ImagingInfo.com |

Whether you’re looking for a program that will let you touch up your photos, keep track of your studio’s invoices, or create albums on the fly online, today’s manufacturers continue to come up with easy-to-use software solutions that facilitate the pro photographer’s workflow. Read on to catch a glimpse at some of today’s hottest applications and testimonials from photographers who use them. For additional information on each company’s software solutions, check out the websites listed.

Alien Skin
www.alienskin.com
Category: Image Editing, Workflow
Blow Up provides better image enlargement than Photoshop Bicubic or other third-party solutions, says Alien Skin. It’s great for large-format printing, taking Web graphics to print, and creating gallery prints from digital snapshots. Blow Up preserves the crisp lines and smooth colors of your original image. Enlarge to 16 times the original size without stairstep, halo, or fringe artifacts. A plug-in for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, Blow Up supports 8-, 16-, and 32-bit image modes, as well as RGB, CMYK, LAB, Grayscale, and Duotone color spaces.

“Blow Up works wonders for both photographers and graphic artists. It offers high-quality image enlargement that would take hours of manipulation and testing in Photoshop. Yes, there are methods for doing it yourself, but at its modest price, Blow Up greatly simplifies the process. In my experience, Blow Up easily converts lower-resolution photos to print quality.”
—Fred Showker, DT&G Online, Harrisonburg, VA

Exposure brings the look and feel of film to the often overly literal digital photograph. Simulate film stocks such as Fuji Velvia, Kodachrome, and Ektachrome. Or re-create your unique look as a one-click effect. Exposure simulates darkroom and studio effects such as softening and push processing. Control saturation, light temperature, dynamic range, softness, sharpness, and the addition of grain, not noise, in one Photoshop plug-in.

“Digital was a boon to professional photographers, providing benefits that were unthinkable with film, such as immediate feedback. But with all the pluses, there was still something that digital photography was missing—the natural beauty of film. Alienskin Software’s Exposure filled that gap with one-click ease. We now have the best of both worlds and I couldn’t be happier.”
—David Singer, Singer Creative Services, Charlton, MA

Snap Art creates beautiful, natural media artwork in a single step. These 10 filters are great for stylizing photos or graphics with no laborious hand editing. Render an unlimited variety of realistic, artistic styles, such as oil paint, pencil sketch, pen & ink, comics, and more. Loaded with hundreds of settings, Snap Art allows anyone to craft realistic art with a single click.

“The beauty of this plug-in is in the quality output, the simple interface, and the whole concept of a ‘one-step’ push-button solution, which makes using Snap Art a real pleasure. Of course, part of that pleasure might be in keeping the plug-in a secret. Need to mimic a Van Gogh painting, you say? What was that—by this afternoon? That’s not going to be a problem with this plug-in set.”
—Jennifer Apple, Photoshopsupport.com

Athentech Imaging
www.athentech.com
Category: Image Editing, Processing
Perfectly Clear may the only technology that automatically and instantly optimizes the lighting for each and every pixel while maintaining true color and zero clipping. Perfectly Clear also automatically removes abnormal tint and restores faded photographs. Perfectly Clear utilizes patented medical imaging technology to provide photographs with optimal contrast and sharpening. The result is vibrant and accurate photos that yield what the photographer saw when capturing the image.

Backupandburn Software
www.backupandburn.com
Category: Processing, Workflow
Backupandburn offers a unique software solution that assists photographers in downloading images from the memory card to the computer, and then burns them to a CD/DVD. Images are read from multiple cards, sorted by time, renamed, and renumbered—all this in only 60 seconds. The product is available for trial download and is currently available for the PC platform (a Mac version is planned for mid-2007).

BatchPhoto.com
www.BatchPhoto.com
Category: Online
BatchPhoto is a powerful photo-manipulation program that makes it easy to touch up, transform, apply effects, and rename hundreds of photos in a single operation. Instead of enhancing/adjusting pictures individually, BatchPhoto lets you select a group, define a series of edits, and apply them in a single operation.

Camera Bits
www.camerabits.com
Category: Image Editing, Image Management, Slideshow, Workflow, Other
Photo Mechanic can make a big project much easier to handle with its fast photocopying, previewing, tagging, and renaming functions. Find your keepers in minutes instead of hours. Batch-processing and snapshot configurations save you from redundant operations. Go to www.camerabits.com to take Photo Mechanic out for a 20-day test drive.

Clickbooq
www.clickbooq.com
Category: Online
clickbooq is an easy-to-use website creation, management, and hosting solution developed for pro photographers to showcase their work online. Using clickbooq’s Web-based application, photographers can create a professional, full-featured Flash website. This service allows photographers to update their portfolios with drag-and-drop simplicity; send images to clients as Web galleries and slideshows; and access thousands of photos stored in the online image library. Changing background, fonts, and content is easy, too.

DxO Labs
www.dxo.com
Category: Image Editing, Processing, Workflow, Other (Software)
Give your digital SLR a DxO performance upgrade! DxO Optics Pro is award-winning software that automatically enhances image quality through: unrivalled optics as well as geometry corrections; advanced image color control; unique exposure and dynamic range optimization; outstanding noise removal; an exclusive RAW converter; and an Adobe Photoshop plug-in. This breakthrough enhancement software is available for Windows and Mac. Try the free demo of DxO Optics Pro v4.1 at www.dxo.com.

“I shoot the majority of my photography from my floatplane. Shooting down at dawn and dusk means the subjects are often poorly lit, The plane’s motion compounds the problem, so getting good, clean images is a bit of a challenge. DxO is a huge help with this. Its abilities to brighten and sharpen a drab image are heaven-sent. Also, since I frequently shoot wide angle, the distortion and vignetting correction is a minor miracle.”
—Ian Coristine, 1000 Islands Photo Art, Canada

FotoShow Pro
www.fotoshowpro.com
Category: Image Management
FotoShow Pro is an easy-to-use system that allows imaging pros to organize digital assets, and enables users to search, view, and purchase images over the Internet. It includes all the key features and functionality of premiere stock photo sites while giving individual photographers and agencies control over the display and distribution of their work.