Last week's Photokina was the biggest photographic event in Europe.  It is held every two years in Cologne with 14 halls full of products - from enlargers and 120 film to the latest digital stuff.   Nobody could hope to see anything more than a little bit.

Indeed I was there three days and really covered only two halls.  I came away not having seen a single camera!  But you guys know more about cameras than I ever will.

You will be reading all about that in the press- 4 new Canon products including the EOS-5D MkII, four from Panasonic, the 24mpixel full screen Alpha 900 from Sony and a couple more and the Nikon D90 -- a DSLR which takes movies too.

Memories growing -- what about a 100mb compact flash?

In Hall 4.1 - the software hall where I spent most of my time the big thing of course was Adobe Photoshop CS4.

I was a guest of one of my three key suppliers Innova -- and were regally received by the two other key partners in the Pics Book offering -- PXLSoft and Innova Art.

This was not surprising because photobooks were everywhere. Yes, most of these were companies taking your photos -- outputting them on to a bound book and sending them back to you. Fine if you are content to work within their album program layouts most of which were naff to say the least, fine if you are content to wait for the results, fine if you NEVER want to change the pages (not even to correct the mistake you accidentally made!).

So what have I found you -- the photo 'pro' or almost 'pro?

1. Some great Cataloguing and Workflow software -- RAW processing and  image improvements -- in batch saving time and improving image  quality.    I cannot make an announcement yet because two companies are bidding for our business.

2. At last I have canvas which can feed in office format.  Not only  that it is based on the polcotton canvasses from Innova.

3. Metallic and other creative paper products which will surface in  the next few weeks.

4. More training aids and ideas from PXLsoft -- which we will be introdcing between now and the SWPP show in January -- where we  look forward to welcoming you in person.

I also met a number of great people - not the least was Paul Callaghan - one of the foremest wedding photgrtaphers in the British Isles (he is from Ireland).  He is a great fan of dg Foto Art.  www.paulcallaghan.com

Were you at Photokina?  What were your impressions?