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Hasselblad released Phocus 2.5.2 for Windows on August2, 2010 as a free download for all users.

This is a feature and bugfix release of Phocus 2.5 (previously released on June 22, 2010)

Highlights of Change Log

• Support for the H4D-60.
• Auto crop H4D-60 HCD images, setting via preference menu allowing you to decide whether H4D-60 images captured with an HCD lens should be auto cropped. Auto crop is enabled per default.
• Fix of potential crash during multi-shot capture.
• Fix of multi-shot issue that could lead to image artifacts.
• Fix of issue leading to incorrect histograms for cropped images.
• Fix of incorrect "Capture failed" error when disconnecting camera after making burst captures.
• Fix of potential crash situation during tethered burst capture.

It is recommended to keep the windows installation up-to-date with the latest window updates and
service packs (SP). Phocus requires a particular update for Windows XP SP2. Its name is "XMLLite for
Windows XP (KB915865)" for Windows XP SP2 32 bit, or "XMLLite for Windows XP x64 Edition
(KB915865)" for Windows XP SP2 64 bit. XMLLite is included is Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista. The
installation kit includes XMLLite for XP in English. If you are using a different language, please use
windows update, or read the setup.txt.

Larger preview image available

We really liked this improvement - many times the embedded preview is just too pixelated when zoomed to fit on a larger display like the LaCie 500 and 700 series. Digital techs are able to quickly show Art Directors/Photographers the overall image with better detail without zooming in to show superior information in the shot (although this does require a graphics card with at least 512MB VRAM to perform suitably; preferred are Nvidia and ATI brands with Direct X 9.0c drivers.)

Easier to sort and manage

Hasselblad improved on the image-grading tools of the IAA (Instant Approval Architecture) which are the red-yellow-green dots that are applied at capture and flow through to Phocus and beyond (similar to star rankings in Lightroom and Aperture.) In addition to filtering thumbnails by approval level above, image formats can be quickly shown or hidden to incorporate 35mm shots or only view Hasselblad RAW from the same directory. The sorting moved from the fly-out in the upper right corner of the thumbnails viewer right into the thumbnails bar for easy access.

TIP: You can quickly set the approval level by pressing the 1, 2, 3 on your keyboard while viewing any image. Use left and right arrows to advance to previous/next image to speed up your selection process. Also you can view the core metadata on the current image by looking at the top of the viewer bar.

New Presentation tools

When delivering prints to clients, the new Full Size print feature sends the image directly from Phocus to the printer with expand-to-fit, and auto-rotate features. For on-screen presentation, the new slideshow tool will present the currently selected images full-screen, similar to Apple's Preview application.

System check

Phocus is supported on Windows XP (SP2 or later), Vista (SP1 or later) and Windows 7 in 64 or 32bit mode. Phocus is optimized for best performance with 64 bit operating systems. Intel or AMD processors, with min. 2Gb of RAM and min. 512 Mb of graphics card memory. The H3DII-50MS (multi-shot version of H3DII-50) is only supported on Windows 64 bit systems.

More questions about 32-bit and 64-bit Windows?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/32-bit-and-64-bit-Windows-frequently-asked-questions

With a bevy of improvements and new capability, Phocus 2.5 appears to be another valuable addition to the Hasselblad photographer and digital technician.

Editors Note:

We incorrectly reported third-party file format support for the Windows version of Phocus 2.5; this functionality is only available in the Mac version at this time.

In the first few days, the Hasselblad server was quite busy. If you would like to be notified of software and firmware updates, complete the Get Updates email link to the left. Hotwire-Digital provides clients a link for mirrored download.