As regular readers– and photographers – will be aware, Adobe’s image editor exemplar Photoshop is now only available as part of its Creative Cloud package – and on subscription at that. We’re beyond the days of buying cereal boxes containing CDs and hard copy manuals.

With this in mind ‘new’ versions tend to arrive in the shape of a nip here and a tuck there, rather than a complete under-the-bonnet overhaul. Indeed at the London preview we attended, the ‘new’ version of its desktop and mobile apps for the latter half of 2016 had yet to be given a confirmed name – shown only on the demo slides as ‘CC 2015.5’.

Adobe today launched major updates to their flagship Creative Cloud tools and services. The release includes new features in Photoshop, Adobe Stock, Premiere Pro, as well as After Effects and Illustrator. Adobe Photoshop gets the exciting new Content-Aware Crop tool, which automatically fills in the gaps when you rotate or expand a canvas beyond the original image size; plus Face-Aware Liquify an easy way to create artistic effects with facial features using the Liquify Tool while keeping the face in proportion; Match Font, an innovative font recognition technology that has the ability to recognise and identify licensed fonts and automatically suggest fonts available on your computer system or license through Adobe Typekit; plus a 4x performance improvement when working with fonts and Content-Aware Fill features. Deeper integration of Adobe Stock into the CC experience enables a new One-Click Workflow that lets users select an image or video on the Adobe Stock website and place it on their creative canvas with a single click. “We have two key goals with this release: saving our customers time and helping them jumpstart their creative engines,” said Bryan Lamkin, executive vice president and general manager, Digital Media at Adobe. “Every creative project starts with a blank page and ends with a vision coming to life.  Today’s release of Creative Cloud will help make that journey as fast and productive as possible.” Updates to CC desktop apps are now available for download by Creative Cloud members as part of their membership at no additional cost.

Canon UK today marks the company’s 40th anniversary with a birthday celebration for all 2,000 employees. Canon Business Machines was established in the UK on 21st June 1976 when the key focus was on sales of calculators, micrographic equipment and photocopiers for the business market. In 1982, Canon merged with a separate camera sales operation to create Canon UK. When Canon UK was established the latest product was the AE-1, the world’s first 35mm AE SLR equipped with a CPU and seen as a pioneer of automated and computerised cameras. Dave Newell, a long-serving Canon employee who joined the company in 1982 said: “It’s brilliant to work at a company like Canon. There is a great atmosphere and staff are treated as valued members of the team, rather than just cogs in a wheel. When asked why I have chosen to stay at one company for so long, I have to say that it’s not the same company – the business continually transforms in really exciting ways to support the changing needs of our customers.”

Limelite by Bowens has launched its new Mosaic2 LED panels with ultra-high CRI 94/TLCI 94 light output. Available in Daylight (5600K, pictured) and BiColour (3000K-5000K) options, Mosaic2 uses 576 cutting edge high-fidelity LEDs, dimmable from 100-0%, to create 1x1 panels that have a maximum brightness of 4,000Lux at a distance of 1m. The new panels, which will have an RRP of £654 (Daylight model) and £835 (Bi-Colour model), are an ideal choice for photographers working with babies, animals or heat-sensitive subjects such as food. They are also designed for video and broadcast work both in studio and on location (with optional battery mounting accessories)

Hasselblad is set to launch a new camera on Wednesday, 22nd June, at 1pm BST. Promising to be "a game changer in the world of photography," the new product is surrounded by an air of mystery but is widely believed to be a premium mirrorless camera with a medium-format CCD sensor. According to a teaser video (embedded below), the camera will be announced at a live streaming event broadcast via Hasselblad's YouTube channel.

Leica has announced that the twelve finalists in this year’s Leica Oskar Barnack Award have been selected. The chosen photographers include Juan Pablo Bellandi, Fulvio Bugani, Scarlett Coten, William Daniels, Vincent Delbrouck, Guillaume Herbaut, Stéphane Lavoué, Max Pinckers, Guilio Piscitelli, Clémentine Schneidermann, Sadegh Souri and Esther Teichmann. Leica will publicly present the work of all twelve finalists for the first time in a grand exhibition at the ‘Neuen Schule für Fotografie Berlin’, from 29 September to 23 October 2016.

Panasonic have launched a new advertising campaign for their range of Lumix cameras. Set in a classy beachside resort, the new campaign showcases the 4K Photo function available on selected Lumix models.Centred on a cool young boy, the advert follows how he confidently and cheekily springs off a diving board, and for a split second adopts a leisure dive. Highlighting the 4K photo feature, his Mum is filming the action on her Panasonic Lumix GX80 and is able to flick through the video footage and select the best frame. The ad then shows how the image has become a masterpiece in the family home, holding pride of place in the centre of the wall. The advertising campaign will run for four weeks in the United Kingdom. Click through / scroll down to see the advert.

Pixel.co.uk has launched its inaugural photography competition. Comprising five categories, the competition is open to registered users of the website. "We have a great prize lined up for the winner of each of the five categories, kindly donated by our overall Sponsor, Fujifilm UK," the company said in a statement. Fujifilm are going to be offering the winner of each category a 24”x 36” print of their winning image, made at one of London's most prestigious labs. We'll invite them to the lab for a tour and to see their own print being made. The print will then be presented to them along with their award at the Pixel Trade Awards ceremony in London on the 2nd December. Now open for entries, the first category is all about landscape photography. The submission deadline is 15th July.

Fujifilm have announced that two new colours will join the Mini 70 instant film camera range later this month. Compact, stylish and lightweight, the Mini 70 produces credit-card sized photos within seconds, providing snapshots of life that are instantly tangible. According to the company, the  new colours, Passion Red and Midnight Black give users even more options to "represent their personality and put the fun back into photography." The Mini 70 has a retail price of £99.99 including 10 shots of instax mini film.

Cokin and OmegaBrandess have announced their new Neutral Density (GND) filters. Dedicated to landscape photography, NUANCES Graduated Neutral Density filters allow a balanced brightness between two parts of an image by efficiently keeping details in overly-bright part of a scene. The transition between the dark and light areas is soft, making it easier to use in most situations. Designed to fit Cokin’s range of CREATIVE filter-holders, from M to XL sizes, the NUANCES GND filters can be combined with other filters from the CREATIVE Filter System range. L and XL sizes to begin shipping in late June with M sizes expected to hit the stores in late July.

Canon have launched four new large-format media options, including three media for the fine arts and photography market. The Photo Paper Pro Platinum  (300gsm), Photo Paper Pro Luster (260gsm), and Photo Paper Pro Premium Matte (210gsm) media, previously available in cut sheet for the imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 printer users, are now available in 100-foot rolls for those images that were meant to be printed in large format. Leveraging the image performance of the newly developed LUCIA PRO pigment ink, these new media are great for customers with 12-channel models, including the new imagePROGRAF PRO-2000 and PRO-4000 (pictured) printers. These new media are now available for purchase through authorised Canon dealers.

Canon’s Destination Workshops bring users to some of the most beautiful and picturesque locations in the United States and provide an opportunity to learn more about photography with access to some of the manufacturer’s latest gear. Featuring small class sizes and the chance to develop your photography skills while shooting side-by-side with a professional photographer, these workshops inspire you to shoot pictures you’ll be proud to share, print, frame and hang on your wall. Click through / read on for the details.

Polka Galerie (12, rue Saint-Gilles, 75003 Paris, France) will be showcasing Sebastião Salgado’s photographs of the Tour de France over the month of July. Salgado accepted Liberation’s request to shoot the event in 1986, following each stage of this famous French event to photograph the racers and the audience alike. Sometimes he would go on site way before the race, just to “watch” people. In the end, Salgado was more interested in men on the sides of the road than in the great champions of the Tour. “His innocence made him capture things on camera that we simply did not see”, says Patrick Le Roux, a journalist for Liberation. Polka Galerie will showcase eighteen of Sebastião Salgado’s pictures from 2-30 July 2016.

ExpoImaging has today announced availability of the new Rogue FlashBender 2 XL Pro Reflector - Super Soft Silver, Frank Doorhof edition. “We pride ourselves on our ability to create innovative lighting tools for photography professionals,” says Erik Sowder, ExpoImaging CEO. “When Frank [Doorhof] suggested we tailor the XL Pro, to help him get more creative with the Rogue kit, we jumped at the chance to help. Our custom Super Soft Silver fabric gives more light and contrast than white fabrics, with a softer and more even light than highly reflective shiny silver fabrics which are prone to producing hot spots.” The FlashBender 2 XL Pro Reflector - Super Soft Silver is priced at £52.99.

The Panasonic LEICA DG SUMMILUX 12mm F1.4 ASPH is a new ultra wide-angle lens with a fast maximum aperture of f/1.4. It also boasts 15 elements in 12 groups, including two aspherical lenses, two UED (Ultra Extra-Low Dispersion) lenses and an ED (Extra-Low Dispersion) lens, a rugged splash/dustproof design, an aperture ring for direct, intuitive aperture control, 9 aperture blades, and smooth, silent operation. The Panasonic LEICA DG SUMMILUX 12mm F1.4 ASPH lens is priced at £1199.99 in the UK.

ExoLens have announced three new accessory lenses for the Apple iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S and 6S Plus smartphones. Leading the collection is the new ExoLens with Optics by Zeiss Mutar 0.6x Asph T* Wide-Angle lens. The lens is virtually distortion free thanks to its aspherical design, has exceptional edge-to-edge contrast and a picture quality unmatched by any other iPhone lens in the world. The wide-angle lens (18-mm equivalent) is ideal for landscape, architecture as well as creative shots with unusual perspectives. The Telephoto Mutar 2.0x Asph T* lens has a 35mm equivalent focal length of 56mm and an optical construction featuring 5 elements in 3 groups, while the Vario Proxar is a 40-80mm equivalent zoom lens designed for close-up photography. An optionally attachable and semi-transparent diffuser serves as a spacer, allowing light to shine evenly on the object and enables convenient focusing. ExoLens with Optics by ZEISS wide-angle lens kits are available today for $199.95 at Apple retail stores. A la carte macro and telephoto lenses will be available for purchase later this summer.

Muhammad Ali: Fighter's Heaven 1974 is a new title from Reel Art Press. On 11-12 August 1974, photographer Peter Angelo Simon was invited to experience the private world of Muhammad Ali as he prepared mentally and physically for the biggest challenge of his life - an attempt at regaining the world heavyweight boxing championship title that was stripped from him when he refused the Vietnam draft seven years earlier. This two-day photo-essay includes many previously unpublished photographs and a foreword by D.A. Pennebaker, the foremost chronicler of American counterculture in the 1960s. “I shot 33 rolls in the two days,” the photographer says. “Ali said nobody had ever taken so many pictures of him. I believe these photographs reveal aspects of Ali’s fascinating character not previously seen.” The 176-page hardback will be available from 23 August 2016 for $49.95.