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March 2007 - Monthly Archive
 To coincide with the official announcement of Photoshop CS3, Martin Evening has released a sample chapter from his forthcoming book: Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Photographers, published by Focal Press. Here’s the summary of his overall impressions of Adobe Photoshop CS3:
“…The new Camera Raw 4.0 plug-in shares the same new image adjustment controls as will be found in the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom program. And as was pointed out, these new Camera Raw controls can now be applied to any image, not just to raw files. Therefore I would say that if you were to buy only Photoshop CS3, then there is actually quite a lot on offer photographers in this upgrade of Photoshop. If on the other hand you intend to buy Lightroom, or will choose to rely on some other third party program to process and manage your digital captures, then there may be less compelling reasons for you to upgrade.
My own personal view is that I very much like the new Photoshop CS3 interface design. I am also enthused by the new things you can do with features such as the Align Content feature and how this has been implemented to enhance Photomerge, which have all featured in this introductory chapter. I would also rate the new Clone Source palette for providing accurate clone control, the Black and White adjustment and new Curves dialog and even Brightness/Contrast, for improved pixel editing. The Refine Edges command has a lot of great potential, especially as you can use it to edit layer masks as well as selections…”
Website : Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Photographers from Martin Evenin
Download : Introductory chapter - What’s New in Adobe Photoshop CS3 (PDF)
 
 According to the latest Reuters News, Nikon, which mainly competes with Canon Inc., is riding on the success of models such as the D80, that are geared for consumers who want to take photos like professionals, which also have fatter profit margins than simpler compact devices. Nikon aims for a double-digit rise in shipments for digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras with interchangeable lenses in 2007/8 from a year earlier, Makoto Kimura said in an interview. Kimura also said Nikon may beat its 2.05 million shipment targets for DSLR cameras for the business year ending this month.
Strong DSLR sales have also have spurred demand for interchangeable lenses, prompting Nikon to boost lens production from April in Thailand, Kimura told Reuters. The Thai factory, which used to make film cameras, is now the main manufacturing base for DSLRs and lenses with 15,000 staff. That compares with 3,000 employees a few years ago, Kimura said.
Shipments of lenses, which are more profitable than camera bodies, in the year ending this month is expected to beat the target of 2.3 million units by more than 10 percent, Kimura said.
Nikon earns about 45 percent of its group operating profit from cameras and lenses, and is also the world’s second-biggest maker of steppers, complex machines used in chip-making.
Website : Nikon Expects Double-Digit Shipment Increase for DSLR
PopPhoto did a comparison of Nikon D40x, Canon XTi and Sony A100. Here’s the conclusion:
Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi: With 18-55mm f/3.6-5.6 Canon EF-S lens ($770, street):
The Nikon D40x produces Image Quality a bit higher than Canon’s mighty lightweight, notably in better noise control throughout the ISO range, and it has an ISO 3200 setting, which the XTi lacks. But the XTi remains a potent competitor, with faster and more sensitive AF using a sophisticated nine-point AF array that can track across the frame. The Canon takes a RAW file simultaneously with a highest-quality JPEG, not lowest. While we’d rate the build quality about equal, we’d trust the Canon more in dusty conditions, as it has both self-cleaning sensor and software dust deletion (the D40x, just the latter). And the Canon has no AF lens limitations — all EF and EF-S lenses have built-in focusing motors.
Sony Alpha 100: With 18-70mm f/3.5-5.6 Sony Zoom DT lens ($710, street):
The Sony’s singular advantage over both the Canon and Nikon models is its sensor-based Super Steady Shot system, which provides image stabilization across both the Sony and the discontinued Konica Minolta Maxxum lens lines. Canon and Nikon make you pay for stabilization with every lens. The Sony has faster and better-tracking AF than the Nikon D40x, a self-cleaning sensor, and innovative dynamic-range controls. We also think it’s a better-built camera than the D40x. The Nikon wins on Image Quality, with somewhat higher resolution but, more important, clearly superior noise control. The Sony lens line is smaller than Nikon’s AF-S lens catalog, but not by much.
Website : Nikon D40x Compared with Canon XTi and Sony A100
 The Eye Candy Effects Collection includes full, retail versions of Eye Candy 5: Textures, Nature, Impact, Xenofex 2, and Snap Art. Create amazing chrome, fire, smoke, lightning, clouds, comics and dozens of other effects. With 54 filters and over 1000 one-click settings, you’ll blast through your creative projects. Purchased separately, these titles would cost $575, but the Eye Candy Effects Collection is available now for $399 – a savings of over 30%.
Alien Skin is the first name in special effects plug-ins, and the Eye Candy Effects Collection represents 14 years of serving the computer graphics community. Read reviews and check out examples on the pages below. See for yourself why these plug-ins will be an essential part of your toolkit .
Website : Alien Skin Announces The Eye Candy Effects Collection
 Ovolab has released Geophoto 1.0.1, a Mac OS X program for location-based photo browsing, sharing and display. The program allows users to tag images with location data by dragging them onto a photorealistic globe created from satellite images. Photos in designated folders that have already been geotagged with a camera phone or GPS camera accessory will automatically appear in the locations where they were taken.
Geophoto viewers can pan around and zoom into the globe image, and “fly” through the attached photos. The program also lets users search and organize photos by location; attach links, text and other files to photos on the globe; and view geotagged images hosted on Flickr or distributed via iPhoto Photocasting by searching a location on the globe. The software supports 3Dconnexion’s Space Navigator three-dimensional input device as well.
Geophoto is available on Ovolab’s Web site for $19.95 and as a free trial.
Website : Ovolab Geo Software for Location-based Photo Browsing
Download : Ovolab Geo Software Free Trial (Mac)
 PixInfo compared the sensor cleaning system of four different cameras from four different manufacturers: Canon EOS 400D, Olympus E-300, Pentax K10D and Sony Alpha A100. They started the test with an exhaustive manual sensor cleaning, since not all cameras arrived with entirely clean sensors. After that, shot a reference image with each camera to see the photo from a clean (or almost clean) sensor.
The second step was the dusting (not cleaning, but dirtying) process. Mirror are locked up and left the cameras laying on their backs for a few minutes with dusty air. This is when the exciting part started. The third step is to set the cameras to normal position (standing on their bottoms in landscape orientation), and performed two sensor-cleaning processes (turned the cameras on and off twice). Here’s the conclusion from the article:
“Here is our ranking according to effectiveness:
1. Olympus: good
2. Canon: poor (we are disappointed)
3. Pentax and Sony: useless (we are very disappointed)
If you are looking for a camera, have the dust removal as an expectation only at the end of your list. If sensor cleaning / dust removal is a must, the choices are limited to Olympus and Panasonic cameras. We guess that theoretically it is possible to get better results with Canon cameras when the CMOS sensor is not charged, but Canon must find a way to discharge the sensor first (if this is really the problem). If the system is so unreliable, the EOS-ICS is not much more than a good marketing name. In case of Sony, Pentax and Samsung cameras, the dust removal function should be considered as almost non-existent.
The final conclusion: keep your air blower handy, it is still your best tool against dust.”
Website : Canon Olympus Pentax Sony - Sensor Cleaning Compared
 Zigview, a 1.3-megapixel sensor that attaches to the optical viewfinder of a DSLR, is essentially a camera-on-a-camera that shows you the viewfinder’s image on in its LCD viewscreen. Most of the popular DSLR are supported, e.g. Nikon D200/D70/D50, Canon 350D/30D/5D, Olympus E-300/E-500…etc.
The Zigview is particularly useful for low angle photography where you would struggle to see through the viewfinder especially with macro work, high angle situations such as press work where it is impossible to see the subject when taking pictures over crowds, and for copy work, etc. Zigview makes it easy to see the subject without difficulty in these, and many more situations.
There are a variety of models available, starting with the $249.95 SC-V100B with a 2-inch screen, up to a unit with a 2.5-inch screens, motion detecting shutter release and 360-degree rotation. Or, you could wait about a year when just about every digital SLR has live view and just get yourself a new camera.
Website : Zigview to Add Live View Function to Any DSLR
 Photoshop CS3 is the latest release of the industry standard in digital imaging. It accelerates your path from imagination to imagery with a wealth of productivity and workflow enhancements, unrivaled editing power, and breakthrough compositing capabilities.
Photoshop CS3 Extended delivers everything in Photoshop CS3 and more. Render and incorporate 3D images into your 2D composites. Stop time with easy editing of motion graphics on video layers. And probe your images with measurement, analysis, and visualization tools.
With Photoshop CS3, you can perfect all of your images with nondestructive filters and more powerful color-correction, cloning, and healing tools, and create sophisticated composites more easily than ever with breakthrough tools for automatically aligning and blending layers and making quick selections. There are many productivity enhancements such as Camera Raw 4.1 with fill light and dust busting, integration with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom™ software, and Zoomify support.
There are many productivity enhancements in Photoshop CS3. Customers can experience native performance on Intel® based and PowerPC® Macs and on Microsoft® Windows® XP and Windows Vista™ systems. A streamlined interface helps maximize your workspace. The enhanced Camera Raw allows you to process raw images with increased speed and quality. With Photoshop CS3, there is complete compatibility with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (sold separately), so the changes you make to an image in one product will automatically appear in the other. The unrivaled editing power of Photoshop moves up a notch as well. With nondestructive Smart Filters, you can experiment freely with more creative control. Conversion to black-and-white is easier than ever. You can create more accurate and powerful composites with new tools that automatically align and blend layers or images based on content. The Quick Selection and Refine Edge tools allow you to make easy selections with the stroke of a brush and then perfect any selection edge in an easy-to-use, intuitive dialog box. The enhanced Photomerge® features allows you to merge multiple photos into a panorama with superior results.
Website : Adobe Announced Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended
Download : Adobe Photoshop CS3 DataSheet (PDF)
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