Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugin Newsletter - November 2000
CONTENTS
========
INTRODUCTION
SPECIAL BUNDLES & PRICES
GRAPHICS GALAXY SEARCH ENGINE
FAVORITE WEB EDITOR POLL & NEW POLL
REVIEWS
GALAXY CONTEST 2000 - FINAL RESULTS
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS
GRAPHICS NEWS
Dear Plugin Newsletter readers,
After two and a half years the Plugin Com HQ at http://pico.i-us.com has
closed down. Most of its content is now available in a, as I hope,
better organized manner at http://thepluginsite.com. The freeware
products are now available in the Products section at ThePluginSite.com
and the different tutorials have been placed in the Know-How section. If
you have a link to pico.i-us.com on your web site, please change it to
thepluginsite.com.
The Plugin Newsletter is now sent to over 22000 subscribers. A new
record! If you like this newsletter, please recommend it to your
friends.
Here are some other things that have been added to ThePluginSite.com and
some news about graphics stuff:
Have a nice time until the next issue,
Harald Heim
SPECIAL BUNDLES & PRICES
The Plugin Site offers two new bundles, products and special prices.
The Edge & Frame Galaxy CD-ROM containing 1600 edges and frames has been
reduced by $10. That's 80% of the regular price until the end of the
year.
Plugin Commander Pro and Plugin Galaxy are now available as a CD Bundle.
They are a good team, because you can use Plugin Galaxy within Plugin
Commander Pro to produce image effects. If you order the bundle you save
$10 compared with the regular prizes, you get them on a CD and you don't
have to pay any shipping fee. The CD also contains all freeware stuff
from thepluginsite.com.
The second bundle contains Ultimate Paint 2.65 and Plugin Galaxy. This
offer was available before, but now you get it on a CD plus shipping for
the same prize. As a bonus 60 royalty-free scenery photos in three
different resolutions are included.
There are also two new Panopticum products available at
thepluginsite.com. Photo FX 1.0, a collection of different plugin
products for Windows and Macintosh which previously were available
separately. PhotoFX includes Alpha Strip, Fire 2.0, Lens Pro II and
Digitalizer. If you buy this bundle you can choose one of the Plugin
Galaxy plugins for free. Digitalizer is available separately, too.
http://thepluginsite.com/products/
GRAPHICS GALAXY SEARCH ENGINE
The Graphics Galaxy Search Engine is a database driven search engine
which lets you search Photoshop-compatible plugins, Paintshop Pro tubes,
Photoshop actions, graphics tutorials and product reviews. You can find
the plugin, tube, action, tutorial or review you are looking for within
seconds by entering a single key word. The purpose of this search engine
is to find specific effects or products and not to generate large lists
of effects.
The databases of this search engine will be updated regularly.
Additionally other databases e.g. with textures, edges, brushes,
freeware tools are already planned. If you want to have your own
included in the Search Engine please send the appropriate information to
us. A submission page will be available later.
FAVORITE WEB EDITOR POLL & NEW POLL
The latest poll asked you to select your favorite web authoring tool
from over 25 applications. The participation was very high (611 people),
in fact the highest participation in a poll this year. The results are
as follows:
1. Dreamweaver 32 %
2. Frontpage 98/2000 16 %
3. Notepad 8 %
Hot Dog 8 %
4. Homesite 7 %
5. Go Live 6 %
Dreamweaver won the poll with a great headway to the second place.
Surprisingly the good old Notepad reached number 3.
This month the poll's question is "Which part of ThePluginSite.com do
you like best?". Please have a look at thepluginsite.com and vote for
your favorite section. The result of this poll will probably determine
which part of the site will be expanded in future. You can vote at the
bottom of the main page at
http://thepluginsite.com/knowhow/
REVIEWS
There are two new reviews in the Reviews section. One about Picmaster,
an inexpensive image editing application, and Lucy's Art, a
Photoshop-compatible plugin which creates nice painting effects. I hope
to have reviews of Photoshop 6 and Paintshop Pro 7 ready next time.
http://thepluginsite.com/reviews/
GALAXY CONTEST 2000 - FINAL RESULTS
The results of the Galaxy Contest 2000 have finally been calculated. 60
prizes were distributed to 44 winners. That means that one third of all
contest participants have won a prize. Some participants even won more
than one prize.
Here are the charts which include the image title, artist name, achieved
points and the prize that was won by each image:
Most Creative (11)
1. Atlantic by Rhonda (17 Points) -> Xenofex
2. Voodoo Child 2 by Bernhard Lunkenheimer (13 points) -> LensDoc
3. Squint by Anthony Hammond (10 points) -> Thumbs +
4. Decorative Glass Tile by William Heng (9 points) -> PageCurl
5. Mask of Dagar by Steve Upham (8 points) -> Book
Red & Blue by Mark Verheugd -> Tile Tools
6. Gold Leaf Bridge by Karen (Kare bear) (6 points) -> Ultimate FX
Dreamer by Marion Cronk -> Ultimate FX
Sweet Fantasies by Catladie -> Ultimate FX
7. Blue Fire by Lisa Boyce (5 points) -> Old Movie
Patriots by Anthony Hammond -> Old Movie
Best Composed (9)
1. Four Seasons by Oliver Kreitman (17 points) -> Xara X
2. Into 2000 by Anthony Hammond (13 points) -> Lens Doc
3. Fire by Justyna Pietraszewska (11 points) -> Compact Draw
Shalatain's Pegasus by Karen (Kare bear) -> Plugin Commander Pro
4. Anthony 1 by Anthony Woodford (10 points) -> PuzzlePro
5. Three Generations by Genny Brazell (9 points) -> Plugin Commander Pro
6. Boedha by Mark Verheugd (7 points) -> Filter Formula Pro
Spy by Anthony Hammond -> Tile Tools
7. Magical Mystery Tour by Joel Schilling (6 points) -> Old Movie
Most Impressive (10)
1. Digital Realm by Gabriel Kalach (11 points) -> Euphoria
2. Storm by Darla Auten (10 points) -> ACD See
3. Cerebral Patterns by Steve Upham (8 points) -> Compact Draw
Digital Online by Benny Thaibert -> Aged Film
4. Break Out by Mark Verheugd (7 points) -> Plugin Commander Pro
5. Life Before Us by William Heng (6 points) -> ACDSee
Mystical Hibiscus by Teresa Jones -> Compact Draw
Freestyle 212 by Ross Kanter -> Puzzle Pro
6. Snowwolf by Karen (Kare bear) (5 points) -> Old Movie
Blue Madness by Anna Cochran -> Tile Tools
Background Texture (11)
1. Tile Water by Meadows V (18 points) -> Deep Paint
2. Texture 515 by Joe Harvat (13 points) -> Xara 3D
3. Anta by Zdravko Ciric (9 points) -> Thumbs +
4. Grey Flow by Kalazar (8 points) -> Ultimate Paint
5. Ivory Sparkle by Kathy Morgan Jones (7 points) -> Sapphire
Innovations
6. NA Bride by Karen (Kare bear) (6 points) -> Filter Formula Pro
Fisheyesoup by Sunny Conley -> Ultimate FX
Weave by Mark Verheugd -> Ultimate FX
Blue Verge by Michele Wilcox -> Sapphire Product
Rave Glass Wall by Tabitha Bliss -> Sapphire Product
Tex2 by Lizzie Stenfeldt -> Sapphire Product
Greeting Cards (11)
1. The Gang Says Hi by Michele Wilcox (18 points) -> Xenofex
2. Get Well Amigo by Marion Cronk (14 points) -> Eye Candy
3. I Miss You by Katy O'Mary (11 points) -> Xara Webstyle
4. A Christmas Story by Dave Johnson (9 points) -> PageCurl
Viz by Zdravko Ciric -> Ultimate Paint
5. X-Ray by Glenn Grubb (8 points) -> Ultimate Paint
Greetings by Bernhard Lunkenheimer -> PageCurl
6. Mistress Distress by Gaile Elliott (7 points) -> Tile Tools
Inspiration by Els-Marie Ericsson -> Tile Tools
Greetings from Groningen by André Salters -> Euphoria
Art Year by Els-Marie Ericsson -> Book
Animation (8)
1. Mystic Falls by Treena Phillips (27 points) -> Eye Candy
2. Heart in motion by Roman Weigl (15 points) -> Aged Film
3. Sundown by Reyna (14 points) -> Thumbs +
4. Unicorn Dreams by Treena Phillips (13 points) -> Puzzle Pro
5. Curtain by Kalazar (12 points) -> Tile Tools
6. Pouting Angel by Marlene Cabais (11 points) -> Book
Car Travel by Anne Trudell -> Book
7. Valentina by Marlene Cabais (8 points) -> Old Movie
Additionally I asked people in my latest newsletter issue for guessing
who will win in each category of the contest. Six people correctly
guessed at least one winner of a category. Their names, their correct
guess and the prizes they have won are as follows:
- Conrad Stenton (guessed "Four Seasons") -> Plugin Galaxy
- David Romero (guessed "Mystic Falls") -> Plugin Galaxy
- Patricia Mars (guessed "Four Seasons" and "The Gang says Hi") ->
Plugin Galaxy
- Legacy/TYLERnAUSTINsMOM (guessed "Atlantic") -> Plugin Galaxy
- Karen Haight (guessed "Atlantic" and "Four Seasons) -> Edge & Frame
Galaxy
- Chuck Prikasky (guessed "The Gang says Hi") -> Edge & Frame Galaxy
Congratulations to all winners. The winning images can be viewed at
http://thepluginsite.com/gallery/galaxy2000/
FREE PLUGINS & TOOLS
The Eye Candy 4000 demo includes 3 working filters (Glass, Marble and
Shadowlab).
There are some freebie plugins on the sapphire site: an inverse plugin
and a randomiser plugin. There are also a few additional freebie Mac
plugins.
http://www.sapphire-innovations.com/updates.htm
Version 3.30 of Irfan View for Windows, a free image viewing and editing
application, has become available. It has a new email plugin for sending
images as emails and a new option for creating contact sheets among
other improvements.
http://www.irfanview.com/english.htm
Movie Explorer 1.0 is a free video editing from AIST. The 12 MB download
supports RealVideo, the Microsoft ASF format and Quicktime and features
a real time preview and flexible plugin architecture. Besides video
editing it can also be used for converting and viewing video, image and
audio files.
The new ad supported Ultimate FX 1.3 includes screen capture functions
and an improved print and color selection dialog.
http://www.ultimatepaint.com/ufx/
Pro Tools FREE 5 is a free, but professional audio editing application.
Features are 8 audio channel (plus 2 channels with Audio
Drivers support) and 48 MIDI tracks. It includes real-time DSP
processing plug-ins and is compatible with a large assortment of RTAS
and AudioSuite plug-ins.
GRAPHICS NEWS
The PSP Power Newsletter transfers useful tutorials for Paintshop Pro
directly to your Inbox every week and helps you to master this image
application. Subscribe at
Megalux announced a contest that ask users for painting a splash-screen
for Ultimate Paint (UP) and Ultimate FX (UFX). The best works will be
displayed on the homepage and the winner splash screen will make its way
into UP and UFX. The owners of the best 6 designs will win 3 copies of
UP and 3 UFXs. The competition will end on the 31st January 2001. Just
create a 436x337 pixel splash screen, save it as a PNG (fine quality)
and send it in.
The In Depth site runs a themed art competition every month with many
software prizes for the winners. Prizes include WorldBuilder Pro, Deep
Paint 3D, XFrog, Dosch Textures, Movie-Clips and Sounds and 3D
Exploration. December's contest theme is "7 Deadly Sins".
http://www.critical-depth.com/aod.html
Megalux released Ultimate Paint 2.65 which is skinable now and comes
with 3 basic skins plus a tutorial on how to create your own skins.
Other features are image rulers, advanced file, print and color
selection dialogs and a DPI option in the Resize dialog.
Panopticum released Rich Typing 1.2 for Adobe Premiere and After
Effects. It included a typing plugin for making different inscriptions,
subtitles and creeping lines, the Morphing plugin for transforming one
text into another and the Digitalizer plugin for creating a matrix whose
elements form a figure of the initial image.
Xara X, an upgrade to CorelXARA, has been released. Xara X combines
vector and bitmap graphics and is suitable for creating both print and
web graphics.
Eye Candy 4000 which has been released this month contains five new
special effects filters, Marble, Wood, Drip, Melt and Corona. Some
dramatic dialog improvements make Eye Candy more practical and
easy-to-use.
http://www.AlienSkin.com/
Macromedia announced Dreamweaver 4 and Fireworks 4.
Get ACDSee 1.5 Beta for Macintosh, a high-performance image browser that
supports over 40 image, audio and video formats including MPEGs and
MP3s.
http://www.acdsystems.com/english/products/acdsee/acdsee-mac15.htm
The CorelDRAW 10 Graphics Suite has become available. It offers vector
illustration, page layout, image editing, painting and animation
software in one big package. Along with more interactive tools, new
presets, a new color management system, a web image optimizer, better
performance, it contains Corel R.A.V.E (Real Animated Vector Effects), a
new application for creating dynamic vector animations and exporting
them as Macromedia Flash files for the Web.
