In today's PMA Marketing Moment is Kim Guymon an author, educator, and entrepreneur in the imaging industry. Guymon is considered an authority on starting and running a business in the scrapbook industry and has helped hundreds of women start their own at-home business with her "Business Start-Up Guide" and business support program.

PMA, Jackson, Mich., released the PMA Monthly Printing and Camera Trends Report, with numbers through January 2009.The volume of all sizes of prints made from digital still camera images increased by 6 percent. Online ordering activity grew 21 percent, with printing volumes at retail minilabs and instant kiosks up 5 and 3 percent, respectively.

  The retail channel accounted for 50.6 percent of printing volume, with 14.1 percent of prints made instantly on a kiosk. Overall cameras sales demand was down 7.5 percent in January, with digital cameras dominating the sales mix. Sales of 35mm cameras plummeted 54.1 percent, and sales of one-time use cameras fell 37.6 percent. The full report is available online.

Asset management company Ritchie Capital has objected in a court filing to a "fire sale" of Polaroid Corp., saying it will result in significantly less recovery proceeds, reports Reuters. The motion was filed under seal last week with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Minneapolis, Minn. Some of the information contained in the objection was obtained by Ritchie Capital on a confidential basis, the company said in a statement.

  The auction of Polaroid was expected to be held yesterday, and PHC Acquisitions, an affiliate of Luxembourg, Germany-based private equity firm Genii Capital, is the lead bidder, or "stalking horse," reports Reuters.

  Ritchie Capital believes PCH Acquisitions had "undisclosed conflicts of interest" and there were better value-creating options, including an alternative offer that the asset management company leads.

  Polaroid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and ceased film production in December. Petters Group Worldwide paid $426 million in 2005 to acquire the company. PHC Acquisitions offered to buy Polaroid for $42 million plus the assumption of some liabilities, says the article.

Unique Photo Inc., a Fairfield, N.J.-based wholesale distributor of photographic supplies, has received the last shipment of Polaroid film ever made this week, claims the company. The shipment arrived at Unique's warehouse on March 30. Unique Photo has a relationship with Polaroid Corp. dating back to 1947, says the company. Unique Photo says it has several months' worth of Polaroid 600 and Polaroid Spectra films to sell.

  Polaroid filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy and ceased film production in December 2008.

Tampa, Fla.-based Pegasus Imaging Corp. is now doing business as Accusoft Pegasus after recently acquiring Accusoft's imaging business. The two businesses have combined and the new company has emerged with a larger presence, the company says, and the new Accusoft Pegasus name reflects the strength of the combined company as well as its commitment to support both Accusoft and Pegasus customers. A new website also launched at www.accusoft.com.

  Pegasus Imaging acquired Accusoft's imaging business in December 2008. In January 2009, less than one month after buying Accusoft, the company acquired Tasman Software to expand its barcode offerings. Last year, the company positioned itself for this growth by purchasing two buildings in Tampa and renovations are currently underway for office expansion. In late 2007 the company opened an Atlanta, Ga.-based software development center to access a larger pool of software engineers.

Avery Dennison Corp., Pasadena, Calif., named John M. Sallay senior vice president, New Growth Platforms. In this position, Sallay will be a member of the company's corporate leadership team a in the Framingham, Mass. office.

  Sallay's responsibilities will include designing and building an organization to screen, select, fund and deliver on the company's enterprise growth agenda, and support group growth programs. Sallay will lead a team in establishing budget and investment requirements for the company.

  Prior to joining Avery Dennison, Sallay served as senior vice president for strategy at Staples Inc., and was also the chairman and chief executive officer of Manifold Products, a company that develops and launches consumer products based on new technologies.
  Avery Dennison works in pressure-sensitive technology, self-adhesive base materials and self-adhesive consumer and office products.

Atlantic Photo Supply, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and Studio Workroom, St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada, announce an agreement to cooperate and coordinate services to their respective clients. The agreement brings one of the top photo labs in Canada together with one of the best pre-production services in North America, says the press release. This agreement allows the companies to better serve their clientele with a wider range of quality services. It also allows for the expanding of their respective markets with joint marketing campaigns.

  Atlantic Photo's pro lab services have been acknowledged for its quality and service by many professionals around the world. The company now provides its services to professional photographers on both the national and international stage.

  StudioWorkroom has been providing studios across Canada and in the United States with a premium retouch and color correction service. They offer a full service package including RAW conversion and post production services.

  In separate news, Atlantic Photo Supply is becoming the Canadian lab for MorePhotos of Traverse City, Mich. MorePhotos provide comprehensive online photo sales to the profession photographer with full web design and integration along with a complete e commerce solution. This agreement allows Canadian photographers to have their images printed in Canada by a pro lab without facing the higher U.S. exchange rate. It also allows U.S. photographers to enjoy the savings the exchange rate allows as well as the high quality printing offered by Atlantic Photo Supply.

Helen Levitt, a major photographer of the 20th century who caught fleeting moments of mystery and drama on the streets of her native New York, died in her sleep at her home in Manhattan on Sunday. She was 95. Her death was confirmed to The New York Times by her brother, Bill Levitt, of Alta, Utah.

  Helen Levitt was born on Aug. 31, 1913, in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, N.Y. Her father, Sam, a Russian-Jewish immigrant, ran a successful wholesale knit-goods business; her mother, May, was a bookkeeper before her marriage. Finding high school unstimulating, Levitt dropped out during her senior year. In a 2002 interview with The New York Times in her fourth-floor walk-up near Union Square, she said that as a young woman she had wanted to do something in the arts though she could not draw well.

  Her mother knew the family of J. Florian Mitchell, a commercial portrait photographer in the Bronx, and in 1931 Levitt began to work for him. With a used Voigtländer camera, she photographed her mother's friends.

  Through publications and exhibitions, she knew the documentary work of members of the Film and Photo League and of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, and Ben Shahn. In 1935 she met Cartier-Bresson when he spent a year in New York. On one occasion she accompanied him when he photographed along the Brooklyn waterfront. She also trained her eye, she said, by going to museums and art galleries. In 1936, she bought a secondhand Leica, the camera Cartier-Bresson favored.

  Two years later, she contacted Walker Evans to show him the photographs she had taken of children playing in the streets and their buoyant chalk graffiti and they eventually became freinds. She helped Evans make prints for his exhibition and book "American Photographs."

  Both the quintessentially French Cartier-Bresson and the essentially American Evans influenced Levitt, says The New York Times. Cartier-Bresson had a gift for catching everyday life in graceful flux; Evans had a way of being sparingly direct with his subjects. Levitt credited Shahn, whom she had met through Evans, with being a greater influence than Evans. Photographs Shahn took of life on New York sidewalks in the 1930s have a gritty spontaneity.

  The late 1930s and early 1940s, Levitt created an astonishing body. She took her camera to the city's poorer neighborhoods, like Spanish Harlem and the Lower East Side, where people treated their streets as their living rooms. Fortune magazine was the first to publish her work, in its July 1939 issue on New York City, reports The New York Times. The next year her famous Halloween picture was included in the inaugural exhibition of the Museum of Modern Art's photography department. In 1943 she had her first solo show at the Modern.

  To support herself, Levitt worked as a film editor. Her friend Janice Loeb, a painter, introduced her to Luis Buñuel, who hired her in the early 1940s to edit his pro-American propaganda films. By 1949, and for the next decade, Levitt was a full-time film editor and director.

  When Levitt returned to still photography in 1959, it was to work in color; she was among the first notable photographers to do so, says The New York Times. She was helped in this project by Guggenheim fellowships that she received in 1959 and 1960. Much of this early color work was lost when her apartment was burglarized in the late 1960s. In the 1990s she gave up color, saying the colors weren't always what she wanted.

Adobe Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif., and Facebook, Palo Alto, Calif., announce a joint effort to enable web developers to create applications using the Adobe Flash platform and Facebook platform.

  Officially supported by Adobe and Facebook, the new ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform is a free and open source programming language library. It is expected to be a complete resource supporting all Facebook application programming interfaces (APIs), including Facebook Connect, according to the companies.

  Documentation, example applications and code are now available for developers to start building applications with Adobe Flash and Flex software, and Facebook Platform. The ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform is available immediately as a free download along with developer documentation and tutorials.

Olympus Imaging America Inc., Center Valley, Pa., announces its new entry-level 10-megapixel E-450 DSLR, which the company says continues the E-400 series' small and portable design with powerful features. The E-450 also features Art Filters pioneered with the E-30 and E-620. The three Art Filters -- Pop Art, Pin Hole, and Soft Focus -- bring greater creativity and freestyle experimentation to the new E-450, says Olympus. The creative filters were first introduced in Olympus' E-30 prosumer DSLR earlier this year.

  The E-450 also provides a 2.7-inch LCD, On-Screen Autofocus, Face Detection, Shadow Adjustment Technology, and Perfect Shot Preview to get the most out of the live view shooting experience. The new and improved HyperCrystal II Technology delivers twice the contrast and better viewing in extreme lighting conditions, a broader range of color detail, and a wider angle of view on the LCD up to 176 degrees off-center. The E-450 also includes 18 preset scene modes and full manual controls.

  Olympus' TruePic III+ Image Processor produces clear photos using all the pixel information for each image to provide the best digital images possible for every photo with accurate color, true-to-life flesh tones, brilliant blue skies, and precise tonal representation in between, says the company. TruePic III+ also lowers image noise by one step to reduce graininess in images shot at higher ISO settings, enabling great results in low-light situations. Additionally, the image processor on the E-450 enables it to shoot up to 3.5 frames per second in sequential shooting mode. The Olympus Dust Reduction System produces spot-free photos with the exclusive Supersonic Wave Filter. The patented ultrasonic technology vibrates to remove dust and other particles from the front of the image sensor and captures it on a special adhesive membrane every time the camera is turned on.

  Olympus is scheduled to launch the E-450 DSLR on multimedia retailer QVC on May 9. "Thanks to our strong relationship with Olympus, we are not only offering the most innovative new products but we are also giving our customers the opportunity to order them before they hit stores," said Rob Ellerstein, director of electronics merchandising for QVC.