CUPERTINO, Calif., Feb. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today introduced Aperture(TM) 3, the next major release of its powerful photo editing and management software, with over 200 new features including Faces, Places and Brushes. Building on the innovative Faces and Places features introduced in iPhoto® ’09, Aperture 3 makes it even easier and faster to organize large photo libraries. Aperture 3 introduces new tools to refine your photos including Brushes for painting image adjustments onto parts of your photo, and Adjustment Presets for applying professional photo effects with just one click. Stunning new slideshows let you share your work by weaving together photos, audio, text and HD video.

“Millions of people love using iPhoto to organize, edit and share their digital photos,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Aperture 3 is designed for both professionals who edit and manage massive libraries of photos and iPhoto users who want to take their photos further with easy-to-use tools such as Brushes and Adjustment Presets.”

“Aperture 3 gets it right,” said National Geographic photographer, Jim Richardson. “The image editing tools are exactly what I have been asking for, they’re so easy to use and give me a level of control that I never even thought possible.”

“I chose Aperture because it was the most powerful archiving application around, but it’s now an unbelievable imaging tool as well,” said Bill Frakes, Sports Illustrated staff photographer. “I am beyond impressed with the massive changes made in Aperture 3.”

Aperture 3 allows you to organize large photo libraries with even more flexibility using Projects and the new Faces and Places. Faces uses face detection and recognition to find and organize your photos by the people in them. You can view faces across your entire photo library or view just the faces that appear in selected projects. In a new view that speeds up the organization process, Aperture 3 displays faces that have been detected but haven’t yet been named. Places lets you explore your photos based on where they were taken, and like in iPhoto, Places automatically reverse geocodes GPS data into user-friendly locations. In Aperture 3, you can assign locations by dragging-and-dropping photos onto a map or by using location information from GPS enabled cameras, tracking devices or your iPhone® photos.

The new Brushes feature allows you to add professional touches to your photos by simply painting effects onto the image. Aperture 3 includes 15 Quick Brushes that perform the most popular tasks like Dodge, Burn, Polarize and Blur, without the complexity of layers or masks. Brushes can automatically detect edges in your images to let you apply or remove effects exactly where you want them. Aperture 3 includes dozens of Adjustment Presets that apply a specific style or look to the entire image with just a click. You can create your own custom presets or explore the techniques of other photographers by importing theirs.

Aperture 3 makes it easy to share your work with stunning slideshows that weave together photos, audio, text and HD video. You can select one of six Apple designed themes or choose your own transitions, background, borders and titles, and even add your own soundtrack. You can export your slideshows directly to iTunes® to take with you on your iPhone or iPod touch®. You can also share photographs as beautiful prints, create custom-designed hardcover books and publish to online photo sharing sites like Facebook and Flickr, right from Aperture 3.

Pricing & Availability

Aperture 3 is available through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) and existing Aperture users can upgrade for a suggested retail price of $99 (US). A downloadable 30-day trial version is available at www.apple.com/aperture/trial. Aperture 3 runs as a 64-bit application on Mac OS® X Snow Leopard® on Macs with Intel Core 2 Duo processors. Full system requirements, online tutorials and more information on Aperture 3 can be found at www.apple.com/aperture.

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.

© 2010 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, Aperture, iPhoto, iPhone, iTunes, iPod touch, Apple Store and Snow Leopard are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

© 2010, The F Stops Here. All rights reserved. (Jessica D. Korman)

“The Nik Summit will be more than a photographic experience and is designed to bring our customers and photo enthusiasts together with some of the best working photographers, photo magazine editors, and top Nik Software experts,” said Michael Slater, President and CEO of Nik Software. “The Nik Summit is all about learning and sharing ideas in photography and we are bringing our product specialists and educators, top engineers, as well as Nik Software’s founder and CTO specifically to do just that.”

The Nik Summit will be an entertaining and educational event incorporating a full range of activities to stimulate learning and discussions including:

Professional photographers Rick Sammon, Tony Corbell Tony Sweet, and Laurie Shupp will lead half-day, on-location photo workshops each of the two full days with intensive lab sessions each afternoon covering digital post-capture workflow techniques conducted by Nik Software experts. Evening keynote presentations by Joe McNally and Robert Beck will offer attendees a unique opportunity to see and hear the stories and insights behind some of the most memorable photographs of our lifetime.

Event Details

Speaker & VIP List
Speakers and other working professionals scheduled to appear include:

© 2010, The F Stops Here. All rights reserved. (Jessica D. Korman)

COLIBRI® is designed for easy, efficient recipe formulation and correction of opaque, translucent and transparent colors. It provides a choice of recipes in seconds even for dark or saturated colors. In addition to calculating an extremely accurate match for color, the software also optimizes the pigment load, preventing over pigmentation in opaque paints and plastics.

The unique template function of COLIBRI® allows the user to predefine the software features and screen layout exactly to their needs and applications guaranteeing seamless and fast handling. All functions that are not required are suppressed making the software suit the user’s workflow while greatly simplifying operations.

COLIBRI® has full enterprise network capability connecting an unlimited number of user’s world wide via the web to share a central database. With advanced user management, security access rights and easy integration into Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) tools, COLIBRI® is secure and compliant with IT infrastructure requirements. Additionally COLIBRI® is modular build software that allows customized configurations to meet the individual needs of each customer.

“Our partnership with Nexirius further expands on the success of Konica Minolta Sensing’s European and Asian business units in offering a complete and total turn key color matching and formulation solution. We now have an established global network for sales, support and service for the COLIBRI® software,” said Lou Carulli, Advertising and Public Relations for Konica Minolta Sensing Americas.

KMSA brings their experience and applications knowledge to help customers determine which spectrophotometer and software modules are required to fit their application. “Color matching and formulation is unique for each customer and no two are alike. Through our presales consultation, Konica’s application engineers assess the requirements and details for proper configuration and installation of an entire solution,” said Randy Klimek, Product Planning Manager for Konica Minolta Sensing Americas.

“COLIBRI® software supports KMSA’s full line of bench top and portable handheld spectrophotometers, including the recently launched CM-5, our next generation color measurement instrument. Demand, as well as preorders for the CM-5 have be very strong for us due to the economic rebound we are experiencing in the manufacturing sector,” added Randy Klimek.

“Over the last quarter we have seen conditions improve. Manufacturers are back to producing goods and adding production lines. We are closely monitoring our core market segments to rapidly respond to the improving conditions,” stated Lou Carulli.

Information on COLIBRI® software can be found on Konica’s website at http://www.konicaminolta.com/sensingusa/products/software/color/colibri/index.html

© 2010, The F Stops Here. All rights reserved. (Jessica D. Korman)

“The first release of Viveza was truly revolutionary and introduced the most effective way to selectively edit photos,” said Michael J. Slater, president and CEO of Nik Software. “With Viveza 2, we listened to a wide range of photographers and added even more control and a new level of precision to make Viveza 2 not only more powerful, but also an essential tool for anyone who regularly edits photos.”

Recently awarded a 2010 Hot One Award from Professional Photographer magazine, Viveza 2 – powered by Nik Software’s patented U Point technology – is the most powerful and precise tool available to globally and selectively control light and color in photographs. With
U Point technology, users can quickly select areas of an image to adjust by pointing and clicking and then using simple to use mouse-controlled sliders to adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, structure, shadows, red, green, blue, hue, and warmth in a fraction of the time needed by other tools.

“It’s simply faster, easier, and more powerful than anything I’ve got in my own bag of tricks, which is why Viveza 2 is my new tool for making fast, accurate selections,” said Scott Kelby, editor of Photoshop® User magazine and author of The Digital Photography Book, Volumes 1-3. “This is a plug-in that every serious photographer has to consider, because now the rules have changed. After all these years, making accurate selections is still one area that gives even the pros fits, but Viveza 2 changes all that without the complexity and steep learning curve.”

Key features of Viveza 2 include:

Pricing and Availability

Nik Software’s Viveza 2, offering support for Adobe® Photoshop, Lightroom, and Apple® Aperture, is available via electronic and boxed delivery directly from Nik Software (http://www.niksoftware.com) or through specialty camera retailers. A complete list of resellers may be found at www.niksoftware.com/resellers.

Viveza 2 retails for $199.95. Registered customers that already own Viveza can upgrade for $99.95 at http://www.niksoftware.com/viveza. Customers who purchased Viveza after September 22, 2009 are eligible for a free upgrade to Viveza 2, which can be requested by sending an email to supportus@niksoftware.com or calling Customer Service toll-free at 888-284-4085.

To watch a video introduction of Viveza 2, learn more, and download a free trial version, please visit http://www.niksoftware.com/viveza.

© 2009, The F Stops Here. All rights reserved. (Jessica D. Korman)

With this funding, liveBooks has:

1. Lowered the cost of entry into the liveBooks suite and service so that any professional can now afford a liveBooks site;
2. Introduced a subscription-based service to eliminate the need for front-loaded monetary commitments;
3. Launched pre-designed site offerings with unrivaled choices in terms of number, design and utility;
4. Broadened its market reach with new, creative professional industries such as graphic design and interior design

The net result of these changes is that every creative professional now has access to an affordable solution designed to differentiate their online offer, without the need to get involved in the technology of running a website.

“We have been impressed with liveBooks’ approach to the photography industry and believe that a liveBooks site is a great solution for anyone selling a visual product to manifest their unique brand on the internet,” said Laura Shore, senior vice president of communications at Mohawk Fine Papers. “Our strategic relationship with liveBooks is an important component of our effort to expand our sphere of influence beyond paper products and to incorporate a 360-degree focus on products and services related to the graphics industry.”

For customers who want the benefits of liveBooks’ proven design expertise and intuitive site administration in a more affordable package, the company is now offering an unrivaled array of pre-designed themes and layout options with subscriptions priced at $39 a month. liveBooks is also extending this pricing flexibility to its customized design customers who want completely unique sites that are both visually stunning and true manifestations of their brands. Single customized sites will require a one-time design fee plus a subscription charge.

“liveBooks’ website platform empowers professional photographers with the tools they need to easily and successfully leverage the power of the internet to run their businesses,” said Chris Rainier, National Geographic Photographic Fellow. “At a time when creative professionals in all disciplines are facing job cuts and finding making a sustainable living increasingly difficult, the new liveBooks offering – which is at a price that even a student can afford – will be a saving grace. This gives me hope for the future of the global and independent creative photographer working as a professional.”

liveBooks has a history of creating beautifully designed and easy-to-manage websites for the world’s top photographers, such as Rainier, nature photographer and host of PBS’s “Adventures to the Edge” Art Wolfe, and celebrity photographer Harry Benson. Since its inception, liveBooks has created sites for more than 7,000 photographers and creative professionals.

“We’re extremely proud that our work has helped professional photographers grow their businesses over the past five years and we remain committed to delivering exceptional designs and customer service to the photographic community,” said Andy Patrick, CEO and president of liveBooks. “This financing allows us to take advantage of the significant growth opportunities in other creative markets where professionals’ business needs are similar to those of photographers. This, together with the implementation of the more scalable, SaaS- and subscription-based business model, presents our customers with more affordable options in these difficult economic times.”

liveBooks was incorporated in 2005 and quickly became well-known for developing and delivering customized websites that allow professional photographers to easily manage their online presence with an intuitive drag-and-drop interface and advanced search marketing tools. The 75-person company is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in the United Kingdom, Romania and throughout the United States.

To reflect the expansion of its business model and offerings, liveBooks today re-launched its website at www.liveBooks.com.

© 2009, The F Stops Here. All rights reserved. (Jessica D. Korman)

IRVINE, Calif., Oct. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — DigitalPost Interactive (BULLETIN BOARD: DGLP) , www.dglp.com, a leader in web-based interactive digital media applications, announced the signing of new contracts with two photo industry leaders. One of these companies is a top 5 U.S. Portrait Studio and the other is one of the largest providers of retail Photo Kiosks in the world. The details of both Agreements will be provided in subsequent announcements.

DigitalPost Chief Executive, Michael Sawtell commented: “Our selection by these two industry leaders clearly validates our position as a world class digital media sharing platform.”

“These contracts are the result of our efforts to broaden the distribution and availability of our products to new markets. Consumers today desire a customer-friendly interface that features secure access to high-quality images, videos and digital file storage,” Sawtell added.

“DigitalPost’s digital media sharing solution is permanent; we believe today’s consumers realize their digital media needs to be secure and accessible from one single destination on the web. This makes DigitalPost unique. We are pleased these photo industry leaders see our solution as the preferred digital media sharing option for their consumer base.”

© 2009, The F Stops Here. All rights reserved. (Jessica D. Korman)

NEW YORK, Sept. 30 /PRNewswire/ — Industrial Color Software today announced the release of GLOBALedit® version 3.8, the latest version of the company’s flagship online photo collaboration software for creative production professionals. With major improvements in image processing speed, secure high-speed file delivery, application performance, and image review, version 3.8 leverages the power of cloud computing technology to deliver powerful, easy to use production tools to photo production groups through a standard web browser.

Improvements to Industry Standard Photo Collaboration Technology

Already widely adopted by many of the world’s leading creative groups including Victoria’s Secret, Warner Bros., McGraw-Hill Companies, Turner Broadcasting, Gap / Old Navy and others, GLOBALedit® software has led the transition from desktop to collaborative photo production tools. Thousands of users at leading photo production organizations provide regular feedback and analytics to help the Industrial Color Software engineering team design and deliver useful enhancements.

Performance Improvements Enable Faster Photo Review and File Delivery.

Version 3.8 includes a newly engineered image processing engine with the ability to upload 2,000 files in under 10 minutes. Other performance enhancements include a streamlined Job Upload Wizard, Drag-and-Drop Library Manager, batch high-resolution file delivery support, and a rebuilt image editor. Photo editors often review thousands of images each day for composition, color, and focus. With new and enhanced features including the first of its kind Image Zoom, Bookmark Tool, and Grid View, photo editors can power through the production workflow faster and with greater accuracy and security.

Powerful Software Available From Anywhere Through a Standard Web Browser

“The browser is a powerful way to deliver software,” says Aaron Holm, Industrial Color Software’s VP of Development. “We can provide specialized tools and interfaces for technical and non-technical users on the same system at the same time. The most exciting idea is that GLOBALedit® just keeps getting faster, and with Cloud software architecture the traditional access and scalability limitations of desktop software are eliminated. Version 3.8 represents a new level of speed and collaboration and we’re very pleased to bring this technology to market.”

Pricing and Availability

GLOBALedit® is available as a service for hosted customers or as deployed software that can run in client environments. Hosted service can be purchased for small workgroups or enterprise production teams with studio accounts starting at $450 per month for 5 users and 100 GB of storage and Enterprise Accounts starting at $1,950 per month for 25 users and 250 GB of storage.

© 2009, The F Stops Here. All rights reserved. (Jessica D. Korman)

NASHUA, N.H., Sept. 28 /PRNewswire/ — With many photographers struggling to make a name for themselves, online visibility has become an indispensable professional tool. iSyndica’s latest feature, called “Promotion,” enables users to securely distribute their portfolio on social media and photo-sharing sites for free, thereby gaining visibility without jeopardizing the rights to their work. Initial supported sites include Flickr, Picasa, Facebook and Twitter. The feature will also be available to videomakers for seven popular video destinations, including BlipTV, Viddler, and YouTube.

Historically, image theft made professional photographers anxious about sharing their images on social media sites. And for good reason – the Stock Artists Alliance estimated in 2007 that such theft resulted in $65 million of lost revenue for the industry. iSyndica’s Promotion feature addresses these concerns in a safe and easy way: distributed photographs are automatically watermarked and resized, effectively preventing their misuse.

“A year ago, I found out that several photos had been stolen from my Flickr Account. I stopped putting my images online after that,” says Lauren, a professional photographer. “If you look at the case of (Icelandic Photographer) Rebekka Guoleifsdottir, it can become very distressing. Some of her images were sold on eBay by an unauthorized company. iSyndica’s definitely taking the right approach and its watermark will be effective.”

“The new promotion functionality at iSyndica will greatly simplify a process that many photographers already do manually as part of their branding and marketing strategy. Even though it’s a repetitive task, few photographers would have considered trying to automate the entire process. It’s just too technically complex,” commented Lee Torrens from the popular microstock blog Microstock Diaries. “Now iSyndica has done it and made it easily accessible. I expect it will be well received.”

For more information on iSyndica, please visit http://www.isyndica.com/.

© 2009, The F Stops Here. All rights reserved. (Jessica D. Korman)

The T-Ray 4000 has established itself as the leader in portable terahertz imaging systems. Introduced in 2007, it provides the capability to inspect, evaluate and image, multilayer objects. Within the field of art conservation, the T-Ray 4000 has already been used to evaluate the age of various pigments, look for drawings and frescoes under paint or plaster, study ancient texts without opening them, and examine the age of wood on which artwork has been painted. Using the T-Ray 4000, large objects can be scanned easily to generate an image. The system is modular, allowing for multiple configurations to be implemented without excessive cost. Whether the measurement is made in transmission or reflection, single point or imaging, the system can be reconfigured due to its patented, optical fiber-coupled terahertz sensors.

Dr. Kaori Fukunaga at NICT has used the T-Ray 4000 to image and analyze Giotto’s masterpiece, “Polittico di Badia” (c.a. 1300). This tempera polyptych is known as one of the most important works from the dawn of the Renaissance era, and restoration has just been completed by Stefano Scarpelli in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.

Dr. Fukunaga commented on the T-Ray 4000, saying, “THz technologies are progressing very rapidly, and the number of research papers is continuously increasing, but by specialists in optics. This system can convince people that you can use THz imaging off of the optical bench, without struggling to adjust the optical alignment. It’s transportable and robust, so that we can bring it to measure precious cultural heritage objects. We would like to welcome potential THz users to ‘Try THz imaging.’ The words of the conservator, in front of Giotto’s masterpiece, says it all: ‘That’s the thing I wanted to see, and no other technique can show so far.’ At NICT, my work is to increase users, both spectroscopy by Fourier Transform-THz and imaging with time-domain THz [like the T-Ray 4000].”

The T-Ray 4000 is designed to meet the requirements of a wide range of markets including: online process control, security, pharmaceutical, medical, aerospace and spectroscopic research.

© 2009, The F Stops Here. All rights reserved. (Jessica D. Korman)

The swiss keywording software “KIM Keywording” just received an update. The new version 1.6x fixes some bugs of version 1.5 and now has additional functions to repair databases and keyword structures. The search function has been enhanced and several workflow improvements were implemented. This free update is recommended for all current users.

KIM Keywording improves keywording by using powerful databases to structure the keywords as well as the metadata. Keywording with KIM Keywording is extremely efficient and allows you to work with up to 10 languages simultanuously. Flexible import and export options help to handle large sets of images and metadata easily, for example for further use on websites.

KIM Keywording has been developed by Kursiv photoagency especially for the needs of photoagencies and photographers. The development is based on many years of experience in handling metadata and consistant workflows. KIM Keywording is a crossplatform product for Mac and Windows.

© 2009, The F Stops Here. All rights reserved. (Jessica D. Korman)