Flavorpill are excited to announce the launch of their very own brand new daily blog www.flavorwire.com, which will look to bring loggers on with news and commentary updates from the front lines of emerging culture. Here you’ll find the latest filtered trends in art and design, literature, fashion, cinema and music all creating an exciting hub of ideas and invention. Check it out this liberally online lay by today.
If you are situated locally and can just be patient, fighting the temptation of the free Photoshop CS4 seminars at Regents Park hosted by Rapid, or are just unfortunate enough to miss this, the Rapid are hosting more opportunities in bournemouth on the 24th November.
Info below:
http://www.rapidgroup.net/content/events/photo_creative_bournemouth_morning_seminars_only
Photo Creative - Free CS4 Training!
Monday 24th November 2008 - Bournemouth, The Best Western Connaught Hotel, BH2 5PH
Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2 - The complete photography workflow solution. Learn more about the latest versions of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom at our FREE Seminar. Get familiar with the new features that make them the gold standard in digital imaging.
PLACES ARE LIMITED PLEASE REGISTER BELOW
Agenda -
9.30am - 10am Registration
10am - 11am Introducing Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2
This session will provide an overview of the key features in Photoshop Lightroom 2 demonstrating the “shoot-to-finish” workflow capabilities of the product. You will discover how to quickly import, manage, adjust and present large volumes of digital photographs – from your latest shoot to your entire library – with one easy-to-use application. Learn how to spend more time behind the lens and less time in front of the computer!
11am - 11.15am Break
11.15am - 12.15pm Adobe Photoshop CS4 for photographers
In this session you will discover the key features in Photoshop CS4, how they can dramatically improve your digital imaging workflow and how you can quickly apply them to your creative work. Discover the new streamlined interface and dozens of new time-saving tools. Photoshop CS4 offers more intuitive access to its unrivaled editing power and significant productivity enhancements so you can correct and adjust images and achieve amazing results more efficiently than ever before.
Fancy some free Photoshop CS4 training…yes you heard right!
Rapid are pleased to provide morning and afternoon seminars on the 10th November at Regents Park, London.
More event info and timetable see below or check out http://www.rapidgroup.net/content/events/photo_creative_regents_park_london_morning_and_afternoon_seminars
Photo Creative - Free CS4 Training!
Monday 10th November 2008 - Regents Park -
Adobe Systems
12 Park Crescent
London
W1B 1PH
United Kingdom
Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2 - the complete photography workflow solution. Learn more about the latest versions of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom at one of our FREE Seminars. Get familiar with the new features that make them the gold standard in digital imaging, we will be holding both morning and afternoon sessions
PLACES ARE LIMITED PLEASE REGISTER BELOW
The seminars will run twice, once in the morning and once in the afternoon :
Agenda -
Morning Seminars :
9.30am - 10am Registration
10am - 11am Introducing Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2
This session will provide an overview of the key features in Photoshop Lightroom 2 demonstrating the “shoot-to-finish” workflow capabilities of the product. You will discover how to quickly import, manage, adjust and present large volumes of digital photographs – from your latest shoot to your entire library – with one easy-to-use application. Learn how to spend more time behind the lens and less time in front of the computer!
11am - 11.15am Break
11.15am - 12.15am Adobe Photoshop CS4 for photographers
In this session you will discover the key features in Photoshop CS4, how they can dramatically improve your digital imaging workflow and how you can quickly apply them to your creative work. Discover the new streamlined interface and dozens of new time-saving tools. Photoshop CS4 offers more intuitive access to its unrivaled editing power and significant productivity enhancements so you can correct and adjust images and achieve amazing results more efficiently than ever before.
Afternoon Seminars :
12.30pm - 1pm Registration for afternoon sessions
1pm - 2pm Introducing Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2
As above
2pm - 2.15pm Break
2.15pm - 3.15pm Adobe Photoshop CS4 for photographers
As above
Try out your imagination with this one… a mascot or two for the London Olympics 2012!
press release
The organizers of the London 2012 Olympic Games have announced the first stage of the search for mascots for the Games. Creatives are invited to register their interest through the Olympics business Web site.
Mascots are an important part of the Games’ branding — possibly all the more important for the London Games given the unpopularity of Wolff Olins’ much-derided 2012 logo. The Beijing Games this year had five mascots.
London 2012 Commercial Director Chris Townsend said: “Those of us lucky enough to go to Beijing this summer saw first hand the magic of the mascots - whether it was the soft toy version, entertainment at a venue or simply photo opportunities at the airport.
“They help set the tone for the Games and we’re very excited about kicking this process off. Fun and games aside, the mascot programme will be a key component of our licensing plan and will be a strong revenue driver as we seek to raise the £2bn required to stage a Games in 2012.”
Mascots are an important part of generating revenues for the event: they appear as toys, on clothing, in film and animations, as well as being used in computer games and for the overall branding of the Games. The Paralympic Games will have their own mascots.
Creatives have until November 21 to register their interest; a shortlist of suitable agencies will be made in December. Locog (the Olympics business organization) expects that the eventual successful agency or group of studios will work with the public in some way to develop the mascots.
Chris Townsend says: “‘This country is home to - in my view - the world’s best creative industry and this is an opportunity for them to play a key role in making the Games both memorable and a great success.”
Want more with your notebook? Well perhaps Alienware has the solution for you.
Press release below:
ALIENWARE INTRODUCES 9-SERIES GAMING-CLASS MOBILE GRAPHICS WITH LAUNCH OF NVIDIA GEFORCE 9800M GT
Award-winning Area-51® m15x notebook updated with all-new NVIDIA® graphics for extreme gaming performance, HD video playback
Athlone, Ireland – 27th October 2008 - Alienware® the leading manufacturer of high-performance notebook, desktop and professional systems continues its mission to deliver the ultimate mobile gaming experience by announcing the NVIDIA GeForce® 9800M GT on the Area-51® m15x notebook. With the GeForce 9800M GT, the Area-51 m15x delivers the highest anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering as well as the highest frame rates possible on a 15.4-inch notebook, giving Alienware users extreme performance on the hottest DirectX® 10 and next-generation game titles.
www.alienware.co.uk/m15x
With 512MB of dedicated graphics memory, the NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GT generates not only hardcore in-game graphics, but also best-in-class high-definition video playback. NVIDIA PureVideo® HD Technology assumes all HD video decoding for the system, freeing up the CPU for increased multitasking. Blu-ray movies and HD video are displayed in full eye-popping 1080p either on the Area-51 m15x notebook’s high-definition LCD or outputted via HDMI to an external display or HD television.
“The Area-51 m15x is the leader in performance and design innovation,” says Brian Joyce, Senior Vice President at Alienware, “as evidenced by the more than two dozen awards and positive reviews the system has received since launch. The addition of the NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GT serves to solidify its place as the world’s most powerful 15.4-inch notebook.”
To up the ante, Alienware also equips the 17-inch Area-51 m17x notebook with dual NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GT graphics cards featuring NVIDIA SLI® and a full 1GB of combined dedicated graphics memory.
Area-51 m15x
We’re eight years into the 21stC and if you’re still apple bobbing then let’s face it - you’re Halloween needs a makeover. Scrap tradition, you’re wasting your time!
A press release
We’re well into ‘spooky season’ with parties planned and supermarkets and shopping malls piling the pumpkins high and selling out of ‘Scream’ masks. Comicbrush.com has got into the spirit of things and created 24 spooky Halloween images which can be used in your own Halloween comics and cards and to enhance your holiday and party photos!
Comicbrush.com lets you mix any of your own photos with high quality comic artpacks to create comic strips personal to you. Simply upload any of your own photos to www.comicbrush.com for free and use the free tools to manipulate them into comic panels, with speech balloons and captions. In the secure store you can spend just a few pounds to buy thousands of points (in addition to the free 1000 you receive on registration), and a world of creepy comic art will open before you.
Everything from Frankenstein neck bolts and empty coffins to pitchforks, pumpkins, spiders and witches are available for your diabolical designs. Make your Halloween party invitation twice as scary, or play with the party photos to give your guests huge vampire teeth, devilish horns and tail, and even drop in tombstones to add to the atmos-fear!
Don’t forget to check out all the other comic artpacks too - put Paris Hilton on a witches broomstick, turn the cast of High School Musical into zombies, or give vice-presidential wannabe and self-confessed ‘hockey mom’ Sarah Palin her very own Friday the 13th-style hockey mask. Once your Halloween horrors are complete, publish your final Comicbrushed strip to the Community Galleries, email it straight to your friends or even send it to their iPhones.
Less is more - Varta’s USB Charger!
press release
Power on the go for photographers - now that’s something to smile about!
Photographers can say goodbye to hauling an endless supply of batteries around with them and lighten the load of their equipment bags (as well as their pockets), thanks to the new compact, lightweight USB Battery Charger by Varta - perfect for providing power on the move.
Any keen photographer knows that batteries can be a costly expense and old battery rechargers tend to be bulky and restrictive, but there’s nothing worse than being without power and missing that crucial shot because of flat batteries.
The pocket-sized Varta USB Charger is smaller than most mobile phones and is the ideal travel companion for the amateur photographer. It fits into a standard USB port, enabling batteries to be charged easily and conveniently through a personal laptop or a computer station in an internet café. So photographers can be downloading, editing and reviewing their latest set of pictures on a computer, whilst charging their camera’s batteries ready for their next shoot.
Features of the Varta USB Charger include:
* Compact, slim-line and lightweight
* Shock resistant
* Comes with 2xAA and 2xAAA pre-charged batteries
* Can charge up to two batteries at any one time and caters for AA and AAA batteries through its adjustable connector
* 10-15 hour charge time
* Two green LEDs to indicate when the device is in charging mode
With a one-off purchase and no need to keep stocking up on batteries for cameras, the USB is kind to the pocket and does its bit for the environment, too. When single-use batteries run out, most end up in landfill sites, polluting the earth. Switching to rechargeables can help to preserve the environment by cutting down on waste batteries and their packaging.
The USB Charger will be available from October 2008 in leading high street retailers, with a RRP of £9.99. It is just one of a range of must-have rechargeable products for amateur photographers that are being launched by Varta this autumn. Other products in the range include:
* Ready2Use rechargeable batteries
* Travel charger with 4xAA
* Pocket charger with 4xAAA
* Power Station with 2xAA and 2xAAA
PRESS RELEASE:
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.1 and Camera Raw 5.1 Updates Now Available
Adobe has released updates to Photoshop Lightroom and the Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in, both available immediately as free upgrades for Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4 users. The releases provide added raw file support for 15 digital cameras including the Nikon D90, Nikon D700, Canon EOS 50D and Canon EOS 1000D. The Lightroom 2.1 update also includes improvements to Photoshop integration, Web module stability for Microsoft Windows Vista 64-bit operating systems, performance with 64-bit Mac OS X 10.5 Macintosh computers, and Keyword migration from Lightroom. A complete list of improvements is available in the Lightroom update documentation.
In addition, Adobe has released a new set of camera profiles available on Adobe Labs. The camera profiles are targeted at improving Adobe’s default raw processing and emulating the colour rendering provided by camera manufacturers. The update includes added support for the Leica M8, Canon EOS 50D, Canon G9, Nikon D90 and Pentax models. Camera profiles are the visual starting point for the raw processing workflow. Since image preferences vary by photographer, Adobe minimizes surprises by supplying default camera profiles that closely emulate the visual looks that photographers normally see from their cameras.
The 15 new digital cameras supported in Lightroom 2.1 and Camera Raw 5.1 include the Canon EOS 1000D, Canon EOS 50D, Fuji FinePix IS Pro, Kodak EasyShare Z1015 IS, Leaf AFi II 6, Leaf AFi II 7, Leaf Aptus II 6, Leaf Aptus II 7, Nikon D700, Nikon D90, Nikon Coolpix P6000, Olympus SP-565 UZ, Pentax K2000, Sigma DP1, and Sony A900. Additionally, Adobe recently released Camera Raw 4.6, which includes the same raw file support for Photoshop CS3 customers.
Pricing and Availability
The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.1 is available as a free download for existing customers at www.adobe.com/downloads/updates/. Photoshop Lightroom 2 can be purchased through the Adobe Store at www.adobe.com/store. The estimated street price is £199.00 ex Vat for new users with an upgrade price of £79.00 ex Vat for registered users of qualifying Lightroom customers. The updated camera profiles are available as a separate download on Adobe Labs at http://labs.adobe.com.
The Photoshop Camera Raw plug-ins are available as free downloads for existing customers. Camera Raw 5.1 for Photoshop CS4 users and Camera Raw for Photoshop CS3 users are available at www.adobe.com/downloads/updates/.
A walking but not talking 3D man is ready to download! He should make your life easier…
press release
Worthy of a double-take, the newest version of DAZ 3D’s popular 3D male figure Michael 4 allows for final renderings that are nearly indistinguishable from photography. Derived from high-resolution real-life human photography and body scans which are combined with the fourth generation unimesh and improved rigging and body contours, Michael 4 offers the most realistic, versatile and anatomically accurate human male figure available for public use. This long-awaited version of Michael is now available for purchase at www.DAZ3D.com.
“Working with Michael 4 has been a dream,” said DAZ 3D Published Artists, Steve and Diane Pinchbeck (”Predatron and Diane”). “His rigging and jointing is robust and easy to operate even during the most extreme poses. The morphs are very realistic and offer potential in creating a host of diverse characters. Michael 4 is easily the hottest digital male figure yet.”
Built to use the same add-on technology as his counterpart Victoria 4, Michael 4 allows characters of different proportions and shapes to be loaded, morphed and mixed, providing an extensive platform for limitless character generation. Michael 4 comes complete with multiple head shapes to alter age, weight and ethnicity characteristics, along with high-resolution photo-real skin texture maps showcasing enhanced irregularities such as pores, freckles, veins and muscle striations. The added utilization of DAZ 3D’s new high-end Character Setup Tools grant Michael 4 more realistic joint movement while eliminating distortion in each pose.
“Artists will immediately see the advantages of improved realism offered through Michael 4,” said DAZ 3D’s President and Co-Founder, Dan Farr. “From photo-real skin textures, to fine-tuned body contours and highly realistic joints, Michael 4 provides unsurpassed results that professional artists demand, with the ease-of-use desired by beginners.”
Pricing and Availability
Available free of charge for all registered DAZ 3D users, Michael 4 is now available for electronic download via the www.DAZ3D.com online store. Corresponding product bundles range in price from USD $34.97 (reg. price $49.95) to $59.97 (reg. price $99.95) and contain a variety of clothing, hairstyles, skins, heads and body shapes.
For a complete Michael 4 feature list, system requirements and links to additional resources, please visit http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d_models/overview?_m=d.
A new version of Suitcase Fusion helps graphic designers, illustrators and more pro’s to manage their font collections. A big task, not to be taken lightly.
press release
Extensis on Monday announced that it is shipping Suitcase Fusion 2, a new version of its single-user font management software. It costs US$99.95, or $49.98 if upgrading from Suitcase X1 or newer.
Suitcase Fusion 2 helps graphic designers, prepress professionals, illustrators and others more effectively manage the fonts used by their system. It lets you identify and repair corrupt fonts, preview fonts, automatically activate font sets for various projects or applications, experiment with fonts using previews, and much more.
Changes in Suitcase Fusion 2 include a redesigned user interface and a dramatically changes code base that now uses SQLite database technology. You can navigate through glyphs within a single typeface, drag and drop type previews directly onto a layout, view multiple fonts side-by-side and dynamically zoom the point size larger and smaller.
New auto-activation plug-ins are included for InDesign CS4, Illustrator CS4 and QuarkXPress 8; plug-ins are also included for Creative Suite 3 and QuarkXPress 7.