ExpressDigital Darkroom
ExpressDigital Darkroom is a complete workflow tool with management features for professional photographers. It comes in two main editions: Core Edition for emerging professionals, advanced amateurs and digital enthusiasts; and a Professional Edition with special features for portrait, wedding, sports and event photographers.
In each edition the user gets an attractively designed interface, with different viewing modes for browsing, viewing, processing, and so on. The vendor groups its huge range of features under Capture, Manage, Enhance, Proof, Sell, and Print. The Pro edition enables direct capture with industry-standard cameras, whereas both editions have full support for RAW files, ICC color profiles and photo metadata, together with rename and reformat facilities. Its management features allow you to catalog photos by customer, sitting, event or location; add notes to your photos; search catalogs by customer, event, location or notes; catalog photos by school, group or event, and use barcoding for quick data entry.
ExpressDigital Darkroom has extensive image enhancement features, including non-destructive image editing; crop, scale, move and rotate; B&W conversion with retro, sepia or duotone colors; add text; exposure, contrast, brightness, shadow and tone adjustments; professional red-eye removal, grey card click balance, and built-in color adjustments and filters.
One major feature is the inclusion of 200 graphic templates and the ability to take additional templates from authorized third-party vendors. The pro edition also has greenscreen chromakey and Retouch Workshop with clone, blemish, paint, dodge, burn, sharpen, and blur tools.
A Pro Services section lets you operate a PhotoReflect.com Internet storefront. It gives you easy access to manage the pricing, shipping, discount, and tax details that are shown to the customer, together with reports of the transactions and other activity on the site. At a glance you can see how many orders are pending or what promotions are currently offered. ExpressDigital Darkroom also has built-in connections to labs via its Labtricity service (www.labtricity.com) which connects professional digital photographers to digital-enabled professional labs.
Comment
A popular workflow tool among event and school photographers, ExpressDigital Darkroom won an American PHOTO Editor's Choice Award in 2005. It was a rival to the IWS products from ImageWare Systems with broadly similar features (until IWS branched off into a biometric/security direction).
Available via professional photographic outlets, ExpressDigital Darkroom has penetrated the U.K., Australian, Scandinavian and South African markets.
Tech info
- OS: Windows XP Pro
- Price level: (Core Edition) $500; (Pro) $1,400
ExpressDigital Graphics
Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, with offices in Austin, Texas, ExpressDigital was founded in 1994 and now has a customer base of around 20,000 independent studio/professional digital photographers.
From the same vendor:
- PhotoReflect.com
- Labtricity
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