Putting magic into pictures

MAKE THE cheeks a little fuller, with just that touch of glow, the smile a little broader, a bright background to contrast the black of the hair, and the sun shining from the north. Anything's possible in photography today.

In the digital era, it is more mouse than saying cheese.

No wonder then, the Image Today Signage and Photo Exhibition 2001 at the Chennai Trade Centre in Nandambakkam, on the southern fringes of the city, was flooded with imaging software.

Like the AverMagic, said to be the most-widely used imaging software worldwide, ``specially designed for photolabs, studios and graphic designers for digital image editing''.

Or the indigenously developed Digital Speed Imaging software with tools for writing text or editing backgrounds. Or the digital photo album with special FX.

There weren't many, but the exhibition also displayed a dose of digital cameras starting from Rs. 9,000 and going into a several thousands. The amateur, cost-conscious auto-focus enthusiast, though, would have been baffled at all the high tech. He would have realised how much of a novice he really was. He would have realised also that a quality camera could cost a few lakhs. And that the hobby is also a lot about lenses, filters, tripods and monopods, reflectors, kits, the bags and jackets and photographic papers, each costing a tidy sum.

The professional photographer would know these are just the means. And for him, the stalls would not have afforded any more than he is used to already.

`Image Today', to a large extent, was nectar for others, catering especially to ad agencies, ad film makers, printers, photo-labs, related agencies and, somewhere about, photographers.

It was an exhibition of powerful, leading-edge technology. There was the Netprinter 812 digital printer from Gretag, which comes with a fibre optic imaging system and variable resolution.

There was the Durst's series of printers from Italy that come with the latest in fibre-optic and digital laser technology. And scanners... High-resolution, flatbeds, multi- formats, with flexible resolutions upto even 2500 dpi for film, transparency and standard scanning. Stalls were also displaying fonts in all sizes and styles, materials and formats for billboards and hoardings.

There was a lot more at the Chennai Trade Centre for professional buffs, but all so heady stuff.

The exhibition will be on through Sunday (August 12).

By Feroze Ahmed

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Section  : Southern States
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