Rusted Gears have released Photo LoL, a a new photography app for the Apple iPhone. Photo LoL allows users to change and enhance colours, improve and crop pictures, and apply adjustments to selected areas of a photo. The layer system introduced in this app uses the same principles of the professional photo-retouching programs, and there are several selection methods to choose from. The introductory price of Photo LoL is $1.99, and the app is available on iTunes now.

Digital Film Tools recently announced the availability of Rays, its latest plug-in for Apple Aperture, Adobe Photoshop Elements and Lightroom. Rays allows users to easily add realistic light ray effects to any digital photo. Known as volumetric lighting in computer graphics, the technology behind Rays allows users to set the ray length and brightness, control ray direction with an on-screen control, customise the colour of the rays using a colour picker, and more. The plug-in is available from the manufacturer’s website for $50.00, while an iPad/iPhone version of the software can be downloaded from iTunes for $0.99.

SendQic Photo is an iPhone app that automates the process to take and email a photo, making for a faster, more convenient way to send pictures to a single email address, to email groups, or to Facebook. The first time a user opens SendQic Photo they enter their email and/or Facebook information. Then each time a photo is taken it is sent to the stored location(s). Users can modify their information and configurations at any time. SendQic Photo is available now on iTunes at a price of $0.99.

Ricoh has just released a free Android/iPhone app called EventJot, which allows users to quickly “build” events that anyone can add photos and comments to. The app only requires a Twitter account and a smartphone, and it tweets pictures and comments in real time - an easy way of promoting outings to a wider audience. Events that include pictures and comments are then available anytime on the web through a unique address. The app is available now on iTunes and the Android Market.

Billed as the first dedicated iPad 2 camera app, Camera Boost offers a a range of effects that are applied in real time to the live view feed as well as the photos captured. Utilising the full potential of the iPad 2’s A5 processor, Camera Boost allows users to mix and match a large number of effects at the same time. The app supports both the front and the rear camera, and comes with a built-in photo album with an image viewer. You can also share the photos via Facebook, Flickr and email. Camera Boost 1.0 is available now on iTunes for $2.99.

Magix has just released PhotoStory on CD & DVD 10, a slideshow editor for Windows. This program allows you to import photos and videos, transform them into multimedia slideshows, and automatically burn them to disc with a DVD menu. ou can enhance and correct poor-quality snapshots in a non-destructive manner, and add suitable background music, effects and personal text. New features in version 10 include a range of new decorative elements and animations, simplified use with a new user interface, a new export assistant for all common presentation purposes, advanced options for individual zooms and camera pans and more. Magix PhotoStory on CD & DVD 10 is available now from Amazon for £39.99.

Rawstudio 2 is an open-source program that reads and manipulates RAW images. After three years in development, Rawstudio 2 includes full DNG Color Profile support, better image quality, and a new image decoder. Rawstudio is currently tested and available for multiple Linux based platforms, with Windows, MacOS X and FreeBSD versions to be available in the future.

Medl Mobile have released version 1.3 of Mediapad Pro, an Apple iPad app intended for the presentation of professional portfolios. The new version features enhanced content management and peripheral capabilities as well as an optimised Guestbook function. Also, you can now hide certain categories, and enjoy improved viewing and zooming features versus the previous versions. MediaPad Pro 1.3 is available now on iTunes for $14.99.

iFunia has released version 2.0 of its flagship product, MagicShow for MacOS. MagicShow is an “intuitive yet powerful flash gallery making software that offers a perfect way for users to present their photos,” the developers say. The software, which comes with 25 ready-to-use gallery templates, allows users to create a flash photo gallery in three easy steps. Compatible with MacOS X 10.6.6 or later, MagicShow 2.0 is currently available for $9.99 through the Mac App Store. Note that this is a limited-time offer - normally, the program retails at $39.95.

Akvis has released version 12.5 of Akvis Sketch, a program which converts digital or digitised photos into pencil sketches, charcoal/pastel drawings or watercolours. Available as a standalone application as well as a plug-in to a photo editor, version 12.5 adds raw image support and batch processing capabilities to the standalone mode (previously, this was only available using the plug-in as a Photoshop action). Users of versions 9 through 12 of Sketch can upgrade to version 12.5 for free, but those who have an older version must pay for the upgrade.

Canadian training developer Infinite Skills has released a comprehensive Photoshop course specialising in photo editing and optimisation. Their Adobe Photoshop CS5 tutorial ($99.95) is a 10.5 hour course for Apple Macintosh users, which is now available on DVD-ROM and as a direct download from the company website. The course includes lessons on skills such as colour correction, how to remove unwanted objects from images, dodging and burning, camera raw, photo restoration, HDR effects, how to create panoramas, whitening teeth, image sharpening and even tips on creating better shots with a digital camera. While the videos feature Adobe Photoshop CS5, the lessons also explain how the same results can be achieved in older versions. There are 138 tutorials in total, 20 of which can also be accessed free of charge at the company’s website.

Adobe today announced the new Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 product line. This launch marks a major change to Adobe’s product release strategy for Creative Suite, with the company now planning to have milestone Creative Suite product introductions at 24-month intervals and – starting with Creative Suite 5.5 – significant mid-cycle releases designed to “keep the worldwide creative community ahead of the latest advances in content authoring”. From a photographer’s point of view, the most important news related to the CS 5.5 release is the introduction of a new Adobe Photoshop Touch SDK, which enables developers to build tablet applications that interact with Photoshop from Android, BlackBerry PlayBook and iOS devices. Adobe also announced three new iPad applications that demonstrate the creative possibilities of using tablets to drive common Photoshop workflows – Adobe Color Lava for Photoshop, Adobe Eazel for Photoshop and Adobe Nav for Photoshop.

The Adobe Photoshop Touch Software Development Kit allows software developers worldwide to create mobile and tablet applications that interact with Adobe Photoshop CS5 and Photoshop CS5 Extended. “Our research shows that creatives are adopting tablets faster than any other group and we heard loud and clear that they want to use their devices to interact with Photoshop, the tool they depend on most of all,” said John Loiacono, senior vice president and general manager, Digital Media Solutions, Adobe. Using the software development kit, Adobe has developed three initial Photoshop CS5 companion apps for Apple iPad: Adobe Color Lava for Photoshop, Adobe Eazel for Photoshop and Adobe Nav for Photoshop. The apps are designed to enable users to create custom colour swatches, paint and drive popular Photoshop tools from tablet devices. All three are expected to be available from early May on the iTunes App Store.

HitRolls have released Miniatures Pro, an iOS app that makes time lapse photography easy and accessible for iPad 2, iPod touch and iPhone users. A variety of settings allow users to manipulate the time between shutter clicks, making the application practical for many different types of project. Additionally, it allows users to apply a simulated tilt effect to their videos, which makes the subjects look like miniatures (hence the name, we believe). Miniatures Pro is available for $0.99 through the iTunes App Store.

AKVIS today released an update to AKVIS Enhancer, an image enhancement program that improves image detail and enhances photos through tone correction. It is available both as a standalone application and as a plug-in to a photo editor. Version 12 includes support for batch processing in the standalone edition, adds support for raw image files and includes a new “Prepress” mode, which helps adjust photos before printing or web publishing. Note that two of Enhancer’s modes, “Focus” and “HDR”, which used to be available in previous versions, have been separated from the program and, enriched with some new features, are now offered as AKVIS Refocus and AKVIS HDRFactory. All registered users of Enhancer v.1.0-11.5 can get these new programs for free.

Canon has announced the latest update for its EOS Movie Plug-in-E1 – a custom-developed application that provides quicker and easier editing of EOS Movie footage in Apple’s Final Cut Pro software suite. Version 1.2 makes the importing of EOS Movie files even easier, allowing users to transfer files from any folder, without needing to mirror the folder structure on the camera itself. In addition, the update also enables smoother importing from Canon’s EOS 7D, EOS 5D Mark II and EOS-1D Mark IV models, allowing users to import footage without requiring the THM file generated by the camera. The free update will be available for download from 25th April.

Zwijndrecht, Belgium-based Galarina today introduced PhotoMeta 1.0, their a new iPad app that efficiently handles a variety of photo metadata including maker notes. The app can extract metadata from any photograph stored on your Apple iPad, including photos synced via iTunes, image files imported with the Camera Connection Kit, and even photos on the Internet, courtesy of an inbuilt Web browser. “Support for maker notes and having the possibility to extract metadata from internet photos is really interesting for a lot of photographers” said Chris Cornelis, founder and CEO of Galarina. The basic version of the app is available as a free download from the iTunes App Store, but note that an in-app purchase of $2.99 is required to uncover all metadata stored in the image files.

Noise Industries have just released their new still animation plug-in, Photo Montage, powered by FxFactory. Compatible with Apple Final Cut Pro, Motion, Final Cut Express, and Adobe After Effects, the new Photo Montage plug-in “allows users to easily string together images, titles, transitions, and more for a picturesque presentation that creates an animated medley of still photos”, the company says. Features include support for all popular image formats, built-in motion blurring, easy re-ordering and re-timing, and over one hundred different presets. More information can be found at the website below.

Website: Photo Montage

Nik Software today released HDR Efex Pro 1.2, bringing full support for 32- and 64-bit processing when working within Adobe Photoshop. This free update also brings about a speed increase, plus improves overall stability and fixes a few minor bugs. Furthermore, HDR Efex Pro 1.2 supports Intel’s Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) processing for an optimised performance with Sandy Bridge processors. The update is available to all registered users at the website below.

Website: Nik Software Updates

Alkaline is a new self-hosted, image-based CMS for photographers, illustrators, and other artists. Alkaline features drag-and-drop uploading, automatic metadata retrieval, and deceptively simple theming. Alkaline is purchased on a per-site basis and costs $99.

Website: Alkaline