Athentech Imaging Comes to PMA ’09 with Perfectly Clear® Solutions, World’s Leading Automatic Image-Correction Technology

Company Signs More Licensees; Closes in on PhotoShop Plug-In, iPhone Application
LAS VEGAS (3 March, 2009) –– Have you ever read a book and then watched the movie, only to be disappointed with the “reproduction”?  Has something similar ever happened with your photos?  You see a beautiful scene, capture it with your camera but – due to incorrect exposure or some other imperfection – the image falls short of the original.  Five years ago, Athentech Imaging Inc. first introduced its Perfectly Clear® technology, which automatically corrects images to their true, original color and exposure.  Today, after hundreds of millions of accurately corrected images worldwide and continual improvements to its algorithms, the Perfectly Clear® Image Correction Suite is widely praised by users as the best available.

Athentech Imaging Inc., the world’s leading independent developer of image-correction solutions, is at the Photo Marketing Association trade show this week at the Las Vegas Convention Center, with the latest versions of its remarkable turnkey technology for integrators, labs and photographers.  Athentech President Brad Malcolm is meeting with interested parties in the Athentech Imaging Technology Suite (X129), where he is discussing current and near-future activities – including an upcoming introduction of a Perfectly Clear® PhotoShop plug-in for the PC, and the company’s progress on a Perfectly Clear® application for the Apple iPhone.

To help members of the press understand what makes Perfectly Clear® unique, the company has set aside a 90-minute walk-in, “open house” period for ongoing press briefings and demos, beginning at 11 a.m. Wednesday, March 4 in the Technology Suite.  During that time, Malcolm will explain and demonstrate the newest versions of the Perfectly Clear® technology and answer questions.

“Perfectly Clear® was invented for the digital world,” Malcolm said.  “It’s modeled on the physics principles of light.  Traditional analogue-based approaches actually damage true color, create artifacts, and cause clipping.  But Perfectly Clear® essentially operates like the human eye, optimizing and correcting the light in every pixel to perfectly preserve the photographer's memory.  From the experiences of our customers, we’ve learned that an accurately reproduce image will re-trigger memories far better than an inaccurate correction – which is why we’re unique in our ability to recreate what we call ‘Real Color’ and therefore help drive prints.”

Over the past year, Athentech Imaging has enjoyed tremendous growth and acceptance as the best solution for imaging enterprises whose interest in offering an image-correction capability has led them to search for a reliable image correction developer to team up with.  Athentech’s most recent Perfectly Clear® licensees, signed over the last two months, include:

• MyPhotoFun, a photo album provider active in 12 countries in Europe, uses Perfectly Clear® both as an offline editor and as part of its online back-office system.  MyPhotoFun and Xerox Corp. are collaborators in a sophisticated distributed print network.
• Photo Service, based in France, uses Perfectly Clear® in the production of a menu of photo products from its HP Indigo printers.  “The results are very accurate and very eye-pleasing,” Photo Service Director Stéphane Rochon said.  “The small size of Perfectly Clear® also makes it easy to implement into our workflow of multiple Indigo printers.”
• Photosi, the leading photofinisher in Italy, with a market share of 30 percent, uses Perfectly Clear® in the fulfillment of a wide variety of photo gift products and photo book products.  Photosi President Diego Bonura says:  “We looked very closely at several image correction solutions and ended up choosing Perfectly Clear®.  We really like the lifelike colors it produces and Athentech Imaging’s scientific approach to image correction.  We need the photos we produce to be accurate, but also with beautiful color vibrancy and proper exposure.  That’s what Perfectly Clear® provides for us.”
• Zoomin, an online photo service based in India, which lets consumers store, share, personalize and print their photos, is the newest Athentech licensee.  The company, co-founder Ketan Sanghvi says, will use Perfectly Clear® to optimize every consumer photo.

“Our multi-patented Perfectly Clear® solution is now represented in every major market in the world, including the dynamic BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China,” Malcolm said.  “We’re pleased that wherever digital photography is gaining ground and becoming more sophisticated, Perfectly Clear® is in demand.  This solution, which is the smallest ‘auto’ image-correction technology available for visually pleasing, error-free, color-accurate pictures, continues to attract quality imaging partners.”

“Without image correction technology,” imaging industry expert Don Franz says, “we might be talking about all of the new photo products, like photo books, the same way we used to talk about digital photography early on:  A nice idea, but with serious quality and workflow issues.  Today, the question isn’t whether to adopt an image-correction solution, but how.  Long-standing industry giants – such as Kodak and Fujifilm – have invested substantial resources to develop their own programs.  But for hundreds of other enterprises, offering this capability means teaming up with a reliable ‘independent’ developer like Athentech Imaging.”
More imaging businesses are choosing Athentech Imaging’s solution, including many who prefer it over more recognized brands of image enhancement software they receive as part of their overall equipment purchase.  Along with its integration into a variety of imaging software products, online fulfillment sites and editing systems, Perfectly Clear® is currently installed in more than 50,000 retail photo kiosks, several thousand minilabs, multiple online photo sites and labs, and millions of copies of imaging software in nearly 40 countries.