ArtRage Painting Software

With ArtRage you can do better images !

This one is just for fun.

I made it in 2 minutes for you with stencil tool :)

ArtRage is a computer painting package designed to provide a natural and easy to use environment for producing art on your computer. By providing realistic tools such as oil paints and pencils, and simulating the real world dynamics of those media, ArtRage allows any user to play around with paint without the expense and mess of its real world counterpart. By providing Tracing tools, ArtRage lets any level of user produce paintings based on photographs or other existing images. ArtRage 1 was released as a free product in 2004 and went on to win a number of online awards, followed by the first place in Microsoft’s ‘Does Your App Think In Ink’ contest for Tablet PC applications (2004). ArtRage 2 introduces a wide range of new features and technology improvements that allow everyone from amateur hobbyists to professional artists to get deeper in to the process of painting, without losing the ease of use, sense of realism, and friendly feel that made ArtRage 1 successful. ArtRage 2.5 introduced powerful new tools such as rulers and stencils which also work the same way as their real-world counterparts.

http://www.artrage.com/

Photoshop CS4 Channels and Masks One-on-One

Photoshop CS4 Channels & Masks One-on-One: Read the lesson. Watch the video. Do the exercises.

Coming to terms with alpha channels (or masks) is the most sure-fire way to boost the quality of your work in Photoshop. But masking isn't easy--in fact, the elusive alpha channel has been described as the least understood feature in Photoshop's enormous arsenal.

Now, you can master masking with Deke McClelland's unique and effective learning system--Photoshop CS4 Channels & Masks One-on-One (O'Reilly Media, $49.99 USD). Joined by Tim Grey, regarded as one of the top educators in digital photography and imaging, Deke leads you through step-by-step text lessons, DVD-video demonstrations, and real-world projects. You'll learn how to select and composite highlights, shadows, clouds, fabric, feathers, glass, flame, lightning, eyes, all varieties of hair, and then some. Deke's expert advice and guidance is like working with a personal coach. With this book, you will:

• Learn at your own speed with 12 self-paced tutorials
• Try out techniques and best practices with engaging real-world projects
• Get more than 850 full-color photos, diagrams, and screen shots that illustrate every key step
• See exactly how it's done in real time with five hours of all-new video instruction
• Test your knowledge with multiple-choice quizzes in each chapter

Photoshop CS4 Channels & Masks One-on-One simulates a classroom environment that provides one-on-one attention as you proceed from lesson to lesson. You'll learn to use Photoshop faster, more creatively, and more efficiently than you thought possible.

Tim Grey is the author of a dozen books and hundreds of magazine articles on digital imaging for photographers. He also publishes the Digital Darkroom Quarterly print newsletter and Digital Darkroom Questions email newsletter. He speaks at a variety of events, including Photoshop World as a member of the Photoshop World Dream Team of instructors. Tim takes advantage of every opportunity to photograph near his home in Bellevue, Washington.

Deke McClelland is an electronic publishing pioneer and a popular lecturer on Adobe Photoshop and the larger realm of computer graphics and design. He has hosted Adobe's official "Video Workshop" DVDs that shipped with many versions of Photoshop and Illustrator, as well as hundreds of hours of tutorial-style video training for industry leader lynda.com, with whom his work has won a record-setting eight international awards in the last 12 months. In addition to his video work, Deke has written over 80 books translated into 24 languages, with more than 4 million copies in print. In 2004, Deke created the bestselling One-on-One book series. Published with O'Reilly Media, One-on-One uses video, step-by-step exercises, and hundreds of full-color illustrations to provide readers with the closest thing possible to private instruction from a recognized expert.

For more information about the book, including table of contents, index, author bios and samples, see: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596516154

Photoshop CS4 Channels & Masks One-on-One

Deke McClelland and Tim Grey

January 2009, $49.99 USD

O'Reilly Media: http://www.oreilly.com/

Software update Spyder3Pro Spyder3Elite

The Datacolor software update contains improvements as well as fixes

>>> Message en français

>>> Sprache: Deutch

First calibration of your display takes about five minutes, a re-calibration only 2.5 minutes. It is using the profile saved in the preferences file that was created after the first calibration.

In case the first calibration was aborted or not executed correctly, the re-calibration uses a wrong characteristic. To prevent such mistakes, now there is the "Full Calibration" function you find in the "Go-to" menu. It executes the full measuring process and creates a new profile.

Upload your newest version here:

Windows XP, Vista

Spyder3Pro 3.0.7 for WIN

Spyder3Elite3.0.7 for WIN

Windows 2000

Spyder3Pro3.0.4 for WIN2K

Spyder3Elite3.0.4 for WIN2K

Mac10.3.9 or higher

Spyder3Pro3.0.5 for MAC

Spyder3Elite3.0.5 for MAC

www.datacolor.com

Update Spyder3Pro und Spyder3Elite

Im Update für Datacolor Spyder3Pro und Spyder3Elite sind Optimierungen, aber auch Reparaturen enthalten.

>>> Message en français

>>> English Version

Die erste Kalibrierung des Monitors dauert ca. 5 Minuten, während die Rekalibrierungen schon nach ca. 2,5 Minuten abgeschlossen sind.

Hierzu wird die Charakteristik des Monitors herangezogen, die bei der ersten Kalibrierung in Präferenz-Dateien abgelegt wird. Wird die erste Kalibrierung durch etwas unterbrochen oder nicht korrekt durchgeführt, geht der Rekalibrierungs-prozess von einer falschen Charakteristik aus.

Um solche Fehler zu vermeiden, gibt es nun die Funktion ‘Full Calibration’, die man unter dem Menüpunkt ‘Gehe zu’ findet. Es wird dann wieder der vollständige Messprozess gestartet und die Charakteristik neu festgestellt.

Hier gibt es die neusten Updates:

Windows XP, Vista

Spyder3Pro 3.0.7 for WIN

Spyder3Elite3.0.7 for WIN

Windows 2000

Spyder3Pro3.0.4 for WIN2K

Spyder3Elite3.0.4 for WIN2K

Mac10.3.9 oder höher

Spyder3Pro3.0.5 for MAC

Spyder3Elite3.0.5 for MAC

www.datacolor.com

Mise à jour pour Spyder3Pro Spyder3Elite

Mise à jour du logiciel des Datacolor Spyder3Pro et Spyder3Elite

>>> English version

>>> Sprache : Deutch

Cette nouvelle version contient bon nombre d'améliorations.

La première calibration de votre affichage prend environ cinq minutes et la re-calibration seulement 2.5 minutes. Il utilise le profil sauvegardé dans le fichier préférence qui a été crée lors de la première calibration.

Dans le cas ou la première calibration a été avortée ou pas exécutée correctement, la re-calibration fait référence alors à des caractéristiques erronées. Pour éviter ce désagrément, vous disposez maintenant d’une fonction « Full Calibration » que vous trouverez dans le menu « Go-to ». Il exécutera un processus complet de mesure et créera un nouveau profile.

Téléchargez votre nouvelle version ici :

Windows XP, Vista

Spyder3Pro 3.0.7 for WIN

Spyder3Elite3.0.7 for WIN

Windows 2000

Spyder3Pro3.0.4 for WIN2K

Spyder3Elite3.0.4 for WIN2K

Mac10.3.9 ou plus

Spyder3Pro3.0.5 for MAC

Spyder3Elite3.0.5 for MAC

www.datacolor.com

MyPublisher Upgrades PhotoBook Software for Mac Users

Now with Enhanced Text Editing Features and Faster Performance

Press Release - NEW YORK, Dec. 5 - MyPublisher announces the release of MyPublisher 3.0 for Mac featuring numerous text editing enhancements and faster software performance.

Now Mac users have more creative flexibility with multiple fonts and styles in the same text box. They can also save time with our new keyboard editing shortcuts. And we have optimized the software to perform faster and more efficiently to make creating a photobook easier than ever before.

"Our Mac users will be pleased with the enhancements we have included in our latest release," said President Katherine Lewis. "We have focused on improving the user experience while still maintaining our signature ease-of-use software standards."

MyPublisher provides bookstore-quality printing for all levels of self-publishers, at surprisingly low prices -- hardcover coffee table books start at just $29.80. In the last three years MyPublisher has shipped over one million photobooks, earning rave reviews from heavyweights like the The Wall Street Journal and PC Magazine.

ABOUT MYPUBLISHER, INC. - MyPublisher develops a free software program available for download (takes less than one minute) for both Mac and PC at http://www.mypublisher.com/. Since inventing and launching the first photobooks in 1995, MyPublisher has established itself as the leading publisher of custom photobooks in the world. With printing and production facilities in Westchester County, New York, MyPublisher pioneered the ease-of-use features and quality standards available today for digital photo album publishing.

SOURCE: MyPublisher, Inc. - 05.12.2008

Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers The Ultimate Workshop

Article from Martin Evening

Focal Press announce two brand new books covering Adobe Photoshop CS4 from best-selling author Martin Evening.

In the article below, Martin Evening discusses several of the new and exciting features offered in Photoshop CS4.

“This latest release of Photoshop has a lot of interesting new features. The new Camera Raw has all the new tools that were featured in Lightroom 2, allowing you to work more smoothly between the two programs. The interface refinements incorporate a task-based workflow approach in which image adjustments like curves can be edited via an Adjustments panel. The new Masking panel means that you can edit masks, such as increase the feathering, as well as the usual Refine Edge command that you could use in CS3 to edit a layer mask. Color Range employs a more sophisticated color selection algorithm and now allows you to generate color-based masks more easily. There is also a new Content-Aware scaling feature that allows you to resize images without distorting the shape of important components within a picture.

Bridge has been given a makeover too. Among the most significant changes is the task-based workspace menu that makes it easier for you to switch between different Bridge workspace settings. You can now click with the Spacebar to toggle displaying a full-screen preview of a selected photo. The output panel for Web or PDF is in some ways a small improvement on the Web Photo Gallery and Contact Sheet features. Although some will find these to be something of a backward step, if you have Lightroom 2, it is unlikely that you would ever need to use these anyway.

The problem with Photoshop is that Adobe keeps adding stuff into the program without taking much out. This, in turn, has made it harder to keep updating the Adobe Photoshop for Photographers book series without the book becoming too bloated. The release of Photoshop CS4 has provided a good opportunity to update Adobe Photoshop for Photographers. The new book will be the same size as previous editions and concentrate on the essentials of image editing in Photoshop as well as all that's new in Photoshop and Bridge CS4. Meanwhile, I have been collaborating with Jeff Schewe to work on a joint book that will be called Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: The Ultimate Workshop. This new book means that the Photoshop for Photographers series has now expanded to offer a spin-off book in which readers can gain more in-depth expertise about how to use Photoshop, written by two of the world's leading experts in digital imaging and Photoshop.”

Martin Evening

Jeff Schewe and Martin Evening, Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers. The Ultimate Workshop, Focal Press, 416 p. + DVD featuring tutorial movies coming March, 2009.

Martin Evening, Adobe Photoshop for Photographers. A Professional Image Editor's Guide to the Creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC, Focal Press, 2009, 704 pages + DVD with 120 minutes movies is now in stock.

Credit: http://www.focalpress.com/

Last update : 18.12.2008

PictoColor Releases CorrectPhoto 3.1

PictoColor announces the release of CorrectPhoto 3.1, its popular easy to use digital photo editor

CorrectPhoto 3.1 features PictoColor's OneClick Color technology that instantly gives every digital photo the color of life or creates a stunning black and white or sepia tone picture. With just one click, anyone can remove an unwanted color cast, improve the exposure and increase the vibrancy of all of their digital pictures. And, with a single click a color photo can be instantly turned into black and white or sepia tone picture.

Plus, with its collection of other essential photo tools such as rotation, cropping, cropping to standard print sizes, resizing, removing red-eye, and sharpening, CorrectPhoto helps users turn average snapshots into great photos in seconds.

CorrectPhoto takes the guess work out of color correction with PictoColor's OneClick Color technology, the point-and-click color technology that really works. OneClick Color automatically corrects the white balance, exposure, and saturation. In addition to its automatic color correction capabilities, CorrectPhoto provides separate controls for manually adjusting brightness and contrast, independently adjusting shadows and highlights, and quickly adjusting the saturation. New to version 3.1 is the ability to create stunning black and white and sepia tone photos with a single mouse click. Designed for Windows XP and Vista users, CorrectPhoto’s built in Windows Explorer provides direct access to Windows file management system for easy photo management and archiving

“CorrectPhoto is an extremely easy-to-use program that really simplifies working with digital photos. It is especially useful for beginners and those who do not want to spend a lot of time editing photos or learning a complicated photo editing program,” said Craig Huelskoetter, president.

“Our OneClick Color technology is by far our fastest, easiest, and most automatic color correction tool. Now, photo enthusiasts and home users can get the same professional results with an easy-to-use stand-alone program. Plus, with its integrated Windows Explorer, it’s like having our advanced color technology built right into the operating system. Whether users plan to share their web galleries with family and friends, order prints from an online photo service, create stunning scrapbooks or DVDs, or just save them in their personal archives, CorrectPhoto will save them hours and help them take their digital photos further.”

CorrectPhoto can be easily customized for private label use by photo retailers, online photo services, web galleries and other interactive digital photo applications including direct web links for express uploads and other brand building services.

More information and free trial version: http://www.correctphoto.com/

Sketches Online Gallery Ed Velandria

A recent front page article in the Los Angeles Times entitled "Subway Sketchers Create an Online Community" featured NYC artist, Ed Velandria and documented his use of the paint and drawing software, ArtRage. In a graphic commentary on the intersection of technology and everyday life, Velandria uses the time he spends on his daily subway rides from Brooklyn to Manhattan to sketch portraits of other subway riders on his laptop computer with ArtRage and a digital drawing tablet. ArtRage, by Ambient Design, allows to paint and draw realistically. Users can use artistic tools such as oils, pencils, Crayons, airbrush, chalk and markers. There are also choices of canvas size, paper grains, stencils and layers. Velandria loves the simplicity of ArtRage and how it allows him to capture the essence of his subjects quickly. "My ultimate goal is to really capture the soul of a person." His subway sketching has caught the attention of other artists from around the world too. There is now an online community of "sketchers" that Velandria stays in touch with. He has about 500 subway sketches available online and his gallery has received more than 4,000 views.

The entire LA Times story can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/artrage. To see Ed Velandria's subway portrait gallery: http://tinyurl.com/5b9how. For more information about ArtRage: www.artrage.com/artrage.html.

PictoColor Releases ImageTitler 3.0 for Adding Titles and Text to Digital Photos

Add titles and text to digital photos for slideshows or posting on social networking and photo sharing sites like Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, and SmugMug

PictoColor announces the release of ImageTitler™ 3.0, a simple and effective way to add descriptive titles and text to any image. It features a straightforward, easy-to-use interface for adding text in various sizes, colors, and fonts with excellent sharpness and clarity.

“ImageTitler is an extremely easy-to-use Windows XP and Vista program that really simplifies adding a title or text to a digital photo. It does not require any other digital photo editor. Now you don’t need a complicated image editing program to simply add a title to a digital photo,” said Craig Huelskoetter, president. “You will be amazed at the quality and crispness of the text. ImageTitler offers five fonts in standard, bold or italics with twelve colors options.”

ImageTitler is ideal for adding a title or caption to any photo before posting to social networking or photo sharing sites like, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, or SmugMug. It is also is a fast and easy way to add text to product photos for eBay auctions and online stores.

ImageTitler™ is bundled free with PictoColor’s CorrectPhoto Digital Photo Editor, or it may be purchased separately for $19.95.

CorrectPhoto and ImageTitler can be easily customized for private label use by photo retailers, online photo services, web galleries and other interactive digital photo applications including direct web links for express uploads and other brand building services.

www.correctphoto.com

PhotoAcute Studio 2.7 provides focus stacking functionality

PhotoAcute Studio, the cutting edge software product for enhancing digital photos quality, now provides focus stacking functionality, allowing to take high-quality images with extended depth of field, with all the scene details in focus.

Depth of field is a range interval in front of a camera, within which the photo appears sharp. The classic way to extend depth of field is to take images using a narrow lens aperture. This solution has two serious disadvantages. Small apertures bring more light diffraction, degrading the image resolution and they reduce the light transmission, forcing the use of longer exposures, which leads to motion blur in the pictures. Also, even using the smallest aperture is sometimes not enough to capture the entire scene sharply.

The alternative way is to take several frames of the same scene at different points of focus. Each of these images has its own depth of field and they can be merged together, combining focused areas of each image and producing a resulting image with cumulative depth of field. This technique is known as "focus stacking".

Increasing the depth of field allows getting the images, which cannot have been captured even by advanced camera and lens. Using this technique is essential in macro photography and microphotography as well as in all situations when the very near and very far objects in the scene have to be captured acutely.

PhotoAcute Studio, the application that increases image resolution beyond the camera capabilities by merging several photos of the same scene, now provides focus stacking functionality. The application processes the images of the same scene taken at different points of focus and automatically produces resulting image with a greater depth of field than any of the source images has.

PhotoAcute Studio is able to merge misaligned images, compensating the scene movement, rotation and scaling. This allows processing the images taken without using a tripod. It is also able of merging the images taken at varied exposures.

PhotoAcute Studio supports variety of image formats, including RAW, DNG and TIFF.

Providing focus stacking functionality, PhotoAcute Studio becomes all-in-one tool for processing continuous photos, which increases image resolution, depth of field and dynamic range, and reduces noise, chromatic aberrations and geometry distortions.

PhotoAcute Studio runs under Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Its user interface is quite simple and allows performing image processing in a couple of clicks.

Detailed description of PhotoAcute Studio features, online help and examples gallery are available at http://www.photoacute.com/

PhotoAcute Studio 2.7 is available for free in trial mode. The price of the full version varies depending on supported camera types: starting from $49 for consumer cameras to $119 for DSLR cameras with the support of RAW format and 16-bit color. Users can get free licenses by contributing to PhotoAcute Studio development.

About Almalence Incorporated Almalence Incorporated focuses on developing the cutting-edge methods of digital image processing and innovative software products for enhancing digital images. Our mission is to provide the photographers with the software tools that will help them to achieve the best image quality. The company was founded in 2005 by the group of professionals with strong background in computer science, software engineering and management.

Almalence Inc. - Press Release - 20.01.2008 - Photo (c) Almalence Inc.

Three Million ArtRage Downloads

In November 2007 the total number of downloads of ArtRage Starter Edition - Ambient Design’s free natural painting application - exceeded three million copies. Since its first release in February 2004 more than three million copies of the Starter Edition of ArtRage have been downloaded from Ambient Design’s website. ArtRage Starter Edition is now at version 2.5 and has had many updates and improvements since its first release. Schools, hobbyists and people who just like getting messy with paint have been downloading and using the Starter Edition of ArtRage. "It was just six months ago we passed the two million download milestone, and now we’re at three million downloads of ArtRage Starter Edition. It’s exhilarating to see the quality of artworks being produced. We’ve had great feedback from people who became disillusioned with the cost and hassle of using traditional art media but have started painting again in ArtRage." - Andy Bearsley, Technical Director of Ambient Design Ltd. ArtRage Starter Edition is a fully-featured natural painting application. It has tools which look and feel like their real-world counterpart. For example, the oil paints mix and smear like real oil paints on real canvas. They even leave bristle marks from the virtual brush in the paint strokes. It is easy to use for new users while having features and technology powerful enough for advanced users. New features in the 2.5 release include rulers, DPI support, more image import/export formats, and many other new features and enhancements. The Starter Edition of ArtRage is free to use with no time limits. It is also has *no* adware, spyware or other malware. It is available in English, French and German languages, for Windows and as a Universal Binary for MacOSX. Recently Ambient Design also released ArtRage 2.5 Plus Edition on CD for purchase. This is the perfect way for people to share the unique painting experience of ArtRage with friends as a gift this holiday season. ArtRage 2.5 Starter Edition can be downloaded from this web address:

http://www.artrage.com/artragedown.html

ArtRage 2.5 Plus edition on CD Released

ArtRage 2.5 Plus edition on CD was announced by Ambient Design. This CD edition of ArtRage contains ArtRage 2.5 Full edition with additional content, tutorials, and demonstration movies. It also comes with a full color, glossy, 80 page printed manual, presented in a DVD case.

The ArtRage 2.5 Plus edition CD is compatible with Microsoft Windows and Apple MacOSX. It has been tested with the new edition of Apple Mac OSX (10.5, Leopard) and also 10.3 and 10.4. It is a Universal Binary so it will run on PowerPC as well as Intel processors. For Microsoft Windows ArtRage 2.5 Plus edition is a Windows Vista Certified application, and has also been tested with Windows XP and Windows 2000.

ArtRage 2.5 Plus edition on CD is available for purchase for US$39.95

Two Million ArtRage Downloads

Archive - ArtRage: the sucess of the free graphic software

In May 2007 the total number of downloads of ArtRage - Ambient Design’s free painting application - exceeded two million copies. Since its release in February 2004 more than two million copies of the free version of ArtRage have been downloaded from Ambient Design’s website. Schools, hobbyists, artists and anyone who just wants to mess around with paint have been downloading and using ArtRage Free version.

There have been several major updates to ArtRage Free since its initial release. "This is a fantastic milestone. We’re very pleased so many people have been enjoying using ArtRage. The quality of some of the artworks we’ve seen produced in ArtRage Free version is stunning. We’ve had great feedback from people who became disillusioned with the cost and hassle of using traditional art media but have started painting again in ArtRage." - Andy Bearsley, Technical Director of Ambient Design Ltd.

ArtRage Free version is a fully-featured natural painting application. It has tools which look and feel like their real-world counterpart. For example, the oil paints mix and smear like real oil paints on real canvas. They even leave bristle marks from the virtual brush in the paint strokes. It is easy to use for new users while having features and technology powerful enough for advanced users. The Free version of ArtRage is free to use with no time limits. It is also has no adware, spyware or other malware. It is available in English, French and German versions, for Windows and as a Universal Binary for MacOSX.

Updated Post / Archive

ArtRage 2 for UltraMobile PCs UMPC

ArtRage 2 is now available in a version specifically designed for UltraMobile PCs. This new version of Ambient Design’s stylish and natural painting application has been enhanced to make it easier to use with small form-factor portable PC devices. For the painting and sketching experience ‘on the go’ ArtRage 2 for UltraMobile PCs gives you ease of use. UltraMobile PCs present two challenges to graphical software. Firstly the screen resolution is typically lower than a desktop or notebook computer. UMPC displays are typically around 800 x 480 pixels in size. This means there is less space to contain both the user interface as well as the working area of a project. And secondly UltraMobile devices are commonly used with fingers as input devices meaning the user-interface elements have to be larger and easier to press. Typically UltraMobile devices are used while they’re carried in the hand rather than being placed on a level surface, so it can be more difficult to press user-interface elements even when using a stylus on the UMPC screen. ArtRage 2 for UltraMobile PCs overcomes these challenges: - Increased the size of small UI elements: The smallest UI elements from ArtRage 2 have either been increased in size or made their ‘clickable area’ larger in the UMPC version. This makes them easier to press with fingers or a stylus.

- Controls and panels get out of the way: Panels in ArtRage 2 get out of the way while painting. In the UMPC version they more actively minimize when not being used, and leave a more easily clicked control to bring them back.

- Panels and controls hide when ‘Enter’ is pressed: UltraMobile PCs have an ‘Enter’ button mapped to a physical button on the front of the case. When this button is pressed while using ArtRage 2 all the User Interface controls and panels hide completely. So it’s very easy to work with all the panels and controls visible with one button press, but hidden completely while you’re working. This leaves the entire display surface available for painting and sketching.

- All the features of ArtRage 2 Full version!: ArtRage 2 for UltraMobile PCs has all the tools, features and style of ArtRage 2.

How to get high quality still frames from digital video ?

PhotoAcute Studio, the cutting edge software product for enhancing digital photos quality now allows to get high quality still frames from digital video. It uses several consecutive frames to create high-resolution and low-noise picture that is much better than the single frame.

Imagine you have recorded an interesting moment or a beautiful view with your camcorder. Whether you want to keep it as a photo, send it to someone or publish on the web page you will desire to have the image of better quality than camcorders can provide. Furthermore, if you decide to print the still frame, it is necessary to have an image with high resolution and low noise. PhotoAcute Studio is a perfect solution in such cases.

The extraction of high quality images from video is also very useful for professional publishers and news agencies. Sometimes an image is needed for publishing while only the video recording of a certain event is available. In such cases, the quality of the still frame is essential. Instead of performing time-consuming and high-skill image edition procedures, PhotoAcute Studio offers fast, automatic functionality, giving the better result.

For achieving the highest possible quality of still frame on a particular camcorder model, Almalence Inc. offers custom calibration procedure. A recording of a special test chart is processed by Almalence engineers and a PhotoAcute Studio profile tuned for this particular camera is created.

When converting the sequence of video frames into a single picture, PhotoAcute Studio improves all major image quality factors. The image enhancing features at a glance are: Spatial resolution increase Noise reduction without losing image details Dynamic range expansion Geometry distortions and vignetting correction Chromatic aberrations correction

PhotoAcute Studio has a simple and intuitive interface and is quite easy to use. PhotoAcute Studio is Windows based application. The version for Macintosh is to be released in 2007 Q2.

Detailed description of PhotoAcute Studio features, online help and examples gallery are available at

http://www.photoacute.com/

PhotoAcute Studio 2.10 is available for free in trial mode. The video processing features are included in the Standard license, which cost $49.

PhotoAcute Studio 2.10 can be downloaded at:

http://www.photoacute.com/studio/download.html

About Almalence Incorporated Almalence Incorporated focuses on developing the cutting-edge methods of digital image processing and innovative software products for enhancing digital images. Our mission is to provide the photographers with the software tools that will help them to achieve the best image quality. The company was founded in 2005 by the group of professionals with strong background in computer science, software engineering and management.

Almalence Inc. - Press Release - 23.01.2007 - Photo (c) Almalence Inc.

ArtRage Free version 2.2 Released

Ambient Design has released an update to the Free version of ArtRage, their natural painting software. ArtRage 2.2 Free version is available for Windows XP/2K and Vista users, and a Universal Binary is available for Mac OSX users for both Intel and PowerPC. ArtRage 2.2 Free version has been released in English, French, and German language versions. ArtRage 2.2 Free adds many new features and improvements. Here are some of the most important changes:

- Mac OS X Universal Binary: ArtRage 2.2 Free for OS X is now a Universal binary for PPC and Intel Macs. It will run on OS X version 10.3.9 or higher.

- Felt Pen Options: All the settings for the pen tool have been made available. With control over pen softness and wetness, and the ability to use the Art Pen option for opaque lighter colors the pen tool becomes a powerful artistic tool.

- Magnified Precise Cursor: The precise cursor has an option to be bigger and more visible.

- Color Sampler options: The Color Sampler tool can sample paint with lighting applied or the pure colour of the paint.

- TabletPC Numeric Entry: When entering handwritten numbers into text-entry boxes using the TabletPC input panel, the handwriting is more likely to be recognized as numerics, rather than alphabetic characters.

- PTG File Thumbnails: Your painting files are now given thumbnails in your OS. On Windows, a Shell extension (downloadable separately) gives thumbnails of ArtRage paintings inside Windows Explorer when the view mode is ‘Thumbnails’. On MacOSX a custom icon displays the painting contents in the file browsers. Many other features, updates and bug-fixes!

To download ArtRage 2.2 Free Edition: Go to the ArtRage Downloads Page:

ambientdesign.com/artragedown.html.

ArtRage 2.2 Free version is entirely free with no adware, no spyware, no malware of any sort. ArtRage 2.2 Free has no time limitations or any other limitations on works produced with it. ArtRage 2.2 Free version has a subset of the features of ArtRage 2.2 Full version with some features of the Full version disabled.

ArtRage 2.0 Painting Sofware Updated

Ambient Design adds new tools to ArtRage 2.0.

The new airbrush tool makes use of tablet tilt and pressure to allow realistic spray strokes. The paint tube and paint roller give you new ways to apply oils. The glitter tool works with the new Metallic Paint option to create sparkles on your canvas. Users can paint on multiple layers, and export or important layered Photoshop documents.

Apple Introduces Aperture

First All-in-One Post Production Tool for Photographers

CUPERTINO, California—October 19, 2005—Apple® today introduced Aperture, the first all-in-one post production tool that provides everything photographers need after the shoot. Aperture offers an advanced and incredibly fast RAW workflow that makes working with a camera’s RAW images as easy as JPEG. Built from the ground up for pros, Aperture features powerful compare and select tools, nondestructive image processing, color managed printing and custom web and book publishing.

“Aperture is to professional photography what Final Cut Pro is to filmmaking,” said Rob Schoeben, Apple’s vice president of Applications Marketing. “Finally, an innovative post production tool that revolutionizes the pro photo workflow from compare and select to retouching to output.”

“Until now, RAW files have taken so long to work with,” said Heinz Kluetmeier, renowned sports photographer whose credits include over 100 Sports Illustrated covers. “What amazed me about Aperture is that you can work directly with RAW files, you can loupe and stack them and it’s almost instantaneous—I suspect that I’m going to stop shooting JPEGs. Aperture just blew me away.”

Unique compare and select tools in Aperture allow photographers to easily sift through massive photo projects and quickly identify their final selections. Aperture is the first application that automatically groups sequences of photos into easy-to-manage Stacks based on the time interval between exposures. In an industry first, Aperture allows photographers to navigate through entire projects in a full-screen workspace that can be extended to span multiple displays, tiling multiple images side-by-side for a faster, easier compare and select. With Aperture’s Loupe magnifying tool, portions of images can be examined in fine detail without having to zoom and pan across large files. In addition, a virtual Light Table provides the ideal canvas for building simple photo layouts, allowing them to be arranged, resized and piled together in a free-form space.

RAW images are maintained natively throughout Aperture without any intermediate conversion process, and can be retouched with stunning results using a suite of adjustment tools designed especially for photographers. Aperture’s nondestructive image processing engine never alters a single pixel of original photos so photographers have the power and flexibility to modify or delete changes at any point in the workflow. As Aperture allows users to create multiple versions of a single image without duplicating files, photographers can experiment without risk of overwriting the master image or using up large amounts of hard drive space. Aperture images can also be launched directly into Adobe Photoshop for compositing and layer effects.

Aperture features a complete color-managed pipeline with support for device specific ColorSync profiles and a set of high-quality output tools for photographers to showcase their work. Print options include customizable contact sheets, high-quality local printing and color-managed online prints. Aperture provides a deceptively simple layout environment where photographers can quickly create and order custom professional-caliber books and publish stunning web galleries. Aperture makes it easy to back up an entire library of images with a single click and streamline complex workflows with AppleScript® and Automator actions.

Pricing & Availability Aperture will be available in November through the Apple Store® (http://www.apple.com/), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $499 (US). Full system requirements and more information on Aperture 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 desktop and notebook computers, OS X operating system, and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital music revolution with its iPod portable music players and iTunes online music store.

APPLE -PRESS RELEASE - 19.10.2005

Apple iPhoto The Missing Manual

Bringing Digital Photography into the Light: O'Reilly and Pogue Press Release a Missing Manual for Apple's iPhoto

iPhoto, Apple's wildly popular application for organizing, retrieving, and sharing digital images, has finally given people who own digital cameras something to do with all the pictures they take. "Until now, you almost needed a degree in computer science to process your digital photos," says David Pogue, coauthor, with Joseph Schorr and Derrick Story, of iPhoto: The Missing Manual (Pogue Press/O'Reilly, US $24.95). "Sure, you could take the pictures easily enough, but then what? The entire process was so complicated that the old-fashioned way of shooting prints and stuffing them in a shoe box didn't seem so bad." With Pogue's latest book, iPhoto users can quickly learn how to take their digital photos to the screen, to the Web, to printouts, to hardbound photo books, even to DVDs.

iPhoto: The Missing Manual takes readers far beyond iPhoto's seemingly simple feature list. And the software application is just the beginning. The book also covers choosing and mastering a digital camera, the basics of good photocomposition, and tips for shooting special subjects like kids, sports, nighttime shots, portraits, and more.

"iPhoto has done for digital photography what the microwave did to cooking," Pogue proclaims. "And 'iPhoto: The Missing Manual' gives you everything you need to know, from selecting the right camera to publishing the images on the Web."

The latest in the series of bestselling "Missing Manual" titles created by prolific writer/publisher Pogue in collaboration with O'Reilly & Associates, iPhoto: The Missing Manual is "the book that should have been in the box," and more. It's the essential guide for any Mac user who wants to master digital photography.

iPhoto: The Missing Manual

By David Pogue, Joseph Schorr, Derrick Story

July 2002, 350 pages, $24.95 US $38.95 CA http://www.oreillynet.com/