Twelve months after their last releases, Adobe and Corel are putting out new editions of their professional-consumer photo authoring suites, promising to make the task of selecting, correcting and printing images easier than ever.

Earlier this month Corel Corp. released Paint Shop Pro Photo X2, while Adobe will release version 6.0 of Photoshop Elements today, both for Windows. Adobe will also release Photoshop Premiere 4.0, a digital video editing suite. A Mac version of Elements will be out early next year.

In the past, these Paint Shop and Elements have looked quite different. This year, however, both have copied the dark grey background of Adobe’s recently-released Lightroom metadata editor for their desktops and look rather similar. The changes to Elements makes the professional version of Photoshop CS3 “look like old technology,” said Colin Smith, a senior Adobe application developer at a briefing for reporters.

Gone are the separate editing and organizing views in previous versions of the software. Elements 6 now borrows from Lightroom by putting access to different functions in tabs called Organize, Fix, Create and Share to the left of an onscreen image. Clicking on a tab brings you to the functions without moving the image.

Elements 6 also takes Lightroom’s image organizing system, allowing users to create Smart Albums of not only still images but video clips as well.

Serious photographers will be pleased images shot in Camera Raw format can now be opened and edited in Elements, in either 8- or 16-bit size. Controls include the ability to crop and remove red-eye. Tools for adjusting sharpening through amount, radius, detail and masking are also available.

However, these are not close to the extensive raw adjustment tools in Elements. The tools for converting colour images to black and white have been enhanced, with several styles to choose from all of which can be honed.

For those who hate having group shots of people where one person looks better (or worse) than others, Elements 6 has borrowed from CS3 to give a Photomerge function lets users merge people’s faces from one image into another.

Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 has added an Express Lab mode, which lets users view and edit photos – including those in raw format — faster than previous editions. In an effort to overcome the narrow exposure range of digital cameras, advanced photographers sometimes make several different exposures of a high-contrast scene and then blend them in a technique called high dynamic range imaging. Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 offers an automated function to do that called HDR Photo Merge.

X2 also adds a Layers Style tool for adding drop shadows, embossing, bevels and reflections to text and photos.

Also new is the Thinify tool, which can make people look thinner with just one click, a watermark tool and the Save for Office option, in which photos can be automatically resized and saved in a format.

I have been asked by Reflectionsofyou to put down my thoughts on their servcie. I am a photographer and I have been using an Itaian company for years. They produce expensive but great books. However the market is changing and for weddings, corporate events and portfolios (people and products) the customer wants more than one book and they want different books in different styles for the different people involved.

Reflections have delivered this and the quality and service are beyond what I expected.

JW Image Art

The prototype of the six megapixel, 12x optical zoom camera features a new high speed CMOS sensor and a high speed LSI image processing chip with a CMOS-shift image stabilisation function that offers not only ultra high speed burst shooting for still images (60 images per second at maximum resolution), but also high speed movie recording - capturing movement so fast that it cannot even be seen by the human eye. There’s also a Pre-shot Burst Mode for capturing shots before you even press the shutter button and capture of movies at VGA resolution at 300 frames per second, able to record movies for replay in ultra-slow motion - usually associated with professional movie kit.

This is a prototype and as such, we have no idea of when it will be available. But it’s nice to get an insight into the future.

Casio website

Sony has announced its new α700 digital SLR, aimed at serious photo enthusiasts and semi-professionals.

It features a 12.24 megapixel (effective) Exmor CMOS sensor, which, according to the press release, “utilises cultivated CCD imaging and original Column A/D conversion technologies to deliver high-speed and high-picture quality”. Right…

Apparently this means that analogue-to-digital conversion uses dedicated converters located close to each element array on the sensor itself, reducing noise, and further complemented by on-chip noise reduction after digitisation.

Sony’s BIONZ processing engine then performs further RAW noise reduction, before compression and encoding

The Canon Ixus 70’s smart, minimalist look is inspired by the original Ixus design. It’s finished in silver and black and despite its small dimensions it feels incredibly well built and solid.

It’s a point and shoot model, but despite its tiny size, Canon has managed to pack in a 7.1 megapixel sensor, 3x optical zoom and a 2.5in LCD screen.

ReflectionsOfYou.co.uk are pleased to announce the introduction of a new Photo Book. The new book allows the design of the front cover to whatever you want it to be. You can place pictures, text or backgrounds to give a polished and personal book cover. The quality and design that can be created are second to none and we continue to push the boundaries of what is possible.

Download the FREE easy to use design software and start getting all those memories in to a book that tells your story.

The Free easy to use software available from ReflectionsOfYou.co.uk has now been upgraded to enhance a number of tools and to add new features in to the software.

The most important aspect of the upgrade is the compatability with Vista. As a moving beast Vista has not been easy to create a fully enabled and reliable integration. We have upgraded .Net to version 2 also to bring the software right up to date.

Some of the features that we have improved on include the preview screen is now a much improved representation of the book you will get produced. The page layout has been improved by adding the ability to save your own designs allowing for much improved designs for YOU to create.

Upgrade Now and Get Creative Be Inspired

Finalist for BraunPrize 2007, Triops is a robust digital camera which allows the user to experience new perspectives and perceptions and takes the potential of digital photography to a new level. The camera is equipped with three protected fisheye lenses and allows for an active, spontaneous and playful photography experience. 

This product can take images while being thrown, suspended or just being placed in an unusual location. It captures the moment by responding to sound or movement, or by reacting to the manually operated release. Sequentially taken photographs are possible as well as 360 degree panorama images. All working parts are integrated in the robust casing and can be operated easily and intuitively. Pictures can be wirelessly transmitted to a separate display unit for display. This unit functions as a processing and storage device and the camera‘s charging station.

I’m not the sort to spend more than few hundred quid on a digital camera. But this is one of the fastest-growing categories of cameras because of a technology called Digital Single Lens Reflex, or DSLR. This technology allows for more accurate viewing of an image through a viewfinder, faster capture of images, and the ability to switch out lenses as appropriate. If you’re more like a pro than a tourist, this category is for you.

Panasonic’s newest Lumix

DSLR camera, the DMC-L10, comes out in October. It has a 2.5-inch LCD screen you can rotate so you can still see what a shot will look like if you have to hold a camera up high or low to get a shot. The camera has modes for taking landscape, night and other special shots. If you have shaky hands, the camera’s image stabilization feature will keep shots from blurring.

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