LATEST ADDITIONS

Epson America announced its next generation of professional ink jet printers – the 24-inch Epson Stylus Pro 7900 and the 44-inch Epson Stylus Pro 9900. This Epson Stylus Pro series incorporates Epson’s latest achievements in photographic ink jet technology, including Epson’s MicroPiezo TFP print head with new Epson UltraChrome HDR Ink technology, to deliver a higher level of print quality, increased performance with speeds almost twice as fast as previous models, and the widest color gamut ever from Epson Stylus Pro printers. 

Based on unique high-density pigment chemistry, Epson UltraChrome HDR ink technology offers all-new Orange and Green inks, and when combined with Epson’s innovative AccuPhoto™ HDR screening technology, delivers the industry’s most advanced ink jet printing technology. The result is greatly enhanced photographic print quality with exceptionally fine photographic blends and transitions, and highly accurate highlight-to-shadow detail. In addition, Epson UltraChrome HDR offers excellent print permanence ratings for color and black-and-white prints and outstanding short-term color stability for a broad range of mission-critical proofing applications.

Also new to the Epson Stylus Pro series is an optional high performance, in-line spectrophotometer for commercial proofing applications. Developed by Epson in partnership with X-Rite, the SpectroProofer incorporates a high performance X-Rite ILS20 spectrophotometer for extreme measurement accuracy. When driven by the latest front-end RIP software, Epson’s SpectroProofer can automate virtually any color management process in today’s printing workflows. 

Whether producing sellable color or black-and-white photography, fine art reproduction or producing color accurate commercial and flexographic proofs for client approvals, the new Epson Stylus Pro series offers a range of features and next-generation technologies that allow creative professionals to produce their vision without compromise.  Key features and benefits include:

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Sony Electronics has added two new models to its family of S-Frame digital photo frames—including the company’s first 10-inch model here at the PhotoPlus Expo trade show. The new 10-inch and 8-inch digital photo frames (models DPF-D100 and DPF-D80) have high-quality SVGA resolution (800 x 600 pixels) LCD screens. They are Sony’s first digital photo frames that offer a 4:3 aspect ratio.

This apect ratio eliminates borders around the digital photos and allows pictures to fill up the screen. Photos appear larger on theses frames’ displays than digital photo frames with the 16:9 aspect ratio.

In addition to providing high-quality LCD screens, these models have an advanced image processing feature that quickly decodes and displays images. The digital photo frames will dispay images that are up to 48 megapixels or files that are up to 100MB. The digital photo frames have 200MB of available capacity, so you can store hundreds of photos to the device and then return your memory card back to the camera.

Digital images can be loaded onto the internal memory of the digital photo frames from several types of flash memory cards, including Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick PRO Duo, SD Memory Card, MMC, Compact Flash,  Microdrive and xD-Picture Card.

Photos can also be transferred to the frames via a USB cable (not included) from a personal computer or digital camera. These two new S-Frame models support JPEG and RAW (SRF, SR2, ARW) image file formats.

The S-Frame models offer convenient features including the auto orientation sensor. The photo frame automatically detects whether it has been positioned horzonally or verically and then adjusts the display of the picture accordingly. When the frame is horizontal the Sony logo will light up. When the frame is vertical, the logo turns off and blends into the piano black finish.

Additional features include 10 slide show variations, clock and calendar views, and two index modes so you can preview several photos at once. You can also conserve energy by using the auto power on/off setting to program when you want the frame to turn on in the morning and off at night. Functions of the digital photo frame can be managed remotely using the included controller.

The DPF-D80 digital photo frame is now available for about $180 and the DPF-D100 model will be available in November for about $280. Both will be offered direct at sonystyle.com, at 43 Sony Style® retail stores around the country, and at hundreds of authorized dealers nationwide. Pre-orders are now being accepted for the DPF-D100 unit at sonystyle.com.

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Named after famous Japanese poet Ono no Komachi, who was renowned for her beauty, the E-420 Komachi Kit certainly lives up to its namesake. The new limited-edition kit caters to those looking for amazing image quality in a small and light digital SLR (single lens reflex) camera with an elegant design.

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In this month's (December) issue of Shutterbug I have an article on page 68 initiated by a number of e-mail questions to Digital Help asking about various aspects of one problem: getting prints that match the image on your computer screen. Soon after the issue hit the newsstands I was informed that "prints too dark" was a big issue on the Adobe web site with over a hundred posts, and there were pages of references to it on Google. Some, and not just a few were a little angry that their printer manufacturer's support was helpless, and as far as I read there were few in the Adobe Forum who had any clues.