More than once on the floor of Macworld Expo last week , I spoke with someone who lamented the long - departedSeybold Seminars , especially since the focus of Macworld Expo has change state to iPod , little business products , and consumer Mac gear . That does n’t mean that there were n’t a few matter to be found on the storey for creative professional , but they were mostly center on digital photography and imaging . Competition is mogul , and , although the Aperture - Lightroom contention was chasten in San Francisco ( compared with what I saw at Photo Plus East last November ) , there were a few companies were vying for the wallets of creative pros with their products .
One affair thatwaspleasantly surprising was Quark , which is clearly trying intemperately to get the better of both its less - than - satisfactory legacy with print professionals and the steamroller called Adobe InDesign . In addition toQuarkXPress 7.1 , the company was showcasing Quark Interactive Designer and XPress plug - in trafficker . The kiosk was n’t as crowded as it has been in the past times , but it was vindicated that there still is a kernel group of users that has n’t given up on the company . As much ill will as there has been in the past times , it would be a shame to see QuarkXPress cede the intact publishing market to InDesign , and , as I said , Quark is try out .
dismantle the pro photo - pressman playing fieldOn the printing front , Epson , Canon and Hewlett - Packard were all describe up in close proximity to each other , and their Booth were full of concerned photographers , fine - artistic production printers , and mark professional . All three society were showcasing their late pigment - base , pro - unwavering picture printers , and , if you spent time in each booth , you could clearly see that there has been a seismic transmutation in this mart : Epson , long the recognize male monarch of the premium photo printer market , now has some true pretenders to its throne . As many imaging flake ( including myself ) have disclose over the past few months , things have changed , and you could see the results on the show floor in black and whitened ( and in color ) .
HP is turning up the passion with the large - data formatting Z2100 and Z3100 printers , as well as the affordable Photosmart Pro B9180 ( ) . The crowds around the Z - series printers were quite big , and many attender I speak with felt that HP had finally shed its effigy as an also - be given in the pro photograph space . As I noted in my initial belief of the 12 - ink Z3100 , HP has really thought through the whole system fence picture printing process — printing machine , ink and medium — now they just take to get the password out , and last week ’s show was a right starting for them .
canyon is also move tight in the market , with a contrast of 12 - ink paint printers that range from the 17 - inch imagePROGRAF iPF5000 ( ) to 44- and 60 - inch large format models ( but enigmatically , no 24 - inch poser ) . Unlike Epson and HP , Canon has a thriving professional camera business that helps drive people into their inkjet printer business , but their quality really was n’t up to equivalence with Epson until last summertime ’s release of the iPF5000 . Canon really does call for to compete with Epson and HP in the $ 500-$1,000 marketplace , however — they’ve been render the 10 - inkPixma Pro 9500for a class now , and no one at the Canon booth could give me a ship date for the unit of measurement that had any degree of certainty . ( “ This year , for sure , ” does n’t cut it , guys — even your Web website says Spring 2007 . )
And what of Epson ? They were establish a lot of new pressman , some of which are aim at the mid - flat photo food market , but the centerpiece of their booth was the newStylus Professional 3800 , which is now ship in amount . As has been the instance with all of the Stylus Pro printers over the past few years , Epson ’s effigy quality remains second to none . Unfortunately , many observers think that the large image - caliber track Epson has enjoy since 2003 has all but disappeared .
I received my 3800 shortly after I set up the Z3100 , and I ’ve only been able to run about 30 or 40 prints through it , but they ’ve all been exemplary . The timbre dispute between the 3800 and Epson ’s old pro pressman , the Stylus Professional 4800 , is subtle , and nowhere near as stunning as the leap in timber made by HP and Canon . Of course , Epson ’s longsighted history here will help oneself them , but it will be challenging for them to keep their grocery share as in high spirits as it has been in the past times . As I noted when I wrote about the Aperture - Lightroom battle , competition between companies that offer great product is a great thing that benefit all of us . With the annualPhoto Marketing Associationexposition coming up in early March , expect to see the gloves come off as these three pressman company vie for mindshare and retail floor infinite among photo resellers .
Image editing smackdownLike me , you might be sick of the phrase , “ Photoshop killer ” ; it ’s a useless term , as I ’ve observe before . Nevertheless , there are companies out there endeavor to offer an alternative to the Adobe monolith , and their chief emphasis is simplicity . At the show , Light Crafts was showing Version 2.0 ofLightZone(which I wrote about in my Photo Plus East troll - up ) , and a fresh society , 4 G , which was show a novel app calledColorBenderthat get hold of averysimplified approach to trope editing .
4 gigabyte ’s ColorBender has a flowing port , with a few choice adjustment prick and a 9 - sphere grid used to utilise effects to your images .
On the aerofoil , ColorBender search minimal , using a realm - base feeler to editing images . You select any compounding of 9 neighborhood in your image that you want to utilize registration to , adding more adjustments to other sectors in a manner blood-related to Photoshop ’s layers ( with a full Undo capacity for any change you make to an image ) . There are tools for sharpening ; dividing line , cleverness , and saturation adjustments ; selective color correction ; phantasm and highlight recovery ; and more . In the style of a programme that is proudly “ anti - Photoshop , ” you wo n’t see a Levels or Curves dialogue anywhere near ColorBender . However , Dr. George Dale , 4 G ’s president , claim that ColorBender ’s “ adaptative image processing ” technology will not clip your image in any way whatsoever , preserving both highlights and shadows throughout the editing process . The $ 149 app is available as a 30 - day gratis trial run . I do n’t see it supplant Photoshop any time soon , but it is worth take up a look at .
LightZone is based upon Ansel Adams ’ geographical zone organization for breaking images down into distinct tonal areas . It features a unique Bezier - dash region - creation tool that lets you quickly select region of your paradigm that necessitate specific adjustment .
As for LightZone , I profess to receive a indulgent spot in my heart for the program , even if I find that I use it much less than I want ( I find the same manner aboutOmniWeb ) . LightZone uses some very simple metaphor for image adjustment , I base upon traditional analogue darkroom techniques , and it continues to improve in public presentation and feature . If the complexness and ponderosity of Photoshop are n’t your thing , you should correspond out the demonstration variant of LightZone : it ’s $ 250 for the full adaptation , and $ 150 for a Retouch Edition designed to be used in coincidence with programs like Apple ’s Aperture , Microsoft’siView MediaProand RAW transition utilities like Nikon ’s excellentCaptureNXand Bibble Labs’Bibble .
at last , speaking of Photoshop , the Adobe booth was hopping throughout the show , as Adobe pluck out all the demonstration check , much like they did at Photo Plus East . With three public betas to demonstration ( Photoshop CS3,LightroomandSoundBooth ) , there was plenty of interest , both from hoi polloi who had n’t yet downloaded the lotion , to those who wanted tips . john and a shipping day of the month for any of the program . Adobe reps were mostly mum , but they had to be very happy with the excitement spirit level in their booth , despite the occasional grumbler who wondered why InDesign did n’t rate public genus Beta status . I ’ll bet the folks in the Quark booth were very happy that Adobedidn’tchoose that route .
