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Portfolio 8 - Review @ OutbackPhoto
Veit Irtenkauf has posted a review on Portfolio 8, the latest version of the image management software from Extensis.
Donwload free Portfolio 8 (30-days trial)
“Extensis Portfolio 8 remains a best-in-class cataloguing and archival program. At $199, it is not inexpensive, but its features and workflow flexibility certainly make it worth the money. If you are in the market for image archival software today, you should definitely give it serious consideration.
If you are an existing Portfolio user, should you upgrade? Only you can decide, but the flexibility that the improved FolderSync and the new Smart Gallery features provide to my workflow are worth the upgrade to me. And if Categories were fully implemented, it would make the upgrade essential to every Portfolio user. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED”
Free Photoshop Plugin from Kodak
Kodak is giving away the standard version (a $50 value) of one of their three Photoshop plugins. You can choose between Digital GEM, Digital ROC and Digital SHO. You have to provide your name and email address to receive one of the mentioned plugins. This offer expires at the end of January.
You can visit this link to choose your country of origin, and fill up the registration form
Digital ROC is nice for color correcting scanned photos, but less useful for digital photos. Digital SHO lets you tweak exposure, and resembles a Shadow/Highlight tool. Digital GEM is an effective noise reduction utility.
iCorrect EditLab Pro 5.0
PictoColor has aanounced the release of iCorrect Editlab Pro 5.0 color correction and color editing software for photoshop users.
Clik to donwload free demo
The new version features advanced automatic black and white conversion and automatic sepia tone for sophisticated artistic effects. In addition, iCorrect EditLab Pro 5.0 now includes sharpening and noise removal technology for enhanced image quality and productivity. Version 5.0 builds on iCorrect EditLab Pro’s tradition of fast and easy color correction and color editing by offering sophisticated, yet easy to use black and white conversion and toning tools for adding an additional level of expression to an image.
FocalBlade Sharpening Plugin for MacOS X
The pluginsite has recently release the MacOS X version of FocalBlade. FocalBlade is a Photoshop-compatible plugin for sharpening photos for screen display and printing and for producing great looking blur, soft focus and glow effects on 8bit and 16bit images.
FocalBlade is available for Windows and MacOS X. FocalBlade sells at $49.95 (Download) or $59.95 (CD Version including postage). There is an Academic/Student/Educational License for $29.95. It can be purchased at http://www.thepluginsite.com/products/photowiz/. A demo version can be downloaded at the same URL.
Download Free Adobe Lightroom Beta
Adobe has announce their latest software for professional digital photographer called Adobe® Lightroom™. The program will help digital photographers to import, select, develop, and showcase large volumes of digital images.
- Download Adobe® Lightroom™ Beta 1
- Watch Adobe® Lightroom™ video tutorial
- Lightroom Beta General Discussion
- Lightroom Beta Feature Requests
- Lightroom Beta Bug Reports
Download Free DOF Calculator for Cellphone
Paul Mutton (Jibble.org) has written an interesting small J2M3 program for calculating Depth of Field using your mobile phones. The DOF calculator can run on all phones that support CLDC 1.1 or later.
The program is suitable for 35mm cameras and it’s easy to use. First, what you need to do is enter the focal length of your lens, the aperture, and the distance to the subject you’re taking a photo of, the program then will calculate what the depth of field is.
Download Free DOF Calculator : DOFCalc.jar & DOFCalc.jad
ACDSee 8 – Review at PopPhoto Magazine
Debbie Grosman reviewed the ACDSee 8 Photo Manager at PopPhoto Magazine and wrote:
“For total beginners, ACDSee 8 may be all you need; you can do a good job fixing pics simply and keep track of all those images you’ve been snapping. For seasoned enthusiast, the program is a thorough tool that’s fun to use to manage your images, repair your snapshots, and figure out which ones you’re going to put the time into fixing in earnest. For everyone, the speed and simplicity of the interface makes working with the program a simple pleasure”
Adobe Camera Raw 3.3 Beta
Adobe has released the new version of camera raw plug-in replaces the original Camera Raw plug-in that was installed with Adobe® Photoshop® CS2 and Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 and 4.0 software.
Support for the following cameras has been added in this update.
• Canon EOS 5D
• Canon EOS 1D Mark II N
• Olympus E-500
• Olympus SP-310
• Olympus SP-350
• Olympus SP-500UZ
• Pentax *ist DL
• Pentax *ist DS2
• Sony DSC-R1
Apple Aperture Article by Rob Galbraith
Rob Galbraith has written quite interesting article focussing on the new Apple Aperture, a new professional photo workflow application.
“Two things have lifted us out of a gloomy funk regarding the potential quality of Aperture’s RAW conversions:
First, Apple is promising that the conversions for certain cameras have been optimized, and have said as much as in the promotional materials for Aperture. The list of optimized cameras includes all Canon digital SLRs back to the D30, all Nikon digital SLRs back to the D1, plus the Olympus E1 and Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D.
Second, Apple has used as a reference for their own colour rendering the colour produced by the camera makers’ RAW conversion software. In chatting with Apple’s Schorr about this, he gave the specific example of comparing Nikon Capture’s rendering of NEF files to Apple’s rendering during Aperture’s development phase. He also stressed that camera maker colour was not the end goal, but rather an important step along the way towards building what are promised to be good-quality colour conversions from Aperture. We like camera maker colour as a rule, and in some instances we love camera maker colour, so it was a pleasant surprise to hear the Apple thought it important to be at least partly guided by this in designing their new colour processing.”
Download Free Google Picasa
Google Picasa is a photo software for any digital photographers to find, edit, and share all the pictures on PC. Some great features including:
Find the pictures you forgot you had.
Picasa organises your entire collection while you watch, scanning the images on your computer and automatically sorting them by date.
Password-protect collections.
Have photos you want to keep to yourself? You can add passwords to any of your Picasa collections (this does not affect which pictures you and others can see on your computer’s hard drive).
