LATEST ADDITIONS

Nik Software and Shutterbug have teamed up to bring you a chance to use the wide variety of Nik software products and to enter one of the images you create in a contest that offers some very nice prizes.  In my way of thinking the contest is the gravy; the real  treat here is getting to use demo versions of software like Nik’s Viveza, Silver Efex Pro and Color Efex Pro on your images. Let’s see how all this works.

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Phase One A/S and Mamiya Digital Imaging, Ltd. are proud to announce that Phase One is making a significant financial investment in Mamiya Digital Imaging, thus becoming a major shareholder in the company behind the Mamiya brand of medium format cameras and lenses. Terms of the agreement are not being disclosed.

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Olympus was kind enough to lend me a 150mm f2.0 Zuiko lens for some personal shooting. I recently bought a new E-520 at an incredible price because it’s a discontinued model. Even so, it has a rich feature set, Image Stabilization and weighs slightly more than a well-dressed chicken taco. It also offers Live View, Dust Reduction and Wireless Flash. On close-out, this DSLR body cost me about the same as a high-end point-and-shoot.

Nik Software announced today that Color Efex Pro 3.0, its popular digital photographic filters for retouching and creative enhancements, is now available for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.3 and higher. The update is free to current owners of Color Efex Pro 3.0.

“We are very pleased to offer for Lightroom users two of our most popular products, Viveza and Color Efex Pro 3.0,” said Michael J. Slater president and CEO of Nik Software. “Now photographers using Lightroom can utilize our unique Color Efex Pro filters and take advantage of our U Point technology to selectively apply enhancements without the need for any complicated masks.”

Color Efex Pro 3.0 installs as a plug-in for Lightroom 2.3, itself a free update from earlier versions and available for download at www.adobe.com/downloads/updates. Once installed, Color Efex Pro 3.0 is accessible via the Lightroom Photo>Edit In… menu. Edits made using the plug-in within Lightroom are non-destructive in nature, with edits applied automatically to a newly generated TIFF file and not the original. It also takes advantage of Lightroom and its efficiencies for every day tasks, like the ability to edit multiple images in one session, saving time for photographers.

Color Efex Pro 3.0 filters are the leading photographic filters for digital photography. Widely used by many of today's professional photographers, the award-winning Color Efex Pro includes U Point technology for precise selective control and offers 52 traditional and stylizing filters that let users quickly and easily perform high quality retouching, color correction and creative enhancements. For more product information including video lessons visit: www.niksoftware.com/colorefexpro.

All Nik Software plug-in products now feature Nik Software’s patented U Point technology which revolutionizes the way photographers edit. U Point powered Control Points give photographers precise selective editing functions without the need to create complicated selections and layer masks. This innovative technology is easy to use and works directly on the image, empowering photographers to make selective enhancements in a fraction of the time needed by using other methods. 

Nik Software also announces that all of its remaining photographic filter products are being updated to support Lightroom. The next plug-in will be Silver Efex Pro. As these Lightroom-compatible versions become available, current owners will receive updates free of charge. All products are expected to be available by the end of the second quarter of 2009.