…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…)

For the last few years, a small exclusive group of people have been invited by the Pixel Mafia to attend a special dinner during PhotoPlus Expo (see the PSN Pixel Mafia story from 2005). Who is the Pixel Mafia you may ask? Well, if you have to ask, you really don’t want to know…The Rules of Omertá, ya know?

This year, the Pixel Mafia Dinner was held on Thursday, November 2nd at Jovia Restaurant (135 E 62nd Street near Lexington). The guests were comprised of the “Usual Suspects” as well as some new blood.

Photo Plus East was held again this year at the Javits Center in New York from the 2nd-4th of November. Several members of the Pixel Genius team plus friends were there to take part in the various seminars and events. Here is a summary of what took place, in particular the Adobe Booth seminar sessions, where demos of Lightroom Beta 5 were shown for the first time in public. To find out more about what happened, read on…

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 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.

Adobe has released Adobe Lightroom Beta 4 for Macintosh and Windows, and is 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 first part review we are going to concentrate on what’s new in the Develop module. This is the first chance to see how the Raw Shooter raw processing technology has been incorporated into Beta 4, and how Adobe has added more versatility to the tone and color edit controls. Some of the key new features are that you can drag-edit the histogram and have the ability to directly edit the tone curve plus make on-image tone curve edits. Read the rest of this story for an in-depth look at the Beta 4 Develop module.

Room with a view…34th floor looking North.

Photoshop World was last week and it was both a lot of fun and educational for those who attended. This is my report of the first day of my first Photoshop World. I only shot stuff on this first day (I was speaking the other days) so this is the only posting I’ll be doing.

Last week, at Photoshop World, Epson held a special “mini” Print Academy. The question was, would people come and could we cover what we needed to cover in such a short period of time. The answer to both questions was yes!

All I’m going to give you is the link.  :~)

Via John Nack’s Adobe Blog.

Source: The New York Times
Written by Maria Aspan

The recent discovery that a Lebanese freelance photographer, Adnan Hajj, had manipulated pictures he took for Reuters has raised questions about the standards of photojournalism at a time of widespread digital photography.

The incident also increased pressure on news photo editors, who select and edit thousands of photographs under deadline each day, to detect digital alterations.

Source: blogs.Reuters.com
Written by Gary Hershorn, News Pictures Editor for North America

News photographers routinely process images using Adobe Photoshop software. But there has been a basic premise in the world of photojournalism that what was allowed in making prints in the pre-digital days of darkrooms is all that is acceptable today.

Source: Reuters via Yahoo News
LONDON (Reuters) - Reuters withdrew all 920 photographs by a freelance Lebanese photographer from its database on Monday after an urgent review of his work showed he had altered two images from the conflict between Israel and the armed group Hizbollah.

Altered image on left, original on right

Peachpit releases The Adobe Lightroom Book by Martin Evening as a new “Rough Cut” publishing concept-a book available as it’s being written. Which dovetails well with a product like Adobe Lightroom which is being developed as a public preview.

Digital photographers who have relied on Adobe Photoshop to work with their images have a new tool at their disposal: Adobe Lightroom.

As a professional photographer, author Martin Evening knows firsthand what photographers need for a more efficient workflow.

Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop CS2 by Bruce Fraser is shipping.

It’s a sad but undeniable fact of life: Whether you scan, shoot, or capture, the process of digitizing images introduces softness, and to get great-looking results, you’ll need to sharpen the great majority of digital images.

The softness introduced during digitizing results from the very nature of the digitizing process. To represent images digitally, we must transform them from continuous gradations of tone and color to points on a grid. In the process details gets “averaged” into the pixels, softening the overall appearance.

Adobe has updated many of the original white papers and primers available as PDF downloads from Adobe.com. Explore these papers and primers — written by some of the biggest names in the industry — to learn more about the world of digital photography.

Jill Greenberg’s photo technique has Internet bloggers up in arms.

Source: Los Angeles Times Calendar Live
By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

Steal a toddler’s lollipop and he’s bound to start bawling, was photographer Jill Greenberg’s thinking. So that’s just what Greenberg did to illicit tears from the 27 or so 2- and 3-year-olds featured in her latest exhibition, “End Times“, recently at the Paul Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles. The children’s cherubic faces, illuminated against a blue-white studio backdrop, suggest abject betrayal far beyond the loss of a Tootsie Pop; sometimes tears spill onto naked shoulders and bellies.

Adobe has released the long awaited Adobe Lightroom Beta 3 for Windows.
Note: the main Lightroom website has not yet been updated but the Windows download for Lightroom beta 3 is listed on the download page as of 9:20PM Pacific…

The Offices of Adobe Minnesota.

After a recent Epson Print Academy event in St. Paul, Minnesota I had the chance to hook up with some of the Lightroom engineers at Adobe’s offices in Arden Hills just outside of Minneapolis.

Adobe has released Adobe Lightroom Beta 3 for Mac.
It is available for download at Labs.Adobe.com/Lightroom. Beta 3 brings a variety of new functionality including a new module and refinements of other modules. Also added is a new “Watched Folder” function to automatically import files into Lightroom when new files are added to a specified folder. It should also be noted that the application name has been changed from just ‘Lightroom’ to ‘Adobe Lightroom’. Hopefully, this will be the last name change. Read the rest of this story for an in depth look at Beta 3.

The Great Luminous Landscape 2006 State-of-The-Art Shootout

Left to right: Chris Sanderson, Michael Reichmann, Charles Cramer, Bill Atkinson
Bill is blurred because he was running around to get into the shot

Written by Michael Reichmann

Source: National Press Photographers Association (NPPA)
Written By William Campbell

LIVINGSTON, MT (April 20, 2006) – The National Park Service, a branch of the U.S. Department of the Interior, has published new rules authorizing the NPS to begin collecting location fees for video, film, and commercial still photography projects. The new regulations appeared in the Federal Register (Vol. 71, Number 71) published April 13, 2006, and will take effect on May 15, 2006.

OpenRAW Releases Initial Results of 2006 RAW Survey - Over 19,000 Photographers and Imaging Professionals Provide Data on their Experiences, Preferences, and Concerns regarding RAW Imaging Technology

Will the digital camera you buy tomorrow fairly serve the future of photography? Are today’s camera manufacturers making decisions that may adversely affect the preservation of photographic works for future generations? More than 19,000 digital photographers and preservationists from around the world have now weighed in with opinions on RAW imaging technology, a concept that many compare to a “digital negative.”

From ASMP

The problem
The U.S. Copyright Office issued its report on Orphan Works only a couple of weeks ago. The end of that report contained proposed language for an amendment to the Copyright Act. That proposal is now being fast-tracked in Washington with a good chance of passage before the end of this Session. In my opinion, if that language is enacted in its current form, it will be the worst thing that has happened to independent photographers and other independent visual artists since Work Made for Hire contracts.

Press Release from PPA

The Copyright Office has suggested legislation that, in its current form, could have a devastating impact on the professional photographers. The proposal would limit, or in some cases eliminate, the damages available against an infringer of an orphan work. An orphan work is a work presumed to have copyright protection, but whose owner cannot be located even after a reasonably diligent search conducted in good faith.

Source: RobGalbraith.com
Written by Eamon Hickey

A number of trade groups that represent photographers have recently raised the alarm about proposed changes to U.S. copyright law that address so-called orphan works – works whose copyright holders cannot be located.