Our Holiday Giveaway, featuring over $1000 in prizes, will be ending in just 5 days, on January 31st!

If you haven't yet submitted an entry, it is not too late. The top 8 articles will win prizes, and the grand prize could be as high as $1000 in itself!

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Topaz Labs have announced a new Photoshop plug-in, Topaz Star Effects (TM). Like the other Topaz plug-ins, Star Effect is a real time saver over creating tsuch effects directly in Photoshop or your favorite image editing program. Topaz Star Effects automatically locates the light sources in your image and creates a star effect.

The plug-in will also work with iPhoto, Aperture and Lightroom using Fusion Express.

A free trial is available, or you can jump right in and for a limited time purchase the plug-in for just $19.99.

Refer the Topaz Labs web site for details.

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The Optio VS20, which we posted about a few hours ago, has just been officially announced by Pentax USA as well as Pentax Japan.  It looks like we beat them to the press releases, though!

The VS20 is now posted in our Camera Database.

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It looks like the first new Pentax compact of 2012 is here- the Optio VS20!  New of this new compact, posted via Norwegian press channel, suggests that the camera has some very exciting highlights and is a truly-modern compact camera.

Key Specifications

• 16 megapixel CCD Sensor
• 3-inch LCD
• 20x zoom lens (28-560mm equiv.)
• Minimum focusing distance of 10mm in macro mode
• Sensor-shift Shake Reduction
• ISO 6400
• HD video recording (720p)

Though it hasn't yet officially been announced in the US, sources say that the camera is expected to launch next month at an MSRP of around $249.

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B&H is once again running their exclusive exclusive deal on Adobe Lighroom- a full 50% off list price through the next week, meaning that you can secure your copy for only $149.

Adobe Lightroom is a photo editing and workflow application.  We've recently reviewed it!

Secure your copy today

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Congratulations go to forum member Max-E for winning our December, 2011 "Silver and Gold" photo contest with his beautiful coastal airplane photo!  Click on the photo above to comment.

The runners-up have also been posted in our Winners' Showcase forum.

The theme for our current contest, which closes at the end of January, is "Rivers and Lakes." Click here to enter. Good luck!

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Pentax is slated to announce a new k-mount mirrorless body at the CP+ camera & photo show in Japan, according to the latest rumors leaked by a Japanese camera blog and other sources.  CP+ runs from February 9th, 2012 through February 12th; it starts in just three weeks!

The K-01 will be a mirrorless camera that uses the current K-mount lenses compatible with the Pentax DSLR lineup.  Judging be previous rumor trends, we believe this name is tentative.

Further specifications

• "921,000 dot" 3-inch, VGA LCD screen from the K-5
• K-5 image processing and sensor (16.3 Mp)
• 1080p HD video at 30fps
• 1/4000s-30s shutter speed range
• Contrast-detect autofocus (81 metering points)
• Built-in flash
• 12.1cm wide x 7.9cm high x 5.9 cm deep (compare to Pentax Q at 9.8cm x 5.8cm x 3.1 cm)
• 560g loaded with battery (compare to 200 for the Q)
• New DA 40mm kit lens
• Available in 3 lens kits
• 3 different colors
• Electronic viewfinder

The most exciting thing about this camera will without a doubt be the fact that it uses K-mount lenses, making it compatible with thousands of current and legacy lenses both by Pentax and other manufactures.

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We follow up our one-light umbrella kit review with this quick review of the Impact Extra-large Light Shed.

This light shed is another affordable solution for product phtoography, and works well when combined with the floodlight!

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