It wasn’t long ago where purchasing an all-in-one printer for a home office was an expensive purchase but with the new Epson Stylus NX415 shoppers can stop there.
Although the printer is listed on the companies website for $99, you can do a quick search and find a new one for as low as $68.
With this unit, not only will you get the great reputation of Epson but you also get a low price unit, which can copy, scan and print.
Prints are made with a four-cartridge Epson DURABrite system (black, cyan magenta and yellow) so users only need to replace the color, which is needed. The prints came out of the printer dry, which as Epson says are truly touchable as they are fade, smudge and water resistant.
Users can print borderless up to 8.5 x 11-inches and get really good results. One thing with a printer users have to remember is what you put in is typical of what you get out. With that, when I put in a good quality JPEG I got really good prints out of it.
A 2.5-inch LCD screen and a memory card reader have really become standard in these types of units and this one is no exception. This makes it simple to print photos or documents with out the need of a computer.
My preference is to always use a computer for adjusting color with photos, but printing is simple when one is not available.
For the scanning functions it will go up to 2400 dpi and can save them directly as JPEGS or PDFs. To make copies they can be enlarged or reduced from 25 – 400%.
While Wi-Fi is not built into this one, it connects to any Mac or Windows system with a USB cable (not included).
In addition the unit is loaded with many other features including manual two-sided printing and limited photo correction tools.
All in all I was really happy with the all-in-one, especially considering the price. With more and more people working form home or even college students looking for a unit like this, consider the price is right on this one.
There are lots of companies make photo-editing software these days and many are really good. Somehow Adobe manages to stay at the front of the class and the recent release of Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 enforces this.
The upgraded software works on both Mac and Window systems and can be considered a condensed version of the powerful Photoshop CS4. Elements 8 is great for home use but costs a fraction ($79.00) of what CS4 will cost.
With Photoshop Elements 8 users will get a very simple program to produce great looking and professional quality images, which can be done in minutes.
Some of the new features are really incredible how well they work. One of these features includes getting the correct exposures in photos, which include light and dark areas.
Using Photomerge Exposure feature, users can take a photo taken with flash and one of the same subject without flash and then combine them into one single, better exposed photo.
One feature, which I thought was pretty cool, is the Recompose Photo tool. This takes photos that was composed with some dead space or in a format, which is not what you, want and resizes it. The subjects are kept in proportion but taking out unused space.
If you’re thinking how might you use a feature like this, in simple terms if your photo is horizontal and you want to put it in a square frame this will help resize and crop the photo for you while keeping the subjects in proportion.
The new Photomerge Scene Cleaner lets unwanted portions of digital images to be removed. This can included telephone poles growing out of subject’s heads or unwanted people standing in the background.
Users must have multiple photos of the same scene for this to work. Just take the photo where you subject looks correct but has some unwanted items in the photos. Then choose a similar photo, which doesn’t have the unwanted items.
Select the items you want removed from the good photo and the tool will match it with the photo that doesn’t have the unwanted items. While this might sound confusing, once you give it a try you’ll see the magic work.
These are just a few of the new features but trust me, if you are series about getting the most out of your digital images this is the software you need.
In addition to the still image editing software, Adobe also has introduced an upgrade to their video software Adobe Premiere Elements 8 (Windows).
It’s packed with new automated features including Smart Fix, which adjusts camera shake and lighting or color problems.
Smart Mix will balance audio for better sound and Smart Trim helps eliminate the least needed film clips might can also identify the poorest quality points.
Users can add text, graphics and lots of other effects with ease.
Adobe has make the video and still image software available bundled together (Windows only) for $119, which is a great savings. Each can be purchased individually for $79.
To help learn the new software from Adobe, O’Reilly Media has released Premiere Elements 8: The Missing Manual and Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac: The Missing Manual.
Both books carry on the O’Reilly slogan of they are the book that should have been in the box.
The Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac book ($44.99) explains in detail how much more powerful and easier to use the new version is than previous versions.
Each tool is explained in detail and shows you when they should be used with easy step-by-step instructions. This included Adobe Bridge browser, which is included in Elements 8 as well as Photoshop CS4.
Readers will learn how to import digital photos from the camera and then organize, color correct and even them back up for security.
With Elements 8 having some great new features such as Photomerge and Recompose, users can take advantage of the book explaining how to use them instead of just trying to figure it out on your own.
The Premiere book ($34.99) does most of the same with explanations on all the new tools and tricks of getting video from the camera to the computer.
Users will also learn how to edit, add chapters and other special effects including filters and frames.
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