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| Camera Bits Photo Mechanic 4.6.2 |
| Workflow accelerator Photo Mechanic speeds import, captioning and editing through a set of customizable tools. Among other capabilities, the software allows photographers to create Web galleries and slideshows, print contact sheets, transfer photos to an FTP server, and upload images to an online archive. Our judges particularly liked the Ingest command, which reads images from memory cards, flattens directory structures, applies IPTC metadata, creates backups on separate disks, and renames files, all in a single step. |
| Price: $150. www.camerabits.com |
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| Nik Software Viveza 2 |
| Nik Software Viveza 2 is technically a plug-in, but its selective color and light control features are so impressive that it easily outpaced all competitors in this category. Viveza 2 offers global adjustments and controls through Nik’s U Point technology. The software is designed to save photographers time in editing images by eliminating the need for complicated selections and layer masks. U Point technology allows users to make selective edits to hue, saturation, contrast and more with just a click and a quick slider adjustment. |
| Price: $199.95. www.niksoftware.com |
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| Imagenomic Portraiture 2 for Lightroom |
| In another hotly contested category, Imagenomic scored a narrow victory over several worthy competitors. Our pros selected Portraiture 2 for Lightroom because of its fast and accurate skin retouching features. Portraiture 2 builds on earlier versions for Adobe Photoshop and Apple Aperture. Our judges were impressed by the two workflow modes—Edit In and Export—for individual and batch image editing and processing. This is the first time a software developer has been able to accomplish this feat, and Imagenomic has received accolades from Adobe Systems for the successful development. |
| Price: $199.95. www.imagenomic.com |
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| Corel Painter 11 |
| Painter 11 improved texture and precision in its pressure-sensitive brushes. New RealBristle Dry Media tools enhanced drawing capabilities with new marker, pen, chalk and pencil tools. Painter 11’s Hard Media Controls include customizable profiles, dab sizes, transitions and stroke width previews for a custom-tailored look. |
| Price: $429. www.corel.com |
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| Album DS 6.1.1 |
| In version 6.1.1, Album DS helps photographers quickly and easily design albums, cards, posters, collages and a variety of other contemporary image products. Our judges gave Album DS high marks for its versatility—it works with any album maker. Album DS can auto-populate entire albums, produce picture packages and proofs, split design spreads into left and right halves, automatically renaming the image files as left and right, and can also split spreads with an overlap in the center gutter to keep the entire image visible after binding. |
| Price: $349. www.albumds.com/site_us |
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| Animoto Pro |
| As pros look for ways to use moving images, Animoto is fast becoming the application of choice for slideshows and video presentations. Created by TV and film producers, Animoto Pro makes professional-grade videos from images and sets them to music with more than 500 free, commercially licensed songs. With the release of Animoto + Video, users can incorporate video clips alongside their photos to give customers a more dynamic multimedia experience. The application features patent-pending Cinematic Artificial Intelligence technology that thinks like an editor/director. |
| Price: $99 for three months; $249 for one year. www.animoto.com/photography |
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| SuccessWare |
| Available for Windows and Mac OS, SuccessWare’s update landed it another win in this category. Adding to the software’s studio tracking, product pricing and business planning features, the latest version boasts a new scheduling feature with month and list views; quick appointment scheduling via drag-and-drop of saved appointments; staff reminders using multimedia messaging; automatic e-mails sent to clients and prospects; and more. |
| Price: Ranges from $49 per month for a single-user lease to $3,595 for an 11-user purchase. www.successware.net |
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| ACDSee Pro 3 |
| ACDSee continues its award-winning innovation with Version 3 of its professional image organization, viewing and editing application. The Pro 3 software optimizes workflow through four areas of activity: manage, view, process and online. Manage arranges digital assets into user-created specifications with both folders and metadata. View allows photographers to preview images at full size and apply a range of advanced features. Process integrates nondestructive image editing and pixel-level editing into one seamless application. Online facilitates simple image storage and sharing online without exiting the application. |
| Price: $169.99. www.acdseepro.com |
