Miscellaneous Ramblings.... - Photography

JAlbum 8.0 Released

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:47:31 -0500

JAlbum, a slideshow generating tool that I have been using since late 2004 has recently released version 8.0. There are quite a few enhancements, including faster and more memory conservative image scaling, which I like, since my JAlbum would previously crash on large albums and much improved dragging and dropping.

Adobe Lightroom 1.4.1 released

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:19:00 -0500

Adobe has released LightRoom 1.4.1. This new version incorporates some bug fixes, including the issues that caused Lightroom Update 1.4 to be withdrawn (degraded import performance, incorrect EXIF time/date fields, etc).
For the interested, here are the release notes.

Adobe Photoshop CS4: 64-bit for Windows Only?

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Sat, 5 Apr 2008 06:17:00 -0500

In a move that is sure to raise the hackles of Mac Fanboys (and girls ) everywhere, Adobe has dropped the bombshell that there will be a 64-bit version of Adobe Photoshop CS4, but only available for Windows and not Mac OSX (the tentative plan is to deliver a 64-bit Mac OSX version in CS5). ArsTechnica has an extensive post on the reasoning of this.

Adobe Lightroom 2.0 Beta released

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Thu, 3 Apr 2008 06:23:00 -0500

Adobe has released Lightroom 2.0 in a beta state. One of the potentially cool enhancements is support for multiple monitors.
You can download the beta from here and an important note is that this beta is designed to run along side of the current 1.3.x Lightroom installation. If you don't already have a valid serial number for Lightroom, the beta will only be good for 30 days.

Adobe Photoshop Express Beta Released

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 22:26:00 -0500

Adobe has released a beta version of their Adobe Photoshop Express, an web-based image editing tool. It is being touted as a striped down version of Photoshop, aimed at users who only need to do basic editing of images (therefore there are no layers for example).

(Note: For those Firefox users, I have been having issues {on MacOSX only it seems - seems to work fine on WindowsXP} getting the sign-in page (both for new members and existing members) to render properly on both Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 beta - all that is displayed is a blank page - fortunately, the page renders just fine in Safari ).
You have to upload the photos to the site (and there has been some discussion about copyright issues over photos uploaded). Once that is done, you have the standard photo editing options which are broken into through categories: Basics (which includes: Crop, Rotate, Red-Eye, Touchup, Saturation), Tuning (which includes: White Balance, Highlight, FillLight, etc), and Effects (which includes: PopColor, Hue, Black/White, Tint, etc). Looks interesting although I definite want to put it more thorugh the paces.

Bibble Pro 4.9.9 Released

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 06:13:00 -0600

For all of you digital photographers, it looks like Bibble Pro 4.9.9 has been released. New additions include support for newer cameras (including Nikon's and Canon's newest model) and tethering support for Nikons for the Intel Macs, including Leopard.

Adobe Labs Lightroom: Version 1.2 Released

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 14:16:52 -0500

For all you Adobe Lightroom users, Adobe Lightroom 1.2 has been released. In addition to adding camera compatibility, it has also has other improvements, including better XMP auto-write performance, as well as noise reduction for Bayer-patterned sensors.

Fête du Canada

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Tue, 3 Jul 2007 08:57:47 -0500

Like the rest of the Canadians, I was out and about celebrating Canada Day.
Eventually, I'll get up off of my lazy duff and get my pictures posted.

MacBookPro LCD Screen: Finally Calibrated...

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:05:38 -0500

My photography savvy friend was generous enough to bring in his Spyder2Pro monitor calibration tool. After a quick 10 minutes, my MacBookPro LCD screen was displaying those picture skin tones correctly.
(Now I just have to get off my lazy duff and get one of my own).

Pentax & Hoya Merger Announced

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Fri, 25 May 2007 08:22:14 -0500

Well, this is certainly surprising to me -- thanks to one of my coworkers, I just found out that Pentax is essentially being taken over by Hoya. It will be interesting to see what effect this will have on the Pentax camera line.

Amazon Acquires DPReview

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Mon, 14 May 2007 15:09:04 -0500

In surprising news (to me at least ), it looks like Amazon has acquired the DPReview site. Since DPReview is one of the sites that i use pretty heavily for camera reviews/info etc., I am keeping my fingers crossed that Amazon buying them won't mess up the site.
Here is the official press release over at the DPReview site.

JAlbum: Version 7.0.3 Released

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Sun, 4 Mar 2007 06:36:00 -0600

JAlbum, a slideshow generating tool that I have been using since late 2004 has recently released version 7.0.3, which incorporates a number of bug fixes, including better memory management.

New Camera Flash

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 07:15:00 -0600

After dropping my original Pentax 360 FGZ flash at my grand-nephew's birthday party ( ! ), it was a made scramble to decide upon a replacement flash for my Pentax *ist DS. After a evening of frantic research (since I was planning on acquiring a light meter, not a new flash), I decided on the Pentax 540 FGZ. Besides being a more powerful flash, it has the additional nice feature of being able to rotate 180 degrees, allowing one to bounce the flash off of the wall behind.
(Now, if only I can avoid dropping this one! ).

Pentax Firmware Updates

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Sun, 7 Jan 2007 06:12:00 -0600

It looks like Pentax has firmware updates for six of it's digital SLR models. All of these updates simply "improve SDHC support" over previous versions. One caveat is that since the only available updates are on the Japan site, it might not be a bad idea to wait until the firmware updates are available in your particular region.

Pentax K10D Review Online

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 07:51:00 -0500

The long awaited Pentax K10D will be released on Sept. 14, 2006 according to press reports and DPReview has a review of it online.

Note: Also, for Pentax owners of the *ist DL lines, there is a firmware update that has been issued that will allow for the use of the new high capacity SDHC cards.