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Archive for July 20th, 2007

A short while ago Microsoft released a new version of Microsoft Expression Media which was formerly know as Ivew Media Pro 3. Microsoft bought the Iview Digital Asset Management tool a year ago and along with a revamp of FrontPage, now Expression Web, is working to create tools to directly compete with Adobe, Corel and others.

MediaPro 3 was heralded as any easy to use, full featured “image cataloger” with tons of features for displaying and organizing images. I’ve used MediaPro 3 and found it to be a very worthwhile and effective tool. You can group images, add keywords and descriptors so you can find images in your ever growing collection.

With Microsoft now at the helm, what does the new version offer? Is it worth the upgrade? Will the old version suffice or does it have new features you can’t live without?

Out of the box, it does offer features such as:
* Support for more than 100 different media formats, including digital RAW files, from popular cameras and industry-standard metadata formats
* Flexible scripting tools get tedious tasks out your way
* All digital assets are protected with built-in archiving and backup features
* Store assets as shared folders, CDs, hard drives, or DVDs
* Basic editing tools – Rotating, cropping, and resizing are done from inside Expression Media

But if you already have media catalogging, or an older version, do you go with this upgrade?

Conclusion
All told, Expression Media is an outstanding workflow tool for digital photographers who want asset management to be easy, intuitive and powerful. Existing iView MediaPro us-ers will find the new version to be only cosmetically different from MediaPro 3. The most notable external difference is the missing manual in Expression Media that was freely available with MediaPro. At the time of writing, there is no PDF manual, nor is there a help menu with online resources

Verdict

Expression Media will probably find a niche, and while we suspect it’s the kind of program that might be too easily eclipsed by something free or open-source, the support for raw camera files ought to lure in professionals who need that sort of thing, provided they don’t already have an application to do it.

http://www.takegreatpictures.com/microsoft_expression_media.fci

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/117853/microsoft-expression-studio.html

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/index.cfm?reviewid=949

In addition to writing a series of eight feature stories about what’s new in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.1 for Lightroom-news, Martin Evening, author of The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom book, has just published a free Lightroom 1.1 PDF supplement update for readers of his book and anyone who is interested in learning about what’s new in Lightroom 1.1. The PDF (20 MB) is 177 pages long and available now for download via the Peachpit website (registration required).

This is not a book revision, but a supplement to the original book in which Martin Evening describes in detail all of the new features found in Lightroom 1.1. Martin writes: “I wanted to provide a free update for Lightroom 1.1 that would satisfy readers who had already bought the book as well as all those who hadn’t bought it yet but wanted to make sure they were up to speed on all the new program features”. It is richly illustrated, fully indexed and contains page cross-references to the main book. The Contents list also includes hyperlinks, which make it real easy to navigate to specific topics of interest.

How to download the PDF supplement
The PDF update supplement is available free for everyone to download. All you have to do is visit the peachpit website at: www.peachpit.com/register. There you will need to create a new account by providing your email address, full name and a password to access the site.

http://lightroom-news.com/2007/07/11/the-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-book-11-update/

Technorati : adobe lightroom, book update, graphics software

I posted it before, but I’m gonna post it again. I saw some forum posts with people wanting a cheap editor to use. I don’t think you can do better than this…

This offer is still valid. And honestly, I’m not sure this is just for upgrades, I believe this is the full version of the program. Please don’t quote me on that, but I think you can get the full version of Paint Shop Pro XI for $40. After I bought my copy I was sent a new serial number just for PSP XI. There was no checking for a previous version if I recall.

Also with this offer you get Corel Creative Edition 2 for free with purchase – this wasn’t offered before. This is a whole slew of masks, textures, tubes and all sorts of other creative goodies for Paint Shop. It’s a 222MB download of extras to toy around with.

The Creative Edition is worth $20 on it’s own and Paint Shop is normally $99, so this really is a great deal. Like I said, I decided to go ahead and upgrade since it was such as great offer.

Paint Shop is a powerful program with layers, masks, curves, levels, histogram adjustment, and plenty of other tools for working with photos. It also has excellent text features, picture tubes, frames, and is great for working on web graphics.

The cost of the upgrade is $39.99.

Use this link to take advantage of this offer:

http://apps.corel.com/store/

Keywords: savings, discount, coupon code, reduced price