Digital Just Out - March 2003

SACKS APPEAL

Think you have to look uncool when carrying your PDA or laptop? Think again. Casauri offers two lines of fashionable yet functional cases, the Odyssey and Octopus Collections, both in three different sizes and at similar prices: PDA ($32, street price), medium portfolio ($76, street price), and large portfolio ($84, street price). The portfolio cases feature foam padding, mesh pockets, and removable shoulder straps. Although they're designed for laptops, some photographers have been using them to shlep their portfolios. The PDA case features pen and stylus holders, pockets for credit or business cards, notepad, zipper pocket on the outside, and, of course, a place for your PDA. To view the dimensions or purchase, visit www.casauri.com.

THE ULTIMATE CARD READER?

Are you doing more waiting...waiting...waiting...for those big digital files to transfer from your memory cards to your computer? SanDisk's new ImageMate 6 in 1 memory card reader/writer ($50, street price) promises to speed things up. The ImageMate is USB 2.0 native. Though it offers transfer speeds of up to 480 Mbps, it is still backward-compatible with USB 1.1 at slower transfer speeds. The card reader is true plug-and-play, using Mass Storage Class (MSC), so there's no need to install any drivers when used with Windows ME, 2000, XP, and Mac OS 10.1.2. It will also work with Windows 98SE, or Mac 9.1 or later, but you'll have to install drivers. For more info, log onto www.sandisk.com.

NIK THOSE NOISY IMAGES!

Have you noticed that the images from your digital camera are a bit noisy? We're not talking about your yackety audio attachments, but the electronic noise that can show up as specks or mottling in pictures, especially in the shadows. Nik multimedia's new Photoshop-compatible plug-in, Dfine ($99, street price), is designed to reduce the noise in your digital images, using camera-specific profiles to analyze the pictures (the downloadable profiles cost $15 each). Besides removing unwanted imperfections, the program can also reduce JPEG artifacts and enhance the color and exposure in your photographs. Dfine will do global corrections, but if you're working in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements on Windows or Mac OS 10 systems, and have a Wacom tablet, you can also brush away the noise using the tablet's 1,024 different levels of pressure sensitivity. For more information or to purchase the plug-in or the camera profiles, log onto www.nikmultimedia.com.