Digital Camera News and Reviews

The plugin collection PhotoFreebies is now out in version 2.0. PhotoFreebies consists of 12 Photoshop plugins that are used for photo adjustments and effects.
Version 2.0 of PhotoFreebies includes a new plugin called Color Blind that simulates red/green color blindness. The new version is also available as a 64bit version.

PhotoFreebies 2.0 is only available for Windows at the moment (version 1.0 is also available for Mac) and can be downloaded here.

Press release:
PhotoFreebies 2.0 Now Available

PhotoFreebies 2 is a free collection of 12 Photoshop-compatible plugins for performing simple but useful photo adjustments and effects. PhotoFreebies 2 includes a new Color Blind plugin for simulating red/green color blindness, and is now available in a 64bit version. Available to download for free now, PhotoFreebies 2 is compatible with Windows only.

The Plugin Site (www.ThePluginSite.com) released Version 2.0 of PhotoFreebies for Windows. PhotoFreebies 2 is a collection of 12 Photoshop-compatible plugins for performing simple but useful photo adjustments and effects. They can be used with more than 60 different image editing applications e.g. Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Paint Shop Pro, Photo-Paint, PhotoImpact and many others. PhotoFreebies is a part of the PhotoWiz product line.

What is new in Version 2
Version 2 contains a new Color Blind plugin for simulating red/green color blindness, which can also be used for special color effects. The BW plugin now offers a dialog with 7 black and white variations. All PhotoFreebies 2 plugins are scriptable, which means that their parameters can be recorded in actions or scripts and that they can be used as smart filters in Photoshop CS3/CS4. The dialogs were made resizable and support XP/Vista visual styles. Additionally the Remove Transparency plugin now works correctly on grayscale images, the plugins are compatible with Data Execution Protection (DEP) and offer improved compatibility with some applications. Their installation can be conducted in 38 languages and uses a Plugin Installer tool that also supports localized versions of Photoshop.

PhotoFreebies 2 are available as 32bit as well as 64bit versions. The 64bit versions can be used in 64-bit version of Photoshop CS4 under Windows Vista 64-bit.

Features
The PhotoFreebies collections contains sepia effects, saturation gradients, B&W conversions, a color blindness simulation, color space transformations and many more. All plugins can be used on 8bit and 16bit RGB images, except the Histo Fix plugin which only works on 8bit images. The Remove Transparency plugin works in many different image modes that are provided by Photoshop. Some of the plugins have a dialog with a zoomable preview and adjustable controls whereas a few are applied instantly without displaying a dialog.

Availability & System Requirements
PhotoFreebies 2 is currently only available for Windows. Version 1 is also available for the Mac. PhotoFreebies is freeware and can be downloaded from http://thepluginsite.com/products/photowiz/ . We also offer five more advanced PhotoWiz plugins as commercial products.

Plug-in Descriptions

The Sepia plug-in from PhotoFreebies lets you apply five sepia effects with the help of a combo box, a color slider and a Contrast Fix check box.

The BW plug-in lets you turn an image into black and white using seven option resembling a luminosity conversion and six color filters.

Color Blind simulates red/green color blindness and offers a Keep Blue check box.

The Desaturation Gradient plug-in gradually desaturates the image in four possible directions, so that e.g. the left side is colored and the right side is black and white.

Luma Negative turns the image into a negative without changing the colors whereas Chroma Negative inverts the colors without inverting the image luminosity.

Histo Fix fixes the chopped histogram of a repeatedly filtered image by interpolating lost image information. It offers an option to regain 1/2 bit, 1 bit or 2 bit of information.

The Remove Transparency plug-in makes a transparent layer fully opaque again.

Last, but not least there are also four plug-ins that transform RGB values into HSL or YCbCr values and back again without leaving RGB mode. That allows you to manipulate images in color spaces that aren’t provided by most image applications.

Company Info
The Plugin Site is located in Nuremberg, Germany, and mainly develops Photoshop plugins. We created Photoshop plugins like Harrys Filters, ColorWasher, FocalBlade, LightMachine, B/W Styler, ContrastMaster, Plugin Galaxy and HyperTyle, applications like Plugin Commander and HTML Shrinker as well as image collections like Edge & Frame Galaxy and Photo Galaxy. In the past we co-produced Alpha Magic with Hollywood FX and Pinnacle and co-developed the FilterMeister plugin development tool with AFH Systems.

DXO Imaging Science

DXO Labs has updated their website dxomark.com with their latest test results of Raw data for several medium format cameras. The tested cameras are Hasselblad H3DII, Leaf Aptus 75s, Mamiya ZD and Phase One P45+. It is interesting to see how these medium format cameras compare to more standard DSLR cameras.
DxO tests how well the Raw-data files perform and this can be very helpful for deciding on which camera you want to buy.

Check out the dxomark.com website for more information.

Press release:
Latest dxomark.com updates include RAW sensor rankings for the first set of medium-format cameras

DxO Labs adds measurements on Hasselblad H3DII, Leaf Aptus 75s, Mamiya ZD, and Phase One P45+ to its RAW-based Image Quality Database; photographers can now use DxOMark Sensor metrics to easily compare medium-format and DSLR sensor performance

Paris, France – February 3, 2008 – DxO Labs announces today the addition of RAW-based image quality data and DxOMark Sensor rankings on its popular www.dxomark.com website for an initial set of high-end professional medium-format cameras: the Hasselblad H3DII-39, the Leaf Aptus 75s, the Mamiya ZD, and the Phase One P45+.

Photo enthusiasts, professional photographers, and the media now have a valuable tool with which to compare the RAW sensor performance of these medium-format cameras with high-end, high-resolution DSLRs. How is it possible to make valid comparisons between cameras with widely disparate sensor sizes? It’s possible by reviewing the cameras’ rankings for each of the three separate metrics that make up the DxOMark Sensor scale (Color Depth, Dynamic Range, and Low-Light ISO).

For example, if medium-format cameras do not receive top marks on the overall DxOMark Sensor scale because of their inherent Low-Light ISO limitations, DxO Labs has found these models’ Color Depth and Dynamic Range performance to be very striking when compared to high-end DSLRs. Also, despite the clear challenge from DSLRs across all DxOMark sensor metrics, medium-format cameras still lead the way for large-print photography because of their very high resolution performance capability.

Although dxomark.com data is only one of many criteria to consider when choosing a camera, a digital camera’s RAW sensor performance lies at the heart and soul of its capacity to produce professional-quality images and prints.

“Adding our measurements on this first set of medium-format cameras to our database demonstrates our commitment to our goal of building the most comprehensive database of RAW image information available,” said Nicolas Touchard, Vice President of Marketing, DxO Labs Image Quality Evaluation. “We want to give professionals and expert amateur photographers the highest level of RAW image data possible through our dxomark.com website.”

About dxomark.com
Sponsored by DxO Labs, a company focusing on image processing technologies, www.dxomark.com is a free online resource that delivers key objective sensor performance metrics measured directly on the RAW image for a variety of cameras. As a result, dxomark.com makes it possible for the first time to assess the intrinsic quality of a camera before the impact of any RAW conversion and independent of its optics. The site also features a simple scale, DxOMark Sensor, for analyzing and comparing RAW image quality. The DxOMark Sensor scale is mapped to real-world photographic scenarios such as portrait, landscape, and action photography, ensuring that the scale is relevant to photographers.

dxomark.com’s goal is to serve the imaging community, particularly the photo press. Photography journalists and experts can now complement their analyses and reviews with an objective evaluation of intrinsic camera performance, regardless of optics or processing considerations.

For more information, visit www.dxomark.com.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

Adobe has updated their software Photoshop Lightroom to version 2.3. The updated version adds support for the cameras Nikon D3x and Olympus E-30. In addition Adobe has added these bug fixes:

* In the Windows 64-bit version of Lightroom an sFTP upload process could cause Lightroom to crash.
* Slideshows could return to the first image randomly during playback.
* A memory leak could cause Lightroom to crash while attempting to process files with local adjustments.
* Canon EOS 5D Mk II sRAW files could process with artifacts in Lightroom 2.2.
* Lightroom 2.2 could cause disc burning to fail for Windows customers.

Adobe has also added support for many new languages.
You can download Adobe Photoshop Lightroom version 2.3 here.

DxO Optics Pro

DxO has announced that their software DxO Optics Pro is updated to version 5.3.2. The new version adds support for the cameras Canon 5D Mark II and Canon G10. The new version also adds 32 Correction Modules to a wide variety of cameras.

Buy DxO Optics Pro from BH Photo.

Press release:
New DxO Optics Pro v5.3.2 supports the Canon 5D Mark II and the Canon G10

And adds 32 new DxO Optics Correction Modules

PARIS, France — Jan. 21 — DxO Labs announces today the immediate availability of DxO Optics Pro v5.3.2, now supporting the Canon EOS 5D Mark II (DxO Optics Pro Elite Edition) and Canon PowerShot G10 (DxO Optics Pro Standard or Elite Edition).

Thirty-two new DxO Optics Correction Modules are also now available for a variety of cameras including the Canon G10, 350D/Digital Rebel XT/Kiss Digital N, 400D/Digital Rebel XTi/Kiss Digital X, 450D/Digital Rebel XSi/Kiss X2, 20D, 30D, 40D, 50D, 1D Mark II N,1Ds Mark III, 5D Mark II, the Nikon D40, D40x, D60, D70, D70s, D80, D90, D200, D300 and the Fujifilm Finepix S5 Pro.

In addition, this new version includes various improvements, including installation of the plug-in version for Adobe Photoshop CS4.

Availability

DxO Optics Pro v5.3.2 and upgrades are available immediately for Mac and Windows platforms from the DxO Labs e‑store and from quality resellers.

All customers who purchased DxO Optics Pro since Aug. 1, 2007 are entitled to a free upgrade to version 5.3.2.