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PHOTOPIA Hamburg. RIP. Citing difficult economic conditions, Hamburg Messe und Congress has decided to cancel its October PHOTOPIA tradeshow for the photo industry, which only launched 3 years ago. This comes on the heels of the formal dissolution of its tradeshow partner PIV (Photo Industrie Verband), the German photo trade association that previously co-organized photokina.
Shine. Event photosharing. Collecting and curating UGC photos at events (such as conferences, weddings, or parties) is not an easy feat, so it’s refreshing to have a new iOS app entering the market: Shine.
With Shine’s “Manual Mode” selected, Shine’s AI scans photos, selects the ones the app thinks are share-worthy, and asks for approval. Once approved, the app uploads them to the shared album. Shine also offers a “Magic Mode,” where the AI automatically uploads selected photos to albums.
Of note: the developer of the app, Sunshine Products Inc, is a startup founded by Yahoo alums Marissa Meyer and Enrique Muñoz Torres.
Canva & Serif. Hello Adobe, here we come! – but not how most expect it. Web-based Canva acquires desktop-based Serif, the makers of my favorite Photoshop and Illustrator clones: Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer. While much press speculation has been on Canva entering Adobe’s turf on the desktop, I believe Canva’s motivation might be more to beef up its web-editing platform by integrating some Affinity tech into its platform, as Canva felt it needed to disclose when Affinity users raised a ruckus about Canva possibly abandoning its perpetual license business model for its desktop products.
Of note: Canva did the same after acquiring previous Visual 1st presenter, Kaleido: Remove.bg is still offered as a standalone app and API set, while its background removal tech has been integrated inside Canva.
In other words, Canva will continue to come after Adobe at the lower end of the market, but from its own web-based turf.
Adobe Firefly, Getty Images, Shutterstock, Bria.ai. Not all AI rips off creators. Check out this excellent “4 Visual AI Platforms Proving That AI Can Thrive with Properly Licensed Content” roundup by Paul Melcher, one of our panelists at our April 10 Re-establishing Trust in Visuals Spotlight.
Advertek & Custom Colour Imaging. Consolidation in Canadian printing land. A bit older news from when I was happily distracted in Rome and Amsterdam in the last few weeks: Advertek acquires CCI, best known for high-quality layflat photobooks and premium canvas prints.
Adobe Firefly. Structure reference feature. What’s so important about Adobe letting you upload an image of a living room, then type in a text prompt like “cathedral,” after which the AI model generates a new image that looked like a living room in a cathedral, complete with stained glass windows and opulent couches?
Firefly’s newly announced structured reference feature takes one image and generates a new one that may be completely different stylistically, but whose internal elements are arranged and sized similarly to the first image. A cutesy tool? Sure, but I bet the driver is to offer yet another productivity enhancer for enterprise brands that need to create scalability variations of their visuals for different market segments.
Adobe Firefly. Enterprises, here we come! Further tipping their hand, Adobe also launched Firefly Services, a set of more than 20 new generative and creative APIs, tools and services that very much target enterprise developers to speed up content creation in their custom workflows.
In addition, the company launched Custom Models, which allows businesses to finetune Firefly models based on their own assets.
Custom Models is already built into Adobe’s new GenStudio, an application that helps brands create content and measure its performance, with generative AI at its center.
Sony. C2PA coming to your camera. Promising to adhere to an industry standard that's receiving traction is one thing, implementing it is yet another. Scheduled for arrival later this month, Sony will provide a firmware update to 4 of its cameras, which includes the ability to write C2PA content authenticity metadata into the photos at the time of capture – an unalterable digital birth certificate, they call it.
The Customization Group. Customized photo ecommerce platform. The Customization Group, née Picanova, launched Fotowelt, a platform offering businesses an easy and efficient way to create a customized photo shop for their brand.
International Photographic Council (IPC). 2024 Professional Photographer Achievement Awards. At its May 15th Luncheon at the Delegates Dining Room at the United Nations, IPC will be honoring AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTISTS INC nominees Anna Rathkopf and Jordan Rathkopf with a 2024 Professional Photographer Achievement Award for their outstanding photography and dedication to many important causes. For more info and to join this luncheon, check out www.ipcphoto.org.
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