Extensis Updates Portfolio & Mask Pro

January 9th, 2003 at 2:00 PM - Macworld Expo by John F. Braun

Extensis, a long-time creator of Mac software, announced some noteworthy upgrades to their product line at this weekis show. Joseph Schorr, Senior Product Manager, took a few moment to give us the details on these upgrades.

The first upgrade is Portfolio 6.1, their digital asset management (DAM) solution. For the uninitiated, digital asset management is to graphics and other digital files, what source control is to software developers. If you have more graphics that you can remember in your head, then you need a DAM solution. The Portfolio system allows you to share, organize, retrieve and distribute digital files. Portfolio 6.1 is the first version of their client to be OS X compatible. Portfolio Server for OS X was introduced in July 2002.

The next upgrade is Mask Pro 3, their masking and selection tool for Adobe Photoshop. For some, masking, or separating an object from a photograph, can take a significant amount of time with the built-in Photoshop tools. Mask Pro 3 can help speed up this process with such features as Color Decontamination, Color Matching, and Real-Time Preview.

Portfolio 6.1 will ship at the end of January 2003, and be a free upgrade for existing Portfolio 6 users. Upgrades from Portfolio 5 will be priced at $99.94US, and the full product will be priced at $199.95US. Mask Pro 3 will be available in February 2003, with a suggested retail price of $199.95US, an upgrade price of $99.95US, and a $169.95 competitive upgrade price.