Photography

Well-funded digital artists take note: Wacom has announced its Cintiq 21UX, a second-generation device that combines a 21.3-inch display with the company's pen-controlled tablet.

The new Cintiq is geared toward artists, designers, and others who benefit from being able to draw or otherwise interact directly with images on the screen rather than through a separate tablet or mouse. It doesn't come cheap, though, with a price of $1,999 when it ships in late March or early April.

The color LCD, with a resolution 1600x1200, can be laid flat or rotated one way or the other up to 180 degrees in its stand, or dismounted altogether, Wacom said in its Monday announcement. On the back are two "touch strips" that let a finger slide adjust properties such as zoom or drawing brush size. … Read more

Apple has cut some staff working on its Final Cut video editing software suite, according to a report by a video industry insider.

"Apple laid off 40 of my old Final Cut team yesterday, lots of good people, despite high profits," said Pete Warden in a tweet last week. Warden, a data-mining former Apple employee who writes plug-ins for Adobe Systems' After Effects video software, also noted the cuts on his blog.

The tweet surfaced at Rich Young's AE Portal News blog, which deals with After Effects.

Apple declined to comment on the matter.

With successful products … Read more

It's not often that a technology product, even a successful one, enters the language as a verb. Some of us google, but nobody iPhones, Excels, or HDMIs.

But by remaining influential over a history that now spans 20 years, Photoshop software has achieved a place in the English language. Over its two decades, it grew from a single black-and-white image-editing package to a multi-product franchise, a starring member of Adobe Systems' Creative Suite line, and, of course, a verb.

At a National Association of Photoshop Professionals event Thursday in San Francisco, Photoshop's movers and shakers will gather to … Read more

I live on the Net. I turn to a browser when a question needs answering, the Web houses my e-mail and photos, and my news and entertainment arrive via broadband.

So it wasn't until the third online Web site failed me that it dawned on me: maybe software running natively on a computer might do better when it comes to printing this year's photo calendar. After iPhoto got the job done, I ended up spending $198.27 for nine calendars through Apple--but even the company that arguably pays more attention than any other to a smooth user experience still made me grind my teeth a couple times. Does it really need to be this hard?

There are times when service at phone companies, insurance companies, and car mechanics frustrates me, but their interests--extracting as much of my money as possible--are often poorly aligned with my own. In the case of ordering up some calendars for family members, the roles seemed reversed: I was happy to pay real money, but it seemed like the online companies didn't want to take it.

This was by no means an exhaustive test of publishing sites. I didn't try Shutterfly, WebShots, or any other rivals, and I haven't even judged the output yet. But since the promise of Internet-based business for more than a decade now has been low-friction commerce, I thought I'd share my experience with the world that indicates there's still work to be done. Here's the route my journey took:

First stop: Qoop In 2009, I ordered my calendars through Qoop, so they had incumbent status this year. I fired up the site, picked an 8.5 x 11-inch calendar, cropped my photos accordingly, and started uploading.

The first problem arrived when about half the images wouldn't upload. I tried again, but had the same problem. A third try with somewhat lower-resolution images seemed to do the trick, but there wasn't any feedback from the site. Each time I clicked through the somewhat cryptic error messages, I saw only my selection of last year's photos at the site. … Read more

Canon on Thursday announced three new wireless photo transfer accessories for its higher-end digital SLR models, adding the ability to simultaneously shoot with 10 linked cameras and other new features.

The wireless file transmitter devices, which mount to the SLR camera bodies, are the WFT-E2 II A, available this quarter for the EOS-1D Mark IV; the WFT-E4 II A, available now for the EOS 5D Mark II; and the WFT-E5A, available now for the EOS 7D. Each transmitter costs $700--more than an entire lower-end SLR and lens--but provides a variety of options to connect devices to the cameras and to … Read more

Lexar said Tuesday it's increased the capacity of its midrange professional CompactFlash memory cards with a 300X transfer speed to 32GB.

Lexar, which competes chiefly with Sandisk for the attentions of photographers who need both high capacity and high transfer speeds, has been fleshing out its CF cards that can transfer data faster by virtue of the UDMA (Ultra Direct Memory Access) interface technology. Lexar already announced in October a 32GB card and a transfer speed of 600X (90MBps), but the 300X (45MBps) card should do fine for those who don't need quite that data transfer speed.

Lexar … Read more

After testing Canon's newest professional SLR, professional sports photographer Brad Mangin offers praise for the camera's autofocus system that's as lavish as the scorn he heaped upon the model's predecessor.

Mangin tested the Canon EOS-1D Mark IV at a football game, and his overall assessment published on his blog doubtless was music to the ears of designers at the Japanese camera maker: "This camera performed flawlessly...Canon should be able to keep long-time (and heavily invested) users like me happy with the new Mark IV."

Perhaps not so pleasant to hear was his excoriation … Read more

Bibble Labs has released the long-awaited version 5 of its software for editing and managing the raw photos higher-end cameras can take.

Bibble 5 adds a number of new features for editing, cataloging, and performance. The company had hoped to release Bibble 5 in 2008 but ran into delays.

Also new is the price. The Pro version of Bibble 5 costs $199.95, up from $129.95 for Bibble 4 Pro; those who bought Bibble 4 Pro after September 1, 2006, however, get a free upgrade. Bibble 5 Lite hasn't been released yet, but the company said Bibble 4 … Read more

Adobe Systems released an update to its Photoshop and Lightroom products on Thursday night to support raw images from a raft of newer cameras from Canon, Nikon, Sony, and others.

Raw image formats, which record the unprocessed image sensor data from various higher-end cameras, offer higher quality and more flexibility than JPEGs but require more processing and take up more space. Adobe, Apple, and others write their own modules to decode the proprietary formats.

Adobe's update supports several newer SLRs from Canon, Nikon, Pentax, and Sony; compact cameras from Olympus, Panasonic, and Canon; and several medium-format camera models from … Read more