Corel today announced that it is currently developing its next-generation creative consumer products that will exploit the opportunities offered by the Windows Touch technology. Microsoft recently introduced the Windows 7 Release Candidate and Corel is working closely with the company to prepare for the debut of this new operating system later this year. “Drawing on our customer research, we’re taking advantage of the solid performance and powerful touch capabilities Windows 7 offers to turn the typical user experience of mouse clicks and menus on its head, completely changing how users interact with creative software,” said Joe Roberts, Executive Vice President, Products for Corel.

Roxio has announced Roxio PhotoShow Touch, a version of the company’s multimedia slideshow creation and online sharing application designed specifically for multi-touch, Windows 7-based systems. PhotoShow Touch enables users to compose and share slideshows using simple finger gestures to directly manipulate objects on screen. Users can reorder and rotate photos, then tap to select a pre-defined PhotoShow Style. The one-tap styles automatically generate a polished production, complete with animated introduction, soundtrack, and appropriate transitions based on a theme such as Sports, Music Videos, Greeting Cards, Vacations, Birth Announcements, and many more. PhotoShow Touch is expected to be available shortly on PCs from major manufacturers. The application is part of a new range of products from Roxio for Windows 7 and the emerging Touch-Screen and Netbook PC segments.

Roxio has announced Roxio PhotoShow Touch, a version of the company’s multimedia slideshow creation and online sharing application designed specifically for multi-touch, Windows 7-based systems. PhotoShow Touch enables users to compose and share slideshows using simple finger gestures to directly manipulate objects on screen. Users can reorder and rotate photos, then tap to select a pre-defined PhotoShow Style. The one-tap styles automatically generate a polished production, complete with animated introduction, soundtrack, and appropriate transitions based on a theme such as Sports, Music Videos, Greeting Cards, Vacations, Birth Announcements, and many more. PhotoShow Touch is expected to be available shortly on PCs from major manufacturers. The application is part of a new range of products from Roxio for Windows 7 and the emerging Touch-Screen and Netbook PC segments.

Roxio has announced Roxio PhotoShow Touch, a version of the company’s multimedia slideshow creation and online sharing application designed specifically for multi-touch, Windows 7-based systems. PhotoShow Touch enables users to compose and share slideshows using simple finger gestures to directly manipulate objects on screen. Users can reorder and rotate photos, then tap to select a pre-defined PhotoShow Style. The one-tap styles automatically generate a polished production, complete with animated introduction, soundtrack, and appropriate transitions based on a theme such as Sports, Music Videos, Greeting Cards, Vacations, Birth Announcements, and many more. PhotoShow Touch is expected to be available shortly on PCs from major manufacturers. The application is part of a new range of products from Roxio for Windows 7 and the emerging Touch-Screen and Netbook PC segments.

Epson has announced that its line of home and office printers and all-in-ones are now supported by the EuroSmartz Print & Share app for direct printing from an Apple iPhone or iPod Touch. The Print & Share app is available for $6.99 at the iTunes App Store.

Epson has announced that its line of home and office printers and all-in-ones are now supported by the EuroSmartz Print & Share app for direct printing from an Apple iPhone or iPod Touch. The Print & Share app is available for $6.99 at the iTunes App Store.

Nik Software GmbH has announced an online training course on their Sharpener Pro 3.0 software for beginners. The webinar takes place on Thursday, 7 May, at 6pm CET and runs for about 45 minutes. Another webinar will be held on Tuesday, 12 May, at 8pm CET. The online training room opens 45 minutes before start.

Website: Sharpener Pro 3.0 - Beginners’ Training

Nik Software GmbH has announced an online training course on their Sharpener Pro 3.0 software for beginners. The webinar takes place on Thursday, 7 May, at 6pm CET and runs for about 45 minutes. Another webinar will be held on Tuesday, 12 May, at 8pm CET. The online training room opens 45 minutes before start.

Website: Sharpener Pro 3.0 - Beginners’ Training

Capture One 4.8 supports the new Phase One P 40+ announced today and the Olympus E-620. This latest version of Capture One also includes enhancements for the Phase One P 65+, the Leica D-LUX 4, Olympus E-30 and generally improved colors for editing JPEG and TIFF files. Capture One 4.8 is a free service release to existing Capture One 4.x owners

MAGIX has released the newest version of its slideshow software, MAGIX Xtreme PhotoStory on CD & DVD. This program lets you organise, share and show your pictures on your HDTV. Some of the features and additions include Picture-to-Music matching, over 30 new 3D animations and slide transitions and more than 50 templates. Version 8 is available now for $29.99 plus shipping.

Website: Xtreme PhotoStory

SnapMyLife has announced the launch of two free camera-oriented applications for BlackBerry smartphones. Both the SnapMyLife and Snap2Twitter applications are now available on BlackBerry App World. The SnapMyLife application is seamlessly integrated with a BlackBerry smartphone’s camera, and users can post new pictures with a single click. The Snap2Twitter application is designed specifically for consumers who want to use their BlackBerry smartphone to post pictures to their Twitter accounts. It links directly to the camera interface, and immediately updates the user’s Twitter feed with the tweet and a link to the photo.

AKVIS has released AKVIS MultiBrush v.4.0, a photo retouching and portrait enhancement program, for Windows and Macintosh. AKVIS MultiBrush v.4.0 is available as a standalone application as well as a plugin to a number of popular photo editors. AKVIS MultiBrush sells for $49.00 USD, but registered users of AKVIS Stamp can activate MultiBrush for free.

Nikon has released a new version of its RAW codec, which lets you view NEF files within Windows. Version 1.7.0 now supports NEF (RAW) images taken with the D5000 DSLR camera (pictured).

Website: Nikon RAW Codec 1.7.0

Nikon have released a new version, 2.5.0, of Camera Control Pro. This software allows photographers to control a camera remotely from a computer using either a wired or a wireless connection. Changes in this version include added support for the new Nikon D5000 DSLR camera.

Website: Nikon Camera Control Pro 2.5.0 (Windows)
Website: Nikon Camera Control Pro 2.5.0 (Mac)

The standalone version of Noise Ninja has been upgraded to 2.2.0. Noise Ninja Standalone now has a Sidekick Mode. While Noise Ninja is in sidekick mode any files sent to Noise Ninja from external applications, drag and drop or the file open dialog will be automatically processed and saved without user interaction. This is particularly useful when using Noise Ninjas as an external editor for hosts like Lightroom. Noise Ninja 2.2.0 also improves external editor support and batch processing and fixes a bug with profiles folder preference on Mac OS X.

Website: Noise Ninja

Sigma Photo Pro Software 3.5.1 for Windows and Sigma Photo Pro 3.3 for Macintosh are now available. Sigma Photo Pro is an exclusive software package for displaying and manipulating your Sigma digital camera images on your computer. This latest version of Sigma Photo Pro software for Windows has improved the display speed of thumbnails in the Main Window and performance when in the Review Window from “SIGMA Photo Pro 3.5” enclosed with the DP2 camera. Regarding the Macintosh version, it has improved the stability of the software’s operation from “SIGMA Photo Pro 3.3” bundled with the DP2.

Website: Sigma Photo Pro 3.5.1 (Windows)
Website: Sigma Photo Pro 3.3 (Mac)

Easypano has released Panoweaver 6.00 Professional and Panoweaver 6.00 Batch, which offer the ability to stitch both cylindrical and spherical panoramas from single-row/multiple rows of normal digital photos or fisheye photos. The main features include support for both auto- and manual stitching, automatic recognition of lens type, support for the creation of HDR panoramas, batch stitching and batch export (in Panoweaver 6.00 Batch) and support for stitching Camera Raw files. Panoweaver 6.00 Professional costs US$499.95 / 499.95€ (upgrade for Panoweaver 5.00 Professional users is US$200.00 / 200.00€), whilst Panoweaver 6.00 Batch can be yours for US$999.95 / 899.95€.

PixMatter is an application for iPhone & iPod Touch that provides a convenient way to upload your pictures to the online photo service Shutterfly.com. With PixMatter, you can take a photo shot with your iPhone’s built-in camera, name your photo before upload so you can find them quickly in your Shutterfly account, create a new photo album before uploading your photo or choose a destination album. Also, you can choose photos from your Photo Library, queue multiple photos and upload them in a single batch. PixMatter is sold for $0.99.

Website: PixMatter

Light Crafts, creators of LightZone, have just announced a new photo editing program called Aurora. The company is making the bold claim that it is so intuitive to use it enables “anyone to go from download to expert in a matter of minutes”. Additionally, there is an optional on-line back-up service powered by amazon.com - users can simply hit “online back up” from within Aurora to sync directly with their Amazon storage account. Aurora is available for $19.95, on-line back-up plans start from $4.95 per month.

Hitachi has released GazoPa for iPhone, an application that allows users to search for similar images on the web by uploading any photo captured with an iPhone. Since GazoPa uses image features such as colour and/or shape, users can look for images without typing any words. This gives users an easy way of searching images on the web. GazoPa for iPhone can be found by searching for ‘GazoPa’ in the iPhone App Store.