Alpha 100 review
The Alpha 100 is Sony’s first digital SLR. Based on assets from Konica Minolta’s photographic business, and the 10.2mp camera reflects the collaboration between the two companies.
The Alpha 100 is Sony’s first digital SLR. Based on assets from Konica Minolta’s photographic business, and the 10.2mp camera reflects the collaboration between the two companies.
PhotoFrame is named using the Ronseal method – it enables you to put frames on your photos. Version 3 sees an overhaul of the interface and adds new frame templates.
Yesterday, AMD released its latest generation of Opteron processors, the 'Socket F' 2000 line. We place them head-to-head with Intel's 'Woodcrest' Xeon 5100 to see which is best.
The design community has eagerly anticipated the release of QuarkXPress 7 to see if it could re-assert itself and drive off the threat posed by Adobe’s flashy newcomer.
If you thought the megapixel war was over, you’ll be surprised to learn of Casio’s 10.1mp EX-Z1000. Fortunately, there’s more to this pocket-camera than photo-diodes.
Colour profiling to ensure a colour-accurate workflow is an expensive business, but ColorVision’s PrintFix Pro offers a budget option.
The Precision M90 has a much chunkier shell than its M65 cousin, as it’s based on a completely different line of laptops – Dell's consumer-focussed Inspiron.
Portfolio 8 is the latest version of the digital asset management system that started life as Aldus Fetch around 15 years ago. It’s not just for images – it works with word processing and layout files, PDFs, movies, and other media files.
Now in its thirteenth incarnation, Corel Graphics Suite seems confident enough to take on Adobe’s Creative Suite 2, armed with a stack of new functions and an attractive price. Its features are strong, but there’s obviously a desire not to tempt fate – the company decided against naming it CorelDraw 13.
Samsung isn’t a name that immediately springs to mind when thinking of high-end digital cameras – most of their previous models have been point-&-shoots aimed at the budget-conscious. But that is about to change.
Boujou was the first automatic matchmoving solution on the market back in 2001. However, it cost as much as a small hatchback, so it wasn’t within reach of most 3D artists and smaller studios. 2D3 released the cut-down version, Boujou Bullet, to address the affordability issue.
Digital Asset Management (DAM) application with an attractive price and an impressive feature set, iView MediaPro has always been popular with photographers. However, its ability to handle other document types makes it suitable for small design or publishing studios, too.
FileMaker has been the standard database development tool for some time, at least for people in business markets. It’s also become more user-friendly over the course of its version history, making it a viable solution for creative industries, and those needing a powerful asset management platform.
Designers love new bells and whistles in their tools. Adobe opened the DTP equivalent of Pandora’s Box when it added transparency to InDesign, and suddenly magazine designs were filled with drop-shadows and fancy overlay effects.
Part of Macromedia’s Studio suite of Web site building tools, Dreamweaver 8 sees some major breakthroughs in the update to the world-leading Web development product.
With this release, Flash 8 Professional gives Macromedia’s multimedia tool Director a good kicking, and ramps up its video tools. Flash 8’s video tools are based around a new video codec, On2 VP6.
Hexagon, the latest release from Eovia, is a dedicated 3D polygon modeller. The company already has a handful of 3D programs in the form of Carrara and Amapi. Eovia offers yet more 3D products on its Web site – you can buy DAZ and Pandromeda products, including MojoWorld and Bryce, at Eovia online.
Nikon’s latest brace of digital SLRs lower the entry-price into the professional camera market still further. Both will challenge the wave of high-end, closed-system prosumer models, such as Sony’s Cyber-Shot DSC-F828 and Nikon’s own Coolpix 8800.
It’s a fact, not all professional photographers use professional-level cameras. Often there’s sound commercial reasoning behind the choice: why risk an expensive digital SLR when one costing much less will do the job?
Illustrator has always had a more technical feel to it – but the interface, as well as some of the tools in CS 2, have been improved in a way that makes working with vector images a freer and more creative process.