Professional Photographer Magazine announced its annual Hot One Award winners, representing the best products introduced in 2010 as determined by a panel of 52 professional photographer judges.

Updating your printer’s firmware is an important step that should be performed once a new printer arrives and then on a regular basis. By updating the firmware, you are ensuring that your printer is being used to its fullest capacity.

Many LexJet customers are using high-quality, LED toner-based color printers from OKI Data Americas to cost-effectively produce smaller, short-term promotional signs and banners on card stock, water-resistant paper, banner papers, and other materials. The new SignDirector application from OKI Data Americas promises to make these OKI color printers even more appealing—particularly to those companies that need an easy way to consistently produce error-free, updated signage at multiple stores.

Naked service providers and consultants will give away their best ideas and start consulting to the prospective client during a sales call. In fact, they’ll do no real selling at all, forgoing that activity in order to find a way to help a client even if they never actually become one.

Customer service is more than just a clever slogan or a marketing campaign. It’s the personal interaction between a company and a customer. The key to fantastic customer service is going above and beyond for every customer. As all parents like to do from time to time, we are going to live vicariously through my eight year old daughter for this week’s outstanding customer experience.

Kudos to Canon Explorer of Light Eddie Tapp for presenting such a dynamite program at the Learn from a Pro/Print Like a Pro events the last week of July. LexJet and Canon teamed up to present the Open House events at the Canon USA offices in Irvine, CA and Irving TX.

Professional photographers who have purchased inkjet printers for photographic output like having control over the entire process. That’s one of the findings of an in-depth survey conducted in May 2010 by I.T. Strategies, a digital-printing market research firm that has been surveying photographers since 2005.

Digital-imaging expert and Canon Explorer of Light Eddie Tapp will be the featured speaker at the free Learn from a Pro/Print Like a Pro open houses that Canon and LexJet are hosting July 26 in Irving TX and July 28 in Irvine, CA. Photographers of all backgrounds and skill levels can benefit from Eddie’s easy-to-understand explanations of color balance and exposure/tone controls, color management, image enhancement techniques, and how to select the correct print settings.

Regardless of the wide-format printing technology used, output problems require a systematic approach that will save time, hassles, and tech calls. Here are some simple steps to help diagnose and fix the problem as quickly as possible.

At the WPPI Show in March, Canon introduced three new models of imagePROGRAF printers: the 44-in. imagePROGRAF iPF8300 and the 24-in. imagePROGRAF iPF6350 and IPF6300. More details about the new printers are featured in the Vol. 5, No. 3 issue of LexJet’s In Focus newsletter.