Canon enter European production photo market

Press release:

Canon enters production photo printing market

• New DreamLabo 5000 marks Canon’s entry into production photo printing, a new area of business for Canon
• High quality prints and productivity of the production printer make it ideal for production photo printing and premium small batch print-on-demand
• DreamLabo 5000 offers a viable alternative to silver halide technology and sets a new Canon quality standard
 
United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, 3rd March 2011 — Canon, world-leader in imaging solutions today announces the company’s European entry into the production photo printing market, with the launch of the DreamLabo 5000 production inkjet printer.  In line with the company’s stated growth strategy of expanding business operations through diversification, the DreamLabo 5000 marks Canon’s first entry in the production photo printing market.

Delivering a new standard of combined photo and text quality together with high productivity, the device offers the production photo printing market a viable alternative to silver halide technology that will revitalise the photo printing market.

In addition, through opportunities possible from premium quality, it offers both the production photo and the small batch premium print-on-demand (POD) markets substantial new revenue opportunities.

Canon’s entry into the production photo printing market completes its strategy to become the leader of digital photography. With the company’s 70 year photo heritage and 30 year printing heritage, Canon is the only company that covers the full photo imaging spectrum from input to output and the print spectrum from small volume printing at home to industrial production printing.  

Ryoichi Bamba, President and CEO, Canon Europe, Middle East and Africa, comments: “This launch signifies a new business direction for Canon as we are proud to announce not just a new machine, but the technology that can revitalise the entire industry and open up substantial new business opportunities.  With the DreamLabo 5000, Canon is setting a new standard for the production printing of high quality photos and high definition text.”

Leveraging and extending Canon’s existing inkjet technology, which it has successfully deployed through its PIXMA desktop printers and imagePROGRAF wide format range, the DreamLabo 5000 features a newly developed high-density print head, enabling 305 mm wide printing output.  Incorporating Canon’s FINE (Full-photolithography Inkjet Nozzle Engineering) technology, the print head enables the printing of high-quality photos and detailed text to support a variety of high-value-added output, from premium photo albums, photo books, photo calendars, photo collages and other merchandise to high-quality POD items, such as bespoke brochures.

The wide print head delivers high-speed One-Pass Printing, requiring only a single pass of the printing paper while the print head remains in a fixed position. When used in combination with the automatic Double-sided Printing function, the DreamLabo 5000 is capable of printing the contents of a 20-page A4-size photo album in just 72 seconds* and the printing of 40 photo prints (102 x 152mm) in one minute. The system also realises high productivity by enabling paper and ink tank replacement during printing, supporting the extended operation times required for production printers.

DreamLabo 5000 uses a seven-colour dye-based ink system that delivers smooth gradation.  Employing image processing technology that makes use of the full range of Canon’s unique inkjet printing colour gamut, the new printer enables the output of photo images with a level of colour representation superior to that of conventional silver halide photographs.

The DreamLabo 5000 will be available from Canon across Europe from early 2012.

*This product is intended for print-use only. For photo album and POD production, a book binding process requiring other equipment would be necessary.

More information can be found here.

Corel to showcase products at Focus

Press release:

Corel Showcases Award-Winning Products at Focus on Imaging 2011
Corel Provides Great Offers on Corel® PaintShop Photo® Pro X3, Corel® Painter™ 11 and CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X5 to coincide with Focus on Imaging 2011.
 
Maidenhead, UK – 3 March 2011 – Corel Corporation, a leading developer of graphics and digital media software, is pleased to announce its participation at the Focus on Imaging 2011 show.

The Corel team will be hosting a range of photo and video editing demonstrations and workshops at regular intervals throughout each day and invites attendees to meet the team of experts at its interactive Digital Darkroom stand E9, 6-9 March at Birmingham’s NEC.

Stop by the stand to learn more about multiple-award-winning image editing and creativity products, such as, Corel® PaintShop Photo® Pro, Corel® Painter™ and Corel® VideoStudio® Pro along with other Corel products and see them demonstrated by the team of experts.

Be one of the first to see Corel VideoStudio Pro X4 in action. The new version of Corel’s powerful video editing software is ideal for photographers who are getting into video and want a fun and creative environment in which to learn a new craft. VideoStudio Pro X4 allows you to pull in photos and HD video, create quick cuts and build your movie or slideshow with pro-looking effects and transitions. Use new tools like Stop Motion and Time-Lapse to create and share professional-quality videos. With outstanding speed and easy ways to bring great-looking movies to the screen, VideoStudio Pro X4 combines power and simplicity to break down the barriers to video editing.

Corel is also delighted to present some great offers which customers can take advantage of during the show or online.

·         Save 25% on Corel® PaintShop Photo® Pro X3: Buy for just £59.99 (inc VAT)
·         Save 25% on Corel® Painter™ 11: Buy for just £206.10 (inc VAT)
·         FREE Western Digital® 2 TB external hard drive* with the full version of CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X5 (* Terms and conditions apply.)

For further information, visit the Corel Digital Darkroom at Stand E9 or click here.

“Corel is thrilled to be exhibiting at Europe's biggest annual imaging show as Focus on Imaging is a great environment for us to showcase our multiple-award-winning image editing and creativity products. Our Digital Darkroom stand is better than ever, so we look forward to meeting our users and hearing all about the great ways they use our software.” said Brett Denly, Senior Director, Channel Sales.

National Portrait Gallery announce Only Connect

Press release

ONLY CONNECT
From 16 April to 27 November 2011
Room 33
Admission free
 
Only Connect is an unconventional new display at the National Portrait Gallery presenting a web of portraits connecting sitters across three centuries. Comprising paintings, sculpture, photographs, engravings, drawings, miniatures and works in other media from the National Portrait Gallery’s holdings, the display uses musical connections to explore new ways of looking at the Collection.
 
The display proposes a network of threads connecting singers, composers, artists, doctors, sculptors, poets, engineers, ambassadors and many others. As a result, everyone in the display is linked in one way or another. The connections range from the profound and the personal to the accidental and the incidental. Some were friends and some were lovers, several wrote about each other or had similar ideas, others were enemies or simply met on the street. For example, composer Benjamin Britten and violinist and conductor, Yehudi Menuhin performed at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after liberation in 1945. Yehudi Menuhin gave ground-breaking performances of composer Michael Tippett’s Corelli Fantasia. The sets and costumes for Tippett’s opera Midsummer Marriage were designed by sculptor Barbara Hepworth. An alternative route is formed by writer George Bernard Shaw who corresponded with the pianist Harriet Cohen. She premiered Elgar’s Piano Quintet and Elgar made his most famous recording of his Violin Concerto with the teenaged Yehudi Menuhin. Such links evoke an invisible layer of human interconnectedness, a ‘six degrees of separation’ through the Collection of the National Portrait Gallery.
 
The choice of pictures reflects a ‘reading’ of the National Portrait Gallery Collection in the light of interaction and connectedness. Any sense of hierarchy, whether between creative or interpretative artists, musicians or great engineers has been avoided. This is reflected in the choice of works in the display, which purposefully presents mass-produced material such as engravings alongside masterworks. The title of the display, Only Connect, is taken from E M Forster’s novel, Howard’s End, which is concerned with the difficulties, troubles and benefits of relationships between members of different social classes. The display, Only Connect, presents one possible reading: it is open to the viewer to make other connections.
 
The display has been devised by Peter Sheppard Skærved in collaboration with Paul Moorhouse, 20th Century Curator at the National Portrait Gallery. Peter Sheppard Skærved is the dedicatee of over 200 works for solo violin, and has appeared as soloist in over thirty countries. One of very few people to perform on Paganini’s violin, il Cannone, Peter regularly performs in, and works with, museums worldwide.
 
Paul Moorhouse, 20th Century Curator says: ‘People rarely exist in isolation but are connected with each other. Only Connect offers a new way of looking at portraits by focusing on the connections – in this case musical connections – that link all the individuals featured in the display. It may look unusual at first, but we hope our visitors will enjoy this alternative way of thinking about portraiture.’
 
EVENTS
 
There will be a series of musical performances in response to the display:
 
•         13 May 2011 The Kreutzer Quartet respond to connections between Beethoven, Tippett and T.S. Eliot
•         3 June 2011 Peter Sheppard Skærved (Violin) and Julian Perkins (Harpsichord) perform works by Maria Cosway, Tartini, Corelli and Judith Bingham
•         1 July 2011 Peter Sheppard Skærved (Violin) and Aaron Shorr (Piano) play works by Bartok, Stravinsky, and Haflidi Hallgrimsson
•         9 September 2011 Peter Sheppard Skærved (Violin), performing pieces by Paganini, Joachim, and Michael Alec Ros
•         30 September 2011 Peter Sheppard Skærved (Violin) with students from the Royal Academy of Music, London, perform pieces by Mendelssohn, Britten and David Gorton
 
There will be two free tours of the display with Peter Sheppard Skærved in Room 33 on Tuesday 3 May 2011 at 15.00 and Thursday 19 May 2011 at 19.30. Further events will be announced shortly.
 
For further information on these events please click here.