Today marks the 25th birthday of Photoshop. To celebrate this  milestone, Adobe is showcasing 25 of the most creative visual artists under 25 who use Photoshop. To be considered, artists upload their projects to Behance and use the tag “Ps25Under25.” In the coming months, those selected will take over the Photoshop Instagram handle (@Photoshop) for two weeks and present their work for the world to see. Fredy Santiago, a 24-year old Mexican-American artist and illustrator based in Ventura, California will be the first to display his images. The company is also launching an advertising campaign, “Dream On," for The Academy Awards. The TV commercial includes work from Photoshop artists and iconic images from major motion pictures that used Photoshop in the making, including Avatar, Gone Girl, How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Shrek.

ACD Systems are hosting a Valentine’s Day Giveaway offering the ACDSee iPhone App to be downloaded from the App Store for free until 11:59 p.m. PT on February 15. The ACDSee iPhone app is designed to help users capture and perfect photos all from their iPhone. The app provides a professional-grade camera, a powerful photo editor and a creative collage maker all in one app with unique features such as the advanced Selfie Mode. ACDSee’s Selfie Mode includes a front-facing camera with a front flash and Skin Tune, which smoothes and brightens skin tone enabling users to take the best selfie. The app also includes light, colour and tone equalizers based on ACD Systems’ patented Light EQ technology. The ACDSee iPhone app is optimised for iOS 8.1 and the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus to take advantage of the latest technology.  It also works with iPhone 4S, 5 or 5S with iOS 8.1.

Foap is a mobile app (iOS and Android) and website that connects brands with a vast library of authentic, high-quality, user-generated images. The Foap process is simple: users upload their photos via the mobile app, tag them with relevant keywords and submit them for approval. Once rated by five other users, the photo appears in the Foap marketplace where brands and agencies can purchase it for their editorial or advertising purposes. Users make $5 on every photo they sell. Brands seeking photos for a specific campaign or purpose can even host Foap Missions, a call for entries for users to submit photos that fit the brand’s requirements.Mission winners receive a cash prize if their photo is selected, and all other photos remain in the brand’s library for future purchase. For more information, visit the website below.

Website: Foap

ACD Systems today introduced the ACDSee “Complete Pack,” which bundles five of the photography software company’s products including the new ACDSee Ultimate 8. This pack will absorb the previously offered “Family Pack,” which included ACDSee Pro 8, ACDSee 18, ACDSee Mac Pro 3 and ACDSee Video Converter Pro 4. The ACDSee Complete Pack is available for a limited time, introductory price of $119.99.

Digital Film Tools today launched PhotoCopy v2.0 and reFine Matte v2.0. PhotoCopy copies the brightness, colour, tone, detail, grain and texture from one image and applies them to another. New features in version 2.0 include internet image searching, Retina display support for Mac, layering and seven masking types for photo plug-in hosts, and the availability of the PhotoCopy user interface for all video/film plug-in hosts. It also adds OFX plug-in support, making it compatible with digital intermediate programs Assimilate Scratch and Blackmagic Design Davinci Resolve, the Foundry’s Nuke compositing software and the Sony Vegas non-linear editing system. reFine presents a unique technique for performing selective sharpening, detail enhancement, edge aware smoothing, cartoon, pencil and pastel effects. With the release of reFine 2.0, the plugin is now GPU-accelerated via OpenCL, and supports Retina displays. New features include three new masking types in photo plug-in hosts, and the availability of the reFine user interface for all video/film hosts.. reFine v2 also adds OFX plug-in support.

Lightroom mobile 1.3 for iPhone and iPad is now available to download. New features include a Presentation mode, a new Segmented view in Collections and the ability to copy image adjustments and paste them onto another photo for faster editing. Additionally, the update includes several bug fixes.

Website: iTunes

Serif today announced  that its professional image editing app for Mac, Affinity Photo, is now available as a free download for public beta testing. The app boasts true end-to-end CMYK, 16-bits per channel editing, LAB colour, RAW processing, ICC colour management, and compatiblity with Photoshop as well as 64-bit plugins. Although a first beta version, it is already feature-rich with nondestructive photography adjustments like Frequency Separation editing, live blend modes, Inpainting, and advanced retouching. “We’re delighted to be shaking things up with this exciting new app that doesn’t compromise on power and could make creative pros fall in love with photo editing and raster art all over again. Affinity Photo is silky-smooth, accurate at a professional level, and fully-featured — and the beta can be downloaded for free.” says Ashley Hewson, Serif’s Managing Director. The beta version of Affinity Photo is available to download now fromwebsite below.

On 26th February, Fujifilm will release an update to its free Raw File Converter EX application. Version 2.0 of the Silkypix-powered program brings film simulation support for the Fujifilm XQ2, X30, X100T, X-A2 and X-T1/X-T1 Graphite Silver Edition (pictured), Support for earlier X-series models will be added via a future software upgrade.

Fujifilm UK has launched a new, app-based photobook printing service. POP Books are small, pocket or handbag sized photobooks made up of your own images from your phone, Facebook or Instagram feeds  and printed on Fujifilm's silver halide photographic paper. They come in two sizes, 10x10cm and 13x13cm, and two surfaces, gloss and lustre/matt. The accompanying free iOS app  (Android version launching in April) allows you to either order a printed POP Book or share a version online via Facebook, Twitter, Google+, email and so on. Fujifilm POP Books start at £4.99 including S&H.

AKVIS ha released AKVIS Draw V.2.0, an application which converts photos into pencil sketches and line art pictures. This update adds real-time effects previews to the 64 bit version, expands raw image file support, adds the Pencil tool to the After tab, improves upon the Text tab, adds a 'Show Original' option to the tools' parameters, fixes minor bugs, adds Dropbox to the list of the publishing services and official support for Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite. All registered users of AKVIS Draw can upgrade to the new version for free.

DxO has released DxO OpticsPro v10.2, DxO FilmPack v5.1 and DxO ViewPoint v2.5.2. The updates add support for the Sony A7 II, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX100, the Pentax K-S1, and the Samsung Galaxy S5. The DxO Optics Modules database benefits form the addition of 291 new camera/lens combinations. DxO OpticsPro v10.2, DxO FilmPack v5.1 and DxO ViewPoint v2.5.2 are now available in the DxO online store.

ReaSoft has updated its reaConverter 7 batch image conversion and editing program, adding the Watch Folders feature which facilitates easy automation of most image conversion tasks. The new feature says just what it says on the tin - it monitors folders containing images for new or modified files and instantly applies predefined actions to them. Working invisibly in the background, reaConverter´s Watch Folders feature allows a user to resize, crop, adjust brightness and colours, add watermarks and otherwise alter images of 400+ supported formats found in the user-specified Windows folder. reaConverter 7 is available for Windows XP through Windows 8 in three edititons; Lite (Free), Standard ($49.99) and Pro ($99.99).

Athentech today launched Version 4 of their Perfectly Clear App for Android and iOS. Both apps include Next Generation Beautify with new algorithms that automatically detect gender, age, and facial features to apply "just the right amount of correction." The new versions boast five additional features: Blemish Removal, Face Slimming, Eye Circle Removal, Shine Removal and Catchlight. Plus, the iOS edition also gains some of the features that have been available for Android for some time, such as a new noise removal algorithm, multi-image selection for batch photo corrections, and the ability to zoom into the full-resolution photo so you can view your results at 100%. The Android and iOS versions are available for $2.99 each

Adobe has announced that Lightroom 6 will require Mac OS X 10.8 or above, or a 64 bit version of Windows 7, 8 or 8.1. "If you are on Mac OS X 10.7, or a 32 bit version of Windows, you will continue to be able to install and run Lightroom 5 and use Lightroom mobile," the company said in a statement. "However, you will not be able to install Lightroom 6 until you upgrade to a supported operating system."

Version 3.5 of WebRotate 360 Product Viewer is now available to download. The revamped tool set includes a new interactive 360 product viewer based solely on JavaScript & CSS, advanced desktop publishing software for Windows and Mac, as well as free integration modules for various e-commerce and CMS platforms. Major enhancements include instant non-destructive image editing, watermarking, animated GIF publishing, smart crop resize, instant photography filters and clipping path, and more.

Adobe today released Lightroom mobile for Android phones. Lightroom mobile is a companion app to Lightroom 5 desktop software, available as part of Adobe Creative Cloud. First released for iPad and iPhone, Lightroom mobile allows you to utilise your Android phone to review and edit your images and have the changes sync back to your Lightroom catalogue at home. Lightroom mobile for Android requires a device equipped with a quad-core CPU with 1.7 GHZ ARMv7 architecture, 1GB RAM, 8GB of internal storage and Android Jellybean, KitKat, or Lollipop. Do note that it may take up to 24 hours for Lightroom mobile to be available in your local Google Play app store.

Over the next 6 days we’ll be revealing our favourite products from last year in our annual awards, looking back at the essential photography kit that helped to define 2014.

Kicking things off is the Software of the Year 2014 award, which goes to Corel PaintShop Pro X7.

“Corel PaintShop Pro is a system that gets better with each release and X7 is arguably their best yet.”

Read the Full Review

Congratulations to Corel and PaintShop Pro X7!

AKVIS have announced the release of AKVIS SmartMask 6.0 for Windows and Mac. This edition adds an option to drag the splitter between the before and after states, expands the list of supported raw files, adds Dropbox to the list of the publishing services, fixes bugs, and adds official support for Mac OS X Yosemite. Registered users of SmartMask can upgrade to the new version free of charge.

Users of Aviary's Photo Editor for iOS app have until tomorrow, 6th  January, to download the company's entire collection of photo editing supplies - valued at $200 - free of charge. The add-ons will be yours forever, and you can even sync them to Adobe's Creative Cloud, and restore them anytime. To take advantage of the offer, all you need to do is sign in with your Adobe ID - or create one in the first place - directly from the app.

Canon has released an updated version of its Digital Photo Professional (DPP) software. DPP 4.1.50 adds support for the Canon EOS-1D Mark IV, EOS 70D, EOS 7D Mark II (pictured), EOS 7D, EOS 5D Mark II, EOS 700D and EOS 100D dSLR cameras and the recently launched EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM and EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM lenses. The update also delivers faster adjustments, an improved raw image file workflow, enhanced highlight and shadow recovery, compatiblity with 64-bit native environments, and much more. You can download DPP 4.1.50 now, free of charge, from Canon Europe’s support site here.