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Plugin Newsletter - July 2001
Contents
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EDITORIAL
PLUGIN GALAXY FOR AE RELEASED
POLL RESULTS: Your favorite Plugin Galaxy effect
NEW POLL: Your favorite digital camera manufacturer
REVIEWS: COREL PAINTER 6.1
VISITOR GALLERY: New image creations
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS
GRAPHICS NEWS
PRODUCTS FROM THE PLUGIN SITE
THE PLUGIN SITE MAP
Dear Readers,
Because of the many responses I got when mentioning the virus problem
last time, I decided to look for some information about protecting
yourself from email viruses. Here are some URLs that should be a good
starting point for investigating this topic:
http://help.up.net/virus/
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/email/viruses/
http://www.reportercentral.com/technology/gdr20000606a.html
Have a nice summer holiday!
Harald Heim
----------------------------
The Plugin Site - Your guide to image and video effects
http://ThePluginSite.com
PLUGIN GALAXY FOR AE RELEASED
------------------------------------------------
Plugin Galaxy for AE is a collection of 20 After Effects plugins
containing 129 different animatable video effects. It can be used with
Adobe After Effects 4/5, Adobe Premiere 6, Final Cut Pro, Pinnacle
Commotion 3 and Discreet Combustion on Windows and Macintosh computers.
Plugin Galaxy for AE offers daily needed effects like transparency
manipulation, blurring, texture and pattern generation, noise creation,
mirroring and warping. It also includes amazing metal, chrome, neon, pop
art, glass, rainbow, sunshine and star effects. Additionally it lets you
enhance, colorize and add edges to your animations and videos as well as
encrypt them. Last but not least, there are some effects that can rarely
be found like feedbacks, grids and zooming. All of these effects can be
animated over time to produce stunning motion effects.
The 129 basic effects of Plugin Galaxy for AE can be adapted and
animated with the help of sliders, check boxes, color settings and
preview coordinates. As a consequence you have access to thousands of
potential video effects. The plugins tightly integrate into the
mentioned video applications to achieve an optimized workflow.
For more information and for downloading demo versions please visit
POLL RESULTS: Your favorite Plugin Galaxy effect
------------------------------------------------
A total of 2270 votes have been cast in the latest Plugin Galaxy poll.
The votes for all 20 plugins were quite in the same range, the Nr. 1
only had double as much votes as Nr. 20.
The most favored plugins from Plugin Galaxy are Glass, Star, Edge Tool,
Sunshine, Alpha Tool and Rainbow. The last on the list, but nevertheless
with many votes, are Noise, Synthesizer, Breakfast, Grid and Feedback.
For more information on Plugin Galaxy (Win/Mac) please visit
http://thepluginsite.com/products/plugingalaxy/
NEW POLL: Your favorite digital camera manufacturer
------------------------------------------------
The latest poll deals with digital camera manufacturers. You can vote
for one of 23 different companies that create digital cameras and that
you think produces the best ones.
You can cast your vote at
http://thepluginsite.com/
REVIEWS: COREL PAINTER 6.1
------------------------------------------------
Corel Painter 6.1 has been reviewed for the Reviews section of
thepluginsite.com. Our review summary says:
"Painter offers an incredible range of natural media tools and hundreds
of options for adjusting them. If you don't have a graphic tablet, Corel
Painter is the best reason to get one. You can't call yourself a digital
artist if you don't have this tool."
For the full review visit
http://thepluginsite.com/reviews/painter61.htm
For other graphics software reviews visit
http://thepluginsite.com/reviews/
VISITOR GALLERY: New image creations
------------------------------------------------
21 new images have been added to the Visitor Gallery. The artists are
Floyd Kelly, Michael Barton, Francesco Manfredi, Tony Stanovich,
Classico, Carasca Teodor, Duncan Long, Andre Salters, SueCat, John,
Susana Goy, Simone Baffelli, J. Smith, Shane Moore and Amelia Campbell.
Don't miss these inspiring images!
http://thepluginsite.com/gallery/visitors/gallery2001.htm
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS
------------------------------------------------
The AmphiSoft Filters (Windows) has again been updated with another free
Photoshop-compatible plugin called Xylograph LE. It allows you to apply
a wavy halftone effect with the screen lines angle being gradually
changing from shadow to highlight image area. The effects produced vary
from simple woodcut texture to a hand-drawn halftone screen found it
many engravings. Unlike the full version, the LE version has one fixed
zoning set and neither provide built-in balance, smoothing, apply modes
and intensity controls, nor does it have the options for processing the
seamless patterns. The full version of Xylograph requires a
registration.
http://photoshop.msk.ru/as/ngrave.html
PowerRetouce (Windows only) released some Photoshop-compatible plugins
for image enhancement and retouching that claim to not incur any
destruction to the image. The plugins are called SharpnessEditor,
ExposureEditor, ColourstichEditor, ColourEditor, SaturationEditor,
ContrastEditor and TransparencyEditor. The BrightnessEditor plugin is
freeware while others have to be registered to work.
Exif Reader (Windows) is an image data file analysis tool. The software
displays the information in Exif JPG image files created by digital
cameras, e.g. the shutter speed, the state of the flash, and the focus
distance. Among other special formats it also supports "TIFF/EP" format
used with EOS/D and Kodak digital cameras, "NSK-TIFF" and "TIFF-FX" by
Xerox.
http://www.takenet.or.jp/~ryuuji/minisoft/exifread/english/
ImageWalker (Windows) is an image viewing and thumbnail tool that looks
like Windows Explorer. ImageWalker allows you to manage your image files
visually. It simplifies the process of viewing, cataloguing, and
publishing digital images. Its features include web page creation,
thumbnail generation and printing, batch image conversion, slide show
and screen saver. It offers an unlimited trial period with no
obligations.
Scenalyzer 3.52 (Windows) is a freeware tool for splitting AVI files
containing dv-video into the individual scenes and thus saving a lot of
time when you prepare your DV-material for editing.
3D Canvas 4.1 (Windows 95, 98 or 2000) is a freeware real-time 3D
modeling and animation tool that incorporates an intuitive drag-and-drop
approach to 3D modeling. Complex models can be constructed from simple
3D primitives, or created using 3D Canvas' Object Building Tools.
Modeling tools are provided to deform, sculpt and paint 3D objects. It
is a 16.7 MB download.
Magenta II Free Edition (Windows) is a multimedia authoring tool with an
object oriented multimedia-programming language and compiler. There are
powerful wizards for code generation and a Python scripting engine for
building your own wizards and composer extensions. The download is 9 MB
large.
The August issue of the Computer Arts magazine has Amorphium 1.0, a 3D
modeling tool, on the cover CD. The coming September issue will include
Expression 2 LE, a vector painting application.
http://www.computerarts.co.uk/magazine/
GRAPHICS NEWS
------------------------------------------------
LVS has opened registrations for the online classes starting September 1
and 2, 2001. In addition to the Filter Frenzy I & II classes which cover
our Plugin Commander and Plugin Galaxy products, there will be a new
Filter Frenzy III class. Filter Frenzy III will teach you using Edge &
Frame Galaxy and Plugin Galaxy as well as other famous plugins.
http://lvsonline.com/courses.html
Version 1.0 of LightningMail (Windows), an email submission software,
has finally been released. It is now much easier to use and offers many
new features and better performance. Among the new features are a new
list system, dynamic toolbars and menu's, SMTP and proxy server
authentication, automated dial-up connection and disconnection, HTML
support, automated text-format layout and many more. Without
registration it can be fully used, but the recipient list is limited to
100 email addresses. Registering costs US$24.95.
For a limited time, Andromeda offers their latest Photoshop-compatible
plugins LensDoc and Perspective as a bundle. It can be purchased at $99,
regularly $133. More product information and free demos can be found at
The GIMP is also available for Macintosh computers now. Unfortunately it
is currently not available as a free download like the Linux and Windows
version (you have to order a CD for $30) and it only works with Mac OS
X.
The GIMP is a Graphic Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely
distributed piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo
retouching, image composition and authoring. It can edit animated gifs
and is an excellent tool for manipulating RGB-based file formats such as
jpg and tiff.
http://www.macgimp.com/
PageMaker 7.0 is now available. It supports a new simplified workflow
with other Adobe software like Photoshop and Illustrator and features
integrated Portable Document Format (PDF) creation tools, improved
support for Microsoft Word files as well as updated file conversion
support for Microsoft Publisher and QuarkXpress files. The software also
features new data merging capabilities that use both text and images
exported from databases.
http://www.adobe.com/products/pagemaker/
Bryce 5 has been released by Corel. Bryce 5 lets you create realistic 3D
landscapes and animations. The update includes smooth network rendering,
new Light and Tree Labs, an enhanced Terrain Editor, Texture Editing
capabilities, enhanced rendering options, Metaballs support, a new Light
Lab and many more.
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2000 © by Harald Heim