, concluded that large screens can offer gains of up to 50% to 65% in productivity on a variety of specific office tasks and can earn back their extra costs in time savings over several years. The 30-in. display costs $1,999.

iView Multimedia has released a free update to its flagship digital asset management program iView MediaPro. The first comprehensive update since iView’s acquisition by Microsoft this summer, iView MediaPro 3.1.2 delivers significantly more robust performance, including clearer error reporting and improved memory handling for both Mac and Windows customers, as well as a number of minor feature enhancements.

Press Release: AKRON, Ohio–(BUSINESS WIRE)–X-Rite, Incorporated (NASDAQ:XRIT - News) will offer a seminar this November through February 2007 designed to help creative directors, designers, photographers and production managers unleash the power of their color. “Color Without Limits” will be presented in 20 major US and Canadian cities with support from HP, Apple, Adobe, Quark, Popular Photography & Imaging Magazine, Wasatch and PaperSpecs.

Adobe has released Adobe Lightroom Beta 4 for Macintosh and Windows now available for download at: Labs.Adobe.com. Windows users can now access more of the module features that were previously unavailable in the PC version of public Beta 3. But the main changes in Beta 4 have all taken place in the Library and Develop modules. In this second part review we are going to concentrate on what’s new in the Library module, such as the new interface changes to the grid layout, the ability to batch rename images, and convert to DNG and CD/DVD archiving. Read the rest of this story for an in-depth look at the Beta 4 Develop module.

Arrays of thousands of tiny “super prisms” controlled by robotic muscles could bring real colour to TV screens for the first time, scientists say.

Source: BBC News
By Jonathan Fildes

The devices, known as electrically tunable diffraction gratings, have been built by researchers in Switzerland.

They manipulate light to reproduce the full spectrum of colours on screen, impossible using existing technology.

Source: Editor & Publisher
Written by David D. Perlmutter

The Israeli-Hezbollah war has left many dead bodies, ruined towns, and wobbling politicians in its wake, but the media historian of the future may also count as one more victim the profession of photojournalism. In twenty years of researching and teaching about the art and trade and doing photo-documentary work, I have never witnessed or heard of such a wave of attacks on the people who take news pictures and on the basic premise that nonfiction news photo- and videography is possible.

I’m not sure, however, if the craft I love is being murdered, committing suicide, or both.

Source: Pacifica Tribune
Written by Chris Hunter

Stephen Johnson is a name well-known in the world of digital photography. The Pacifica resident and business owner travels the world to offer seminars and lectures on digital photography. His own digital landscape photography is recognized throughout the world for its amazing quality and innovation.

He also is gradually turning his Pacifica workshop and gallery in the Pacifica Center for the Arts into an internationally known digital photography center, complete with courses, presentations and exhibits.

Source: The Mercury News
Written by Mark de la Viña

For a brief, digitally charged moment — OK, for seven days — the ZeroOne festival turned San Jose into the nation’s art and technology capital.

Press Release: MELVILLE, NY, AUGUST 9, 2006 – Building on the extraordinary success of the D70 and D70s, Nikon® (www.nikondigital.com) today introduced the new D80™ digital SLR camera – an impressively featured, high performance camera that incorporates Nikon’s latest digital and photographic technologies, and offers advanced features as well as automated operation to satisfy any photographer with the passion to create beautiful photographs and preserve special moments.

Source: CNET
Written by Stephen Shankland

Researchers have unveiled an image-processing technique that shows promise for fixing images spoiled by camera shake.

The technique is based on an algorithm that deduces the path that a wobbling camera took when a photo was shot, then uses that path to reverse much of the resultant blurring. The method isn’t a miracle cure, but researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Toronto have used it to significantly help a wide variety of sample images.

Leading publishing software runs natively on Intel-based Macs

Press Release: SAN FRANCISCO - August 7, 2006 - Quark Inc. today announced the immediate availability of QuarkXPress 7 as a Universal application for Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger.” The QuarkXPress 7.01 update, which is available at no additional cost for Mac users of QuarkXPress 7.0, was built to run at peak performance on both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs.

Source: The New York Times
Written by Ian Austen

Like many amateur photographers, Joe Dejesus posts his photos online and compares them to the work of others on the photo-sharing site Flickr. At some point last year, a number of landscape photos caught his eye with their vibrant tones and colors.

Their secret was a software technology known as H.D.R., for high dynamic range photography. And Mr. Dejesus quickly became one of its practitioners.

Press Release: August 1, 2006, Cologne, Germany – The Panel, “A Call to Simplify Image Capture/Print Workflow” will be presented at this year’s Photokina in Cologne, Germany, as part of the “Imaging with Mobile Devices” full day seminar. The panel features three digital imaging experts: Eran Steinberg, CEO of FotoNation; Elmo Sapwater, Columnist and Moderator; and John Henshall, Columnist http://www.ChipShopOnline.com and “The Photographer” magazine (UK), who will discuss ways to effectively simplify and standardize mobile devices for ease of use in imaging. The trio will debate intelligent workflow solutions that will remove obstacles, making image printing as easy as making a phone call.

Source: The Mercury News
Written by Mark de la Viña

Silicon Valley will flip the switch on its newest start-up Monday — a seven-day festival of art and technology.

More than 150 artists will use everything from Internet chat rooms to GPS technology in works of art displayed throughout downtown, most of which can be viewed for free as part of “ZeroOne San Jose: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge.”