For those who are fans of Corel over the “other” image editing company Adobe, you might want to check out their latest product. Corel Digital Studio 2010 is a editing program specifically for photos, and videos. You might not have full options of other more expensive image editors, but this program still offers quite a bit for the price. Probably the biggest addition of the software is the ability to edit their photos using touch navigations, instead of a traditional mouse. If you have the right hardware of course.

Below is the official press release with some more information. Click here to find out everything included with Corel Digital Studio 2010.

London, UK - 2 September 2009 - Corel Corporation (NASDAQ:CREL) (TSX:CRE) today introduced its all-new photo and video product Corel® Digital Studio 2010. Now TM it is simple, fast and fun for everyone to enjoy and share their favourite photos and videos all within one integrated and engaging environment.
Offering an elegant design and intuitive tools, Corel Digital Studio inspires creativity and confidence by making it easy for anyone to create beautiful photo and video projects with no previous experience
required.

While the average family takes hundreds of digital photos and video clips each year, various research indicates that less than half edit their photos and fewer still edit their videos. As a result, digital memories sit dormant on family computers without ever being enjoyed or shared. Why? Because most people just haven’t found photo editing and video editing on the PC to be the simple and rewarding experience they’re looking for. Corel Digital Studio 2010 responds to this need by bringing together photo, video, DVD burning and playback, all within one easy, fun and engaging environment.

With Corel Digital Studio 2010, all your photos and videos come together in one simple creative experience. Whether you are making one-click fixes to your photos and videos, creating a photo book, making slideshows or home movies complete with your own soundtrack, or burning high-definition DVDs, you’ll enjoy the same elegant look and feel across the Studio. In this integrated and intuitive environment, once you learn how to do one task, you’ll quickly know how to do them all.

“With Corel Digital Studio, PC users finally have a simple, fast and fun way to enjoy their photos and videos, and create something amazing that they can share with others,” said Daniel Weisbeck, Corel’s Vice President, Global Product Marketing. “With its simple, elegant design and intuitive, all-in-one approach, Corel Digital Studio removes barriers, inspires creativity and gives everyone the ability to create and share something memorable in just minutes.”

Corel Digital Studio 2010 is designed to take advantage of the latest Microsoft® Windows® 7 advances including the natural, hands-on experience offered by Windows Touch. The product also offers a great creative environment for customers using Windows® XP or Windows Vista®. Corel Digital Studio 2010 is just one example of the design innovation that resulted in Microsoft naming Corel its Global ISV Consumer Partner of the Year in June 2009.

“There is no other creative software application on the market that offers consumers new and unique ways to experience creative multi-touch features complementing Windows 7 in the way that Corel Digital Studio 2010 does. Windows 7 & Corel make new things possible” Christian Georgeson, Windows Consumer Product Manager at Microsoft.

Corel Digital Studio 2010: Create Amazing Photo and Video Projects in Minutes
You don’t have to master overly complex software programs or spend hours working on your projects. Corel Digital Studio is designed specifically for users who value simplicity and want results fast.

* Movie Making Made Easy: Finally, movie making is something everyone can enjoy. With its simple interface and intuitive controls, Corel Digital Studio offers a groundbreaking, visual approach to video projects that makes it easy for anyone to enhance and share favorite video memories — even in HD.
* Creative Photo Projects: Thrill friends and family with beautiful photo books and calendars that you can create in just minutes from within Corel Digital Studio. There’s no lengthy online uploading process to slow you down when you want to get creative. Instead, you can focus on your memories, create your project and when you’re done, print at home or have your creation professionally printed using Corel’s online service.*
* All Your Media in One Place: The Media Organizer brings all your photos and videos together so you can more easily search, find and organize your favorite memories. You can also access your music library to add your own personal soundtrack to slideshows and home movies. The Media Organizer is the starting point for all your projects, making it easy to move from one task to another.
* Online Sharing Has Never Been Easier: Share your files and projects any way you choose. Use email, Flickr , Facebook and YouTube , or send to your TM TM TM mobile device. With Corel Digital Studio, connecting with friends and family is just a few clicks away.
* Simple Backup and Burn: Backup and protect your photo and video memories, burn a professional looking DVD complete with Hollywood-style menus, or create audio CDs and MP3 discs by simply dragging and dropping. It’s never been this easy.

Pricing and Availability
Corel Digital Studio 2010 is now available globally in English, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Spanish and Chinese Traditional as an electronic software download (ESD) at a SRP of £59 incl. VAT. Corel Digital Studio 2010 will also be available at leading retailers around the world starting in mid-September 2009. For more information, to purchase an ESD or download a free, fully featured 30-day trial, please visit www.corel.com. The individual photo and video components of Corel Digital Studio 2010 can also be purchased as standalone products. Corel® PaintShop Photo Express 2010 is available TM at a SRP of £29 incl. VAT and Corel® VideoStudio® Express 2010 £39 incl. VAT.

If you own the FinePix F200EXR you should know that the firmware update for Ver. 1.10 has been released. It is available for download, and the full specs of the update can be found here.

The bulk of the update relates to the performance of the Super Intelligent Flash. Its performance has been improved and should provide a much better option sans update.

For those who might want to use the camera’s menu in a different language — Finnish, Nowegian, Danish, and Slovak have been added as languages.

If you’re unsure of how to update your camera, there are instructions provided in the link I posted prior. It can be quite a handful to conduct your first update, so I suggest if you’re a noob to give it a read.

I’m a big fan of Flickr.com. I like to share my photos that way and i love it when my family and friends share that way as well. This why I was happy to see flickr friends.

The steps are simple. First, you export your contacts as a .cvs file (Outlook) or a .vcf file (Apple Address Book). Then, you upload that file (or any file with a list of email addresses) to flickr friends. The site will scan that file and then use the flickr api to see if any of your contacts have flickr accounts. If they do have an account, it will give you a link to their photos and profile.

This is all a fast process and it does it all on the same page using Ajax and Javascript.

The one problem I found is that your list of addresses can be no larger than 1MB. To get around this, I split my address book into four groups and then exported a card for each group. Then, I just did them one at a time.

Just as I expected, very few of my contacts used flickr. I think it’s natural for people to want to see photo’s from other people but forget to share their own. However, I did find a few contacts on there and was glad to see their photos.

You can give this all a try here. (yes, it’s free)

Today on FreeMacWare I posted about a fun app called Photopolis. It turns your photo library into a big city that you can walk around in.

Be sure to head over there for a longer write up and an example of my city.

Link: Photopolis on FreeMacWare

Recently I had a younger cousin ask me about Photoshop and how to use it. It made me think of he first time I fired up Photoshop and how intimidating it looked. Tools, Palettes and Settings. Oh my.

If you are just learning the different tools available in Photoshop (or constantly need to refresh your memory like I do), the Photoshop Toolbox Reference will be a good place to start. You can select any of the tools and watch a short clip on how to use it and what it does.