PALO ALTO, Calif. -- April 17, 2006 -- Light Crafts, Inc., has reduced the suggested retail price for its award-winning software LightZone to $149.95. Designed and built from the ground up for professionals and other serious photographers, LightZone is available for computers running Windows and Mac OS X. The new Universal version runs natively on both PowerPC- and Intel-based Mac computers. Version 1.3 is now available to all current owners of LightZone as a free software update and offers increased performance and camera compatibility.

LightZone provides a unique visual approach that focuses on what photographers want to do with their photos rather than how to do it. With LightZone, photographers are able to retouch their photos in a simple and natural way.

The company also announced the availability of LightZone RT. LightZone RT (for ReTouch) responds to the need for better integration of the LightZone method with current image editing workflow solutions, and may be used with other RAW converters or image browsers.

With LightZone RT, photographers can retouch images using LightZone's unique Zone System method and non-destructive editing paradigm. LightZone RT saves the changes as a JPEG or TIFF file, that can be viewed, printed or further edited in third party applications. The saved image contains metadata which refers to the original image and remembers all the changes applied to it, allowing LightZone RT to reload the original with the changes when the document is reopened.

Pricing and Availability

LightZone is available for Windows and Mac OS X immediately at www.lightcrafts.com for $149.95 (U.S. Suggested List Price). Customers also have the option of downloading a free 30-day trial version. LightZone for Windows supports Windows 2000 and Windows XP. LightZone for Mac OS X supports Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later.

Customers who purchased LightZone prior to the price reduction will be entitled to the Light Crafts Charter Program of Lifetime Upgrades, they will also have the possibility of using LightZone RT free of charge with their existing LightZone license key.

LightZone RT is available as a free Beta and may be downloaded from the company's website at http://www.lightcrafts.com/products/lightzone-rt/download/

About Light Crafts

Light Crafts, based in Palo Alto, California, develops digital photo processing software for professional and prosumer photographers. For more information, visit www.lightcrafts.com.

Light Crafts, LightZone, StudioZone, ZoneFinder, ZoneMapper and RegionMapper are trademarks of Light Crafts, Inc. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.