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Avenza® Releases Geographic Imager® 3.4 for Adobe® Photoshop®

Avenza Systems Inc., producers of MAPublisher® cartographic software for Adobe Illustrator® and PDF Maps for Apple iOS, is pleased to announce the release of Geographic Imager 3.4 for Adobe Photoshop. This release is fully compatible with Adobe Photoshop CS5.1, which is also known as Adobe Photoshop 12.1 in Adobe CS5.5, as well as Adobe Photoshop 12.0.4 in Adobe CS5.

“We’re delighted to release Geographic Imager 3.4 with even more format support,” said Ted Florence, President of Avenza. “We’ve also included new options to import and export images, providing users with even more ways to streamline and improve their data editing work flow. In addition, included are some priority fixes based on user requests and feedback,” he added.

Additional Geographic Imager 3.4 features

Fully compatible with Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 (also known as Photoshop 12.1 in Adobe CS5.5) in both 32 and 64 bit
New import support for ERDAS IMAGINE (.img), Esri ArcInfo Binary Float Grid (.flt), and “DEM” grayscale GeoTIFF (*.tif) formats, including ability to import georeferenced images from Web Map Service (WMS) sources
New export support for BigTIFF, ECW (up to 0.5 GB), and NITF formats
Major enhancements to Advanced Import, including options to:
import multiple files of differing formats
resample and crop images prior to import
modify bands/channel color mapping and select specific channels to import for multiband/hyperband images
mosaic and import images as layers into existing documents specify and adjust DEM and DTM information and combine multiple DEM files on import
Enhanced Quick Save feature for quick format conversion
New ability to measure areas in images using the Adobe Photoshop Measurement Log panel
Various bug fixes and user experience enhancements
More about Geographic Imager for Adobe Photoshop

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Adobe Photoshop Express 2.0 (for iPhone)

Photoshop Express is imaging software giant Adobe’s toehold in the free app space. The Express family includes not only apps for iPhone (reviewed here), iPad, and Android, but also a Web-based image editor. Express also takes advantage of Adobe-hosted online galleries that make sharing well-presented images easy and an integrated piece of the Express offerings. Though there is a shooting mode, the app is more about perfecting and enhancing images after the fact than adding extra shooting options the way Camera+ ($2.99, 3 stars) and Camera Genius ($1.99, 3.5 stars) do. The one big downer with Photoshop Express is that a few of its most compelling features require an in-app upgrade purchase. Still, you get some nice editing tools for free.

Shooting
In its Camera mode, clearly accessible as the top choice on the app’s home screen, Photoshop Express adds little over what you get with the iPhone’s built-in camera. And unfortunately, the biggest shooting plusses, auto-review mode and shutter timer, are only available as part of the extra-cost Camera Pack ($4.99); when you press their icons, a buy ad pops up. And those two features are actually not that big a deal, compared with the impressive capabilities in competitors, like Camera Genius’s shooting when you make a sound or Camera+’s stabilization, burst modes, and ability to control focus and exposure points separately. You do get a slider for the digital zoom, which is easier than the built in app’s pinch to zoom.

Review mode lets display photos after you’ve snapped the shutter for up to 5 seconds, which saves you from having to switch to the Photos gallery view, the way you do with the built-in iPhone apps, and makes shooting with the phone more like shooting with a point-and-shoot digital camera.

Another setting, Auto-time, lets you choose between 3 and 10 seconds to wait to snap the pic after you press the shutter button. It’s a basic feature that’s standard in many Camera-replacement apps for the iPhone (which surprisingly lacks it), but again it’s only available if you buy the $5 Camera Pack upgrade.

Fixing and Enhancing Photos
As you’d expect from Adobe, the image-editing basics are very well handled. The Crop tool not only lets you crop either freehand or in square, 3:4, or 4:3 locked aspect ratios (other apps offer more presets), but also handles straightening, rotation, and image flipping. One benefit of Photoshop Express over some options like Camera+ and Hipstamatic is that it lets you edit any photo on your iPhone, rather than just those taken through the app.

Express offers good control over lighting and color, too, with choices for Exposure, Saturation, Tint, Black & White, and Contrast. In each of these (except B&W), you just swipe your finger right or left to increase or decrease the adjustment. Clear undo and redo icons are always available, and an X takes you back to the album entry.

The next group of adjustments lets you be more creative, with Sketch, Soft Focus, Sharpen, and Reduce Noise options–this last one, probably the app’s most powerful feature, is another part of the extra-cost ($4.99) Adobe Camera Pack. The tool did indeed reduced noise in my test photos, but at the cost of making them blurrier. Luckily, you can increase and decrease the effect, but I wish the tool let me zoom in, since noise is a detail factor, requiring close inspection.

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