DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY NEWS

Athentech Imaging Develops and Makes Available PhotoShop Plug-In of Perfectly Clear® Image Correction Solution

 
Official Intro of Windows Version at PhotoPlus Expo; Available at www.Athentech.com

CALGARY, Alberta, Canada (19 October, 2009) –– Athentech Imaging Inc., the world’s leading independent developer of automatic image correction solutions, today announced the release of a Windows version of a Photoshop plug-in of its patented Perfectly Clear® image correction technology.  This newest application lets users instantly access Athentech Imaging’s highly regarded image corrections within their existing Photoshop workflow – including efficient batch processing – to saving time and create strikingly beautiful results.
 
Perfectly Clear® Photoshop Plug-in delivers one-click photo correction automatically.  Simply load the plug-in and the selected photo will be automatically corrected.  The application works on both 8 bit and 16 bit images within Photoshop (RAWS are converted using Adobe Camera Raw), the company said.

The official introduction of Perfectly Clear® Photoshop Plug-in is taking place at the PhotoPlus International Conference & Expo, Oct. 22-24 at the Jacob Javits Center in New York.  Athentech Imaging is located in Booth #1066.  The company also will show its new Perfectly Clear® iPhone v1.2 application – which lets users capture and correct images taken with Apple iPhone and iPod Touch devices and save out the corrected images at full resolution – as well as its entire Perfectly Clear® portfolio.

Full and 30-day trial versions of Perfectly Clear® Photoshop Plug-in for Windows are available on the Athentech Imaging web site – www.athentech.com.  (Members of the press and imaging industry analysts can request a license code that permits the use of the application for an indefinite period of time.)  A Mac version of Perfectly Clear® Photoshop Plug-in is slated to be available by the end of November, Athentech Imaging said.

“Our Perfectly Clear® Photoshop Plug-in creates a world in which the user can enjoy the fun and excitement of taking great photos, without the burden of spending hours trying to edit them and fix them,” Athentech President Brad Malcolm said.  “They’re utilizing ‘smart’ algorithms system that does something even better than simply edit photos – it actually corrects their photos, with one click – fully automatically.  This is fundamentally changing the typical Photoshop workflow and image preparation process.”

The plug-in displays “before” and “after” versions of photos being processed, so the user can very easily determine whether to fine tune any of them.  This fine-tuning process is unique, in that Perfectly Clear® Photoshop Plug-in is the only system where all corrections function independently.  The application features separate controls for exposure, color accuracy, sharpness – a dozen unique, independent patented corrections.  This means adjusting exposure won’t affect photo vibrancy, or adjusting sharpness won’t affect color.  The user can select presets that apply automatically, or create customized settings.  (To learn more about these algorithms and the science behind them, go to:  http://www.athentech.com/Science.html.

In a recent Photoshop case study conducted by Athentech Imaging, a group of Adobe experts – graphic artists and web designers who use Photoshop on a daily or regular basis – were given 10 images and asked to correct them according to their usual manual procedures in a Photoshop workflow.  On average, they spent 5-7 minutes per image.  Then group was asked to correct the images using the new Perfectly Clear® Photoshop Plug-in.  The average correction time per image was about 2 seconds, according to the case study.  Eight out of 10 of the said they preferred Perfectly Clear® Photoshop Plug-in to manual Photoshop correction, based on image quality and workflow efficiency, the case study found.

Early reviews by users of Perfectly Clear® Photoshop Plug-in have been very positive.  For example:

“An image I corrected with Perfectly Clear® looks like one I worked on using Photoshop, but it took over 10 minutes in Photoshop and many adjustments – brighten, sharpen, change the contrast and other tweaks – and only one click and instantly with Perfectly Clear.”

— Carl Whitt, Professional Photographer
 
“Perfectly Clear® Photoshop Plug-in is quick, easy and thorough,” Malcolm said.  “It’s all about saving vast amounts of time and putting the fun, and profit, back into photography.  It’s about getting high-quality photos – corrected photos that are superior to any other image correction method.  The key is that Perfectly Clear ‘corrects’ photos – it doesn’t ‘enhance’ photos.  A corrected photo is superior to an enhanced photo, and not by a little but by a lot.  That’s what sets Perfectly Clear® apart – and what makes it indispensable to anyone who takes and makes photos for a living.”
The inherent problem with cameras of all types is that they optimize image capture for only one object or element in a photograph – meaning that other objects or elements may be improperly exposed.  The human eye sees everything as it actually appears, and Perfectly Clear® “sees” every object in an image similar to the human eye.  Perfectly Clear® “corrects” photos, it doesn’t “enhance” photos.  Athentech’s ground-breaking image correction algorithms treat each separate pixel in a digital photograph as if it was captured by its own camera.  So every point in an image is separately optimized for exposure, color accuracy, depth of field, tint, sharpness, noise – even “red eye.”

“Perfectly Clear® was invented for the digital world,” Malcolm said.  “It’s modeled on the physics principles of light.  Traditional analogue-based approaches actually damage true color, create artifacts, and cause clipping.  But Perfectly Clear® essentially operates like the human eye, optimizing and correcting the light in every pixel to perfectly preserve the photographer's memory.  From the experiences of our customers, we’ve learned that an accurately reproduce image will re-trigger memories far better than an inaccurate correction – which is why we’re unique in our ability to recreate what we call ‘Real Color’ and therefore help drive greater sharing and printing of images.”

About Athentech® Imaging Inc.

Along with its integration into a variety of imaging software products, online fulfillment sites and editing systems, Perfectly Clear® is currently correcting images in more than 50,000 retail photo kiosks, several thousand minilabs, multiple online photo sites and labs, and millions of copies of imaging software in nearly 40 countries.  Perfectly Clear® has become the dominant image correction technology currently in use worldwide, and the de facto industry standard for the imaging industry.

Athentech® Imaging Inc. is an entrepreneurial, privately held company headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.  The company is involved in three industries and markets:  digital imaging, signal processing (for medical applications), and earth sciences.  For more information, please visit:  http://www.athentech.com.

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