JPEG XR, an image format created by Microsoft that promises a number of advantages over JPEG, has cleared a key standardization hurdle.

The Joint Photographic Experts Group, which standardized the original and still ubiquitous JPEG format, sent JPEG XR to the "final phases of ...

Panasonic's $670 G1 and Olympus' $540 E-520 and $450 E-410--that show both the advantages and disadvantages of the Four Thirds standards the companies use.

The Four Thirds system governs image sensor sizes and the mounting mechanism for interchangeable lenses on the companies' SLR cameras, and the companies announced a new variation called Micro Four Thirds for smaller cameras that have SLRs' interchangeable lenses but not SLRs' "reflex" mirror, which directs light through an optical viewfinder before a shot is taken.

Four Thirds SLRs have a smaller sensor than lower-end SLRs from market leaders Nikon and Canon, which poses image quality challenges because there's less surface area to gather light. However, the sensor size is the same for Four Thirds and Micro Four Thirds, which means that cameras using the latter have a much larger sensor than typical compact cameras have.

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Adobe Systems on Friday issued near-final release candidate versions of Lightroom 2.3 and the Camera Raw 5.3 Photoshop plug-in, software that can support Nikon's new top-end, $8,000, 24.5-megapixel D3X camera and Olympus' mid-range, $1,299, 12.3-megapixel E-30.

According to the release notes, the new Lightroom version also fixes a few bugs: a memory leak that could crash the software while people were making local editing adjustments to photos, a processing error handling smaller sRAW photos from the Canon 5D Mark II, a slideshow glitch, and problems uploading and burning files to discs.

Lightroom is designed for editing, labeling, and cataloging photos--in particular, the flexible but non-standard raw files from higher-end cameras. Adobe Camera Raw is used to handle raw files in the more general-purpose Photoshop software, letting people convert them into JPEG, TIF, or other more portable formats.

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The top two SLR makers have released relatively minor firmware revisions for three cameras, Nikon's higher-end full-frame D3 and D700 and Canon's prosumer-grade EOS 40D.

The fixes generally address rare and unusual problems. One notable fix for the D3 and D700 is for a problem which, as Nikon describes it, "in extremely rare cases, resulted in noticeable black dots in images captured with Long exp. NR (long exposure noise reduction) in the shooting menu set to On." Canon fixed a black-dot issue of its own with the EOS 5D Mark II earlier this month, but Nikon's issue sounds rarer.

Forthwith, the release notes:

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GeoEye-1, the satellite that will supply Google with high-resolution imagery of the Earth, took a high-resolution photograph of the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

The satellite is expected to ...

It's not a surprise that the Nikon D3X, the company's brand-new $8,000, 24.5-megapixel SLR, tops DxO Labs' sensor performance test. What is a surprise is the margin by which it leads its rivals from Canon and Sony.

When the French firm unveiled its DxOMark Sensor benchmark test last year, Nikon's D3 was the top scorer at 80.6, a composite number that represents various performance features. Very close on its heels were Nikon's D700 at 80.5, Canon's EOS-1Ds Mark III 80.3, and later Canon's 5D Mark II at 79 and Sony's Alpha A900 at 78.9.

All those cameras were close, but the D3X stands apart with a score of 88. The result shows how much ground Nikon has made up on Canon, which has dominated high-end digital SLR technology.

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Updated at 8:25 p.m. PST with preliminary test results, and at 10:36 p.m. PST with another photographer's results.

Canon on Wednesday released new firmware for its EOS 5D Mark II camera that the company said "improves and mitigates" the "black dot" problem that marred some images from the high-profile, high-end SLR.

Version 1.0.7 of the 5D Mark II firmware software is downloadable from Canon's Web site. (I encountered some dead ends on the site, but eventually found the 9MB download on the U.S. site at this address.)

I've just run some tests. My preliminary opinion is that there's grounds for optimism that the firmware indeed seems to have taken care of the problem. See the shots below taken at ISO 800 and 3,200, magnified to three times regular size.

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With its launch of iPhoto 09, Apple has begun showing some reasons why it's worth enduring the hassle of geotagging your photos.

It's generally not easy right now to label your photos with information about where you took the pictures--the process usually is done with special software to marry the photos with location data taken from a separate GPS receiver.

Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, demonstrated what you can do with iPhoto at the Macworld 2009 keynote Tuesday.

iPhoto 09 works best with photos that already have been tagged. That's getting more common, as GPS hardware support becomes less of a rarity. For example, Nikon's Coolpix P6000 has a built-in GPS receiver, and Nikon has begun selling its GP-1 GPS receiver, which can plug into its SLR's flash mount so location data is embedded in the photo. Apple's iPhone can geotag its own photos, and camera manufacturers say GPS support in cameras has become a matter of when, not if.

But the software also can help you tag your own images. Clicking a photo flips it over, letting you type in a location, then showing the spot using a map. (Google supplies back-end mapping services). Helpfully, iPhoto then can spread that location data to other photos with similar time stamps, and they can be bundled together into a group called an event.

OK, but what can you do?
Once you have geotagged photos, what can you do with them?

For one thing, sift through them geographically using iPhotos' new Places interface. Viewing an iPhoto event can show an associated collection of pushpins on a map, and clicking each pin shows the photo.

For another, you can search for photos based on where you took them, not on whatever filing system you might use. iPhoto can handle geographic hierarchies, so if you labeled a photo with "Eiffel Tower," it'll find it with a search for "France" or "Paris."

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Google plans to release on Monday a beta version of Picasa for Mac OS X, helping Apple fans catch up to Windows and Linux users already employing the free tool for editing, cataloging, and uploading photos.

The Mac version largely matches the features in Picasa 3 for Windows, said Jason Cook, Picasa's marketing manager. Though the company has been scrambling to include some secondary features such as geotagging and the ability to get photos printed, the core abilities of Picasa are present, he said.

Picasa lets people edit and print photos, create collages and movies, and add labels, star ratings, and tags. More significantly, given Google's cloud-computing focus, it also lets people upload their images to the company's online Picasa Web Albums site where images can be shared. Google acquired Picasa in 2004.

"We have many Mac users," Cook said, though declining to offer any estimates, "and we think they'll be excited about this. It makes the Picasa Web Albums experience better."

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Here's a frustrating combination: traveling and serious photography. At precisely the time you want to photography interesting new surroundings, you also don't want to be burdened with inordinate amounts of gear.

Olympus has one interesting answer to the conundrum, though: the E-3 (click here for CNET's full-on review). Its top-of the line SLR is rugged, waterproof, and when combined with the company's Zuiko Digital ED 12-60mm F2.8-4.0 SWD and 50-200mm F2.8-3.5 SWD lenses provides a flexible package that's portable if not actually lightweight.

I hauled the E-3 with those lenses and the Zuiko Digital ED 7-14mm F4.0 wide-angle zoom to Argentina for a month of vacation and was pleased with the performance. I had to lug the gear not only on the usual buses and city tours, but also in much more demanding conditions: two four-day backpacking trips with a three-year-old, Patagonia's uncertain weather, and serious weight-carrying constraints.

The result was good photos of people, flower close-ups, skittish wildlife, and beautiful mountains.

The gear costs about $1,950 for the camera and 12-60mm lens, $950 for the 50-200mm lens, and $1,400 for the 7-14mm lens.

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