Two years since the impressive X3 release Corel has finally announced the launch of its X4 Suite.

New highlights include:

Live Text Preview - so that you can quickly explore different font choices in situ. And more fonts are included in the package...

Informatix has announced the launch of the Mac version of Piranesi 5 and with it a 5.02 update for Windows that fixes a few bugs and adds a couple of tweaks (most useful for improved Google SketchUp support).

Full information at http://www.informatix.co.uk/piranesi/downloads/windows/upgrades_and_fixe...

Adobe is clearly determined to match Microsoft Silverlight all the way and has made a number of announcements regarding new versions of its Flash player.

To begin with Adobe have now released the Flash Player 9 update 3 which adds support for H.264 standard video as seen in Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. With new hardware acceleration and multi-processor support, and new associated Media Server options, this promises to lift the ceiling for web video quality and to match Microsoft's Silverlight 1.0's handling.

Announcements regarding Microsoft's Flash-killer Silverlight player are certainly coming thick and fast.

The media-oriented Silverlight 1.0 beta went live back in May at the MIX 07 conference but most of the talk was about the imminent launch of the next 1.1 player which would add .NET support for advanced programmability. Now Microsoft has begun talking about what's going to be in Silverlight 2.0...

Microsoft has finally officially released its free HD Photo plug-ins for Photoshop CS2 and CS3.

I wrote about HD Photo a while back when it was first announced and after my initial doubts - why on earth would we want a JPEG replacement? - I was won round by the flexibility of the specification...

After over 300 reviews, it takes a lot to get me excited about a new release but I generally make an exception for Cinema 4D as somehow Maxon manage to make each version a major advance both in terms of functionality and - often even more important for 3D - usability.

So what do the prospects look like for the recently announced version 10.5?

If you were held back from buying a new camera because its RAW output wasn't supported in Lightroom or Photoshop CS3 then the latest free updates from Adobe might help.

14 new cameras are now supported namely the Canon EOS 40D; Fuji FinePix IS-1; Leaf Aptus 17, 54s and 75s; Olympus EVOLT E-510; Panasonic DMC-FZ18; Pentax K100D Super; Phase One P 20+, P 21+, P 25+, P 30+ and P 45+; and Sony A700.

Well it had to happen. With Microsoft pushing Silverlight on the basis of its superior video handling, Adobe had to respond. And rather than waiting for the next release of the CS apps it's updated the existing Flash Player 9 ...

Now this sounds interesting. Poser's biggest limitation is its inability to create scenes in which to host its figures. Meanwhile many professional 3D apps are great at creating the scenes but creating the figures to populate them is a nightmare. With e-frontier’s announcement of the launch of Poser Pro scheduled for Fall 2007 here's a potential solution to both problems..

The new Canvas 11 has been announced and a shipping date put on it of mid-September.

Promised highlights include...