June 2006

Pro Digital Workflow Seminar Series Presented by Blue Pixel
Still trying to strike the balance of efficient digital photography workflow and ending up with high-quality results? Learn how as Blue Pixel presents the Pro Digital Workflow Tour with Kevin Ames. Beginning Sunday, September 17 in Washington, D.C., talented digital photographer and author Kevin Ames will teach professional and advanced amateur photographers how to get the most out of their digital photography using the fewest steps for the least amount of work, by improving their digital workflow.

Hitting 16 cities in 2006-2007, this one-day seminar is designed to take professionals and advanced amateurs through the process that comes after the photo has been captured – including downloading and renaming images, adding metadata, backing up photos to bulletproof archives, color management, cataloging, distribution and printing. Every step of the process will be discussed and explained in detail so attendees can improve their own digital imaging experience and get back behind their viewfinders and away from their computers.

“My intent is to inform attendees of the many ways to execute these tasks quicker through automation, but without sacrificing quality,” said Ames. “Digital photography is about capturing images and the Pro Digital Workflow tour is about minimizing the time spent processing those images and data, so the professional has more time to shoot more and better images. This seminar will help professional and serious amateur photographers simplify their digital workflow, giving them the ability to share higher quality images with their clients, in turn giving them more time for more assignments.”

A testament to Ames’ digital photography talent and teaching skills is his Dream Team instructor status at the annual Photoshop World. The Las Vegas show later this year marks the 9th time he’s participated at this level. In addition, his third book on the art of digital photography, Photoshop CS2: The Art of Photographing Women, and his fourth book The Digital Photographer's Notebook: Practical Tips for Professional Photoshop Users hits shelves on August 17 and October 12, respectively.

2006 Schedule*

September 17 Washington, DC
September 24 San Francisco, CA
October 1 Boston, MA
October 7 Dallas, TX
October 15 Denver, CO
October 22 New York, NY
October 29 St. Louis, MO
November 12 San Diego, CA
November 19 Seattle, WA
December 3 Phoenix, AZ
December 10 Miami, FL

2007 Schedule*

January 7 Chicago, IL
January 14 Los Angeles, CA
January 28 Baltimore, MD
February 4 San Jose, CA
February 11 New York, NY

*Subject to change

About Kevin Ames
Kevin is a talented digital photographer and highly respected expert in digital workflow and digital asset management. Kevin is a Software Cinema author and presenter at the National Association of Broadcaster, the Consumer Electronics Show and Photo Plus Expo. Fotographia Orvieto, Arthouse and The Professional Photographers of Canada National Convention are a small sampling of photography schools and conferences around the world where Kevin has taught. He is the author of Adobe Photoshop CS: The Art of Photographing Women, Digital SLR Photography with Photoshop CS2 for Dummies and writes the “Digital Photographer's Notebook” column for Photoshop User Magazine. Kevin’s articles and reviews have appeared in Studio Photography & Design, Photo Electronic Imaging and Digital Output magazines.

The cost to attend is $149.00 in advance or $169.00 for day of, walk-in registration.

www.bluepixel.net/proworkflow

-- Posted Tuesday, June 27, 2006 by dtm

6-megapixel Sony for just US$179!
Sony introduced the Cyber-shot DSC-S500, expected to ship in the U.S. early August. The Cyber-shot DSC-S500 is an entry level 6.0 megapixel digital camera with 3x optical zoom lens, 25MB of internal memory, and a 2.4-inch Super HAD LCD. There aren't that many features, but who'd have thought just a little while ago you could get a 6mp Sony for just $179.95?!

-- Posted Monday, June 26, 2006 by chb

Digital camera and PDA combine to create reader for the blind
The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) unveiled a groundbreaking device, the Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader. The portable Reader, developed by NFB and inventor Ray Kurzweil, enables users to take pictures of and read most printed materials at the click of a button. Users merely hold "the camera that talks" over print -- a letter, bills, a restaurant menu, an airline ticket, a business card, or an office memo -- and in seconds they hear the contents of the printed document played back in clear synthetic speech. Combining a state-of-the-art digital camera with a powerful PDA, the Reader puts the best available character-recognition software together with text-to-speech conversion technology -- all in a single handheld device. [see Blind Reader page] -- Posted Monday, June 26, 2006 by chb

Digicam shipments grow, but market consolidates
According to IDC, overall digicam shipments continued to grow in 2005, but the market began to consolidate as weaker camera vendors exited the market and new consumer electronic vendors enhanced their global presence. IDC predicts that the worldwide digicam market, which entered early maturity last year, will continue to mature across the world as emerging markets experience strong growth and older markets begin to decline. IDC predicts that: 1) Global demand will continue to be strong in the short term, with 111 million units shipping in 2008, but a slowdown is on the horizon; 2) Asia-Pacific and the rest of the world will emerge as powerhouses and account for over 40% of the global shipments in 2010; 3) More vendors will exit the market in the next 18 months. IDC's study, "Worldwide 2006-2010 Digital Still Camera Forecast", provides a high-level, comprehensive view of the worldwide DSC market. It contains 2005 actual unit shipments and total 2006 - 2010 forecasts. -- Posted Thursday, June 22, 2006 by chb

Kodak introduces 12X EasyShare P712
Kodak introduced the 71. megapixel EasyShare P712, a nice modern longzoom camera that's sure to please a lot of fans of standard size digicams. The P712 has a large 2.5-inch LCD, is extremely fast, has optical image stabilization, 32MB internal memory and a SD Card slot, goes up to ISO 800, offers both automatic and manual control, measures 4.3 x 3.3 x 2.8 and weighs 14 ounces. It also does VGA video at 30fps and you can even use the full zoom during video capture. MSRP is US$499. -- Posted Wednesday, June 21, 2006 by chb

Panasonic announces its first digital SLR
Panasonic Corporation of North America today announced the availability of its first digital single-lens reflex (SLR) camera with an interchangeable lens, the DMC-L1, in the United States. The camera will be available beginning early September for a suggested retail price of $1,999. The camera comes equipped with a LEICA D VARIO-ELMARIT lens featuring the industry's first optical image stabilization system - MEGA O.I.S - designed specifically for the Leica lens. -- Posted Wednesday, June 21, 2006 by chb

Face Tracker for cameraphones announced
FotoNation announced today FotoNation Face Tracker for camera phones. Face Tracker uses a radically new approach to identify and lock onto human faces in a camera phone’s preview image, tracking them as they move around within the frame and automatically adjusting focus, exposure, and white balance before the image is captured, ensuring that faces are optimally taken and that skin tones are reproduced with exceptional accuracy.

Especially important for shooting under poor lighting conditions and at night-time, Face Tracker draws a box around the face, showing the user which face is being tracked. It can also track multiple faces in the preview image simultaneously. Because of its advanced tracking algorithm, Face Tracker accurately follows and adjusts exposure on the selected faces as they move in frontal or profile positions and establishes the correct image orientation automatically.

FotoNation Face Tracker also takes into account any processing speed limitations within the camera phone. The Face Tracker technology is highly optimized, allowing sufficient processing power for the camera phone to run its own algorithms while faces are being detected, continuously maximizing the available resources.

www.fotonation.com

-- Posted Monday, June 5, 2006 by dtm