Phase One of Denmark makes arguably some of the most lust-worthy medium format digital camera equipment known to man. Rampaging mob of perfectionists that they are, they couldn’t settle for letting someone else handle processing their RAW image files (which currently go all the way up to 80 megapixels in size), so they created their own RAW file conversion tool – Capture One.
UPDATE – Adobe posting of CS2 Serial Numbers was not an attempt to “give away” their software. They had shut down the activation servers for those versions of the suite and were providing registered users an alternative method to activate their software. Too bad it went viral.
On behalf of Adobe Systems Incorporated … You have heard wrong! Adobe is absolutely not providing free copies of CS2! What is true is that Adobe is terminating the activation servers for CS2 and that for existing licensed users of CS2 who need to reinstall their software, copies of CS2 that don’t require activation but do require valid serial numbers are available. (Special serial numbers are provided on the page for each product download.) See <http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1114930>. You are only legally entitled to download and install with that serial number if you have a valid license to the product! – Dov
Adobe announced today that their Creative Suite v2 will be available as a free download [link is down]. This move is both generous and infuriating as it forces current Mac users to run an old version of the Mac OS in a VM in order to access the software. Creative Suite v2 for Mac runs on PowerPC natively and under the Rosetta emulator on Intel Macs. However, Lion and Mountain Lion users (like me) will have to load up SL on a virtual machine. Running an emulator inside a virtual machine does not bode well for application performance considering that Rosetta was slower than molasses in January to begin with.
Some people will do all kinds of crazy things for free.
St. Paul, Minnesota – August 9, 2012 – StickyAlbums (www.stickyalbums.com), a unique platform enabling professional photographers to create branded photo album apps for their clients, is now making it even easier for clients to share albums with family and friends. An upgrade announced today introduces new social media sharing features that allow clients to effortlessly share their photographers’ branded album app directly to Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. The feature streamlines the sharing of clients’ images across social networks, on which professional photographers are able to generate valuable word-of-mouth marketing for their studios.
Adobe has released the following software updates:
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.1
Adobe Camera Raw 7.1
Adobe DNG Converter 7.1
All three can be downloaded from here.
Full descriptions after the jump.
Adobe updated Photoshop Lightroom to version 3.5 (release candidate) today. The update will be available for download on their Labs site until October 31, 2011. The update adds support for several new cameras including the new Olympus E-P3 family, the Panasonic G3 family, and Phase One’s P40+. P65+, IQ140, IQ160 medium format digital backs.
The inclusion of Phase One’s digital backs by Adobe can be interpreted as acknowledgement of Phase One’s dominance in the MFDB market. Or. it can be interpreted as Adobe trying to steal Phase One’s lunch (prior to this release of Lightroom, the only way to process Phase One IIQ files was with their proprietary Capture One software). With the inclusion of Phase One digital backs, Lightroom can now process images from all of the major medium format digital brands (Hasselblad, Leaf, Phase One, and the DNG based systems – Leica & Pentax).
Read the list of supported cameras and lenses after the jump.
I will be testing the output from Capture One, Lightroom 3.5RC and Phocus to see how they compare.
You can download the software from here.
COPENHAGEN, July 7, 2011 — Phase One today released Media Pro 1.0.1, a service release, and the first update since Media Pro was introduced less than two months ago.
Media Pro is a professional photo manager for finding, organizing, and sharing images and videos wherever those files are stored. Media Pro supports photo and video files from more than 100 different cameras and is built to manage large photo libraries.
This service release includes several fixes and improvements, such as the following:
– Fixed stability issues including crash when working with large JPEGs in Slideshow and on the Light Table;
– Fixed Renderings bugs, including no full resolution TIFFs on Mac and missing PDF thumbnails on Windows XP;
– Fixed a issue where a catalog upgraded from Expression Media 2 could not be saved;
– Fixed a bug causing XMP sidecars not to be moved with the media files to which they belong;
– Fixed importer issues e.g. crash on Mac when XMP sidecars were present and problem when importing JPEGs on Window XP 32 bits;
– Fixed a bug on Windows where sorting would not work;
– Fixed readability issues caused by new UI color scheme;
– Fixed a bug preventing XML data files to be created on Windows;
– Fixed some EIP color management/rendering issues on Mac;
– License issue on Windows appearing when Internet connection was lost.
Availability and Pricing
Media Pro 1.0.1 is free to existing Phase One Media Pro customers. For more information including product features, upgrade options and tutorials, please see: http://www.phaseone.com/en/Software/Media-Pro/Whats-new.aspx
About Phase One
Phase One is the world’s leader in open-platform based medium format camera systems and solutions. Phase One medium format cameras, digital backs and lenses are designed to deliver superior quality image capture and investment value. Phase One’s Capture One software helps streamline capture and post-production processes for both medium format and digital cameras. Phase One products are known for their quality, flexibility and speed enabling pro photographers shooting in a wide range of formats to achieve their creative visions without compromise. For more information, please visit Phase One at http://www.phaseone.com. Follow Phase One on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/PhaseOneWW
Phase One is an employee-owned company based in Copenhagen with offices in New York, London, Tokyo, Cologne and Shanghai.
Phase One and Capture One are registered trademarks of Phase One A/S. All other brand or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
Phase One, makers of medium format digital camera systems & Capture One software, have released an update to Media Pro (formerly Microsoft Expression Media, formerly iView Media Pro). The update rechristens the software to its original name and restarts the version counts to 1.0.
But that is not all.
A great deal of work has been done to improve the product over its previous incarnations. Having tried all three versions personally, I can report the following:
Camera and image support has been vastly improved — the original version was good but supported mainstream cameras. Images represented in the app were not that great, it depended heavily on embedded JPGs for RAW files. The Phase One version incorporates the Capture One RAW engine and supports every format it does. Phase will have to release Media Pro updates in tandem with Capture One updates they way Adobe does with Ligthroom and Camera RAW for Photoshop.
Speed, speed, speed — When Microsoft put their version out, they improved the camera support, but the product suffered from code bloat and did not perform very well with large numbers of images. Worse if the images were stored on a server and access over the LAN. I found the Phase version to be lighting fast, indexing/thumb-nailing this year’s work from my Nikon D700 (2500+ RAW files and TIFFs) in 2:10s on my vintage 2008 8-core Mac Pro.
I highly recommend this product. Digital Asset Management is a skill that all photographers of any skill level must learn to master very early on. I also recommend that you view the video tutorials provided by Phase One as they will help you maximize your benefit from using this great software.
Read the full press release after the jump.
Hasselblad launches the new version of its imaging software, Phocus 2.6, and announces the availability of two exciting new Phocus standalone products.
Hasselblad is proud to introduce the Phocus Family of software products, offering tools matching the changing working conditions photographers face with each new assignment. With three different products, each catering to a different style of working, these new Phocus options easily overcome shifting workflow challenges by providing a high level of efficiency and flexibility of choice.
Phase One, Danish maker of medium format digital backs and cameras (with a little help from Mamiya), recently updated their flagship image processing application, Capture One, to Version 6. Phase One was one of the first camera makers to transform their image processing software package from a niche product that only supported their own brand to a general purpose image processing solution. Capture One comes in three flavors: DB – used exclusively for Phase One Digital Backs; Express – a basic edition; and Pro – a version geared for professionals and advanced amateurs who want all of the bells and whistles. You can see a feature comparison here. Phase One graciously provided me with a copy of Capture One Pro v6 for review.
Adobe has just released the final versions of Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 and an update to Photoshop CS5. Photoshop and ACR can be updated via the Adobe Updater. Lightroom updaters for Windows and Mac can be downloaded from here.