In Focus Vol. 3 No. 8

On This Page

• 3P's Country Cotton FR Flies on Shuttle Mission STS-120
• Get an Early Start at Imaging USA with Pre-Convention Education and Activities
• Adobe Releases Lightroom 2
• Site for Photography Professionals, Retailers Adds More Content and a Weekly Newsletter

3P’s Country Cotton FR Flies on Shuttle Mission STS-120

3P Inkjet Textiles proudly reports that its Country Cotton FR material was used to produce four small banners carried aboard Space Shuttle Mission STS 120 to NASA’s International Space Station. The Italian Space Agency commissioned the flags in honor of the mission that delivered and installed the European-built Harmony module on the Space Station.  The banners were printed by Bay Area Imaging LLC, a Houston-area graphics provider.

Thomas Poetz, 3P’s director of marketing and product development, said, “Our Country Cotton FR is flame-retardant coated to meet international standards for indoor advertising banners and the point-of-sale market. I did not expect that our products would go into orbit. But it’s amazing evidence of our high product safety.”

Country Cotton FR is a 100% cotton fabric suitable for use in airports, museums, exhibition centers, and theatres. It can be used with Canon imagePROGRAF, HP Designjet, Epson, and other printers that use aqueous inks. The fabric’s microporous coating produces clear, sharp, long-lasting images and graphics for textile wall hangings, display booths, photo and art reproduction, and window draperies.

The fabric is available from LexJet in roll widths from 17 to 72 in. Contact a LexJet account specialist at 800-453-9538 for more information about LexJet’s line of inkjet-printable fabrics.

Get an Early Start at Imaging USA with Pre-Convention Education and Activities

Imaging USA — the first major photo event of the year, combining three co-located conferences, a 600-booth tradeshow, an international print exhibit, and over 8,600 photographers — heads to sunny Phoenix, Jan. 11-13, 2009. As you make travel plans, don’t forget the tantalizing array of pre-convention classes (January 8-10) and the PPA Charities’ Celebration Event (January 10).

Perhaps the best part about pre-convention classes is that you can get more individualized and in-depth instruction. With times the way they are, do you need to understand more about financial management and planning? Take the full-day Thursday class on the subject from Scott Kurkian and Tracy Harris. PPA’s Board of Directors is also holding an all-day Indoor/Outdoor Speed-Shooting class where you can learn from one after another in rotating sessions.

There are many more options for food, fun, and the ever-popular auctions — just browse the choices (and descriptions) at the Imaging USA website. Aside from the extra education, coming early allows you to attend the PPA Charities’ Celebration Event and the morning golf outing on Saturday. You can get started on this part of your planning at the Special Events page.

Adobe Releases Lightroom 2

Adobe has announced the immediate availability of Photoshop Lightroom 2 software for managing, adjusting, and presenting large volumes of digital photographs. New enhancements include advances in non-destructive localized image correction, streamlined search capabilities, and dual-monitor support that gives you the flexibility to expand your image-editing and organizing workspace.

Lightroom 2 is Adobe's first application to support 64-bit processing on Mac OS X 10.5 Macintosh computers with Intel processors and Microsoft Windows Vista 64-bit operating systems.

New features include: Improved memory performance for dealing with large-scale images, an enhanced Library module in Lightroom 2 that enables you to visually organize images across multiple hard drives, and a Suggested Keywords feature that makes intelligent suggestions based on keywords you’ve previously used.

Also, a Local Adjustment Brush in the Develop module lets you fine-tune specific areas of an image to precisely adjust color, exposure, and tonal range without affecting other areas of the image.

A new Graduated Filter allows for edits to larger areas by applying gradually diminishing or increasing adjustment effects such as exposure, clarity, and saturation, alone, or in any combination.

Lightroom 2 also helps you print more efficiently by quickly arranging photos of multiple sizes on one or many pages with flexible and customizable templates to maximize paper and ink. Intelligent algorithms automatically determine optimal sharpening for screen or print, producing crisper images faster.

You can learn more about all of the new features of Lightroom 2 by visiting the Lightroom 2 Learning Center operated by the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP). The site includes  11 video tutorials hosted by NAPP president Scott Kelby and Lightroom Killer Tips expert Matt Kloskowski.

The tutorials demonstrate all of the new improvements and explain how Lightroom 2 differs from Adobe Bridge and the first Lightroom release. The Lightroom 2 Learning Center was launched July 29 and is open to the general  public for 60 days.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 is available now through the Adobe Store with an estimated street price of $299 for new users with an upgrade price of $99 for registered users of qualifying Lightroom products. Additional information on product features, upgrade policies, pricing, and language versions is available at Adobe’s Lightroom product site.

Site for Photography Professionals, Retailers Adds More Content and a Weekly Newsletter

imaginginfo.com, a website for professional photographers and photo retailers and the online portal to Studio Photography and PTN (Photo Trade News) publications, has added more original content as well as a weekly imaginginfo newsletter to its repertoire.

In addition to the aesthetic facelift launched earlier this year, in recent months the site was further refurbished with the addition of more daily news stories and photos, weekly blog entries written by the editors, weekly lighting tips and an online exclusive section.

Recent online exclusive stories have included a feature of volcano photographer Brad Lewis, a how-to on macro photography techniques, and tips on how to battle the elements when photographing extreme sports. The site also has added an area for users to comment on articles at the end of each story.

The new imaginginfo newsletter offers different content than the group’s other two bi-weekly e-publications, the Studio Photography and PTN newsletters. Besides the best news stories of the week, each imaginginfo issue contains a product review, a technique article, a new online exclusive, contests and the latest blog entries. Click here to subscribe.

The website’s enlarged, high-resolution slide show showcases the site’s weekly highlights as well-as top notch photography that can only be found on a destination for photography professionals. Each week, users will find web-only features that focus on useful, creative and inspiring techniques they want to know about and tips not easily found. To help accomplish this, the editors have scoured the field to find some of the best experts in the business.

“Whether searching for business tips, technique articles or reviews, the site is an important tool in a photographer’s arsenal,” said Ian Littauer, Publisher of Cygnus Imaging Group. 

The Cygnus Imaging Group, a part of Cygnus Business Media, includes the properties imaginginfo.com, Studio Photography, PTN, Cygnus PMA Show Daily, Cygnus Photokina News and the Studio Photography, PTN and imaginginfo.com newsletters.