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In April, accompanying the launch of Photoshop Touch SDK, Adobe announced three Photoshop CS5 companion apps for the iPad. The apps — Adobe Color Lava for Photoshop, Adobe Eazel for Photoshop and Adobe Nav for Photoshop — are now available in Apple’s App Store.

Adobe Color Lava costs $2.99. It lets users mix colors on the iPad using their fingers. Users can also create color swatches and themes that can be transferred into Photoshop or shared with friends directly from the app.

Adobe Nav costs $1.99. It gives users the ability to control Photoshop tools on the iPad through a customizable toolbar as well as browse through open Photoshop files and create new ones.

Adobe Eazel is the most expensive app in this bunch at $4.99. It lets users create realistic paintings with their fingertips. The paintings can be transferred via Wi-Fi back to Photoshop or shared with friends.

The apps, while primarily interesting to Photoshop professionals, showcase a new way of using the iPad and other tablets: as a companion to desktop software, providing additional screen real estate and letting users perform certain tasks with their fingers.

Have you tried out the apps? Let us know in the comments how you like them.