Plugin Newsletter - April 2002

Contents
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EDITORIAL

PLUGIN GALAXY 1.5 RELEASED
UPDATES OF THEPLUGINSITE.com

POLL RESULTS: Preferred pixel size of digital photos
NEW POLL: Preferred pixel size of textures

FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS
GRAPHICS NEWS from www.GraphicsNews.com

PRODUCTS FROM THE PLUGIN SITE
THE PLUGIN SITE MAP

Dear Reader,

This issue of The Plugin Newsletter is a bit shorter than usual. We have concentrated our efforts this month on the new Plugin Galaxy 1.5 release (see below!) and other products that will soon be released. The free plugins & tools and graphics news sections are nevertheless as large as usual. However, if you miss something, please let us know what kind of information you would like to see additionally in this newsletter. Also, anyone who would like to make contributions to this newsletter in any form is welcome.

Stay creative and have a nice time!

Harald Heim

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The Plugin Site - Your guide to image and video effects
http://ThePluginSite.com/

PLUGIN GALAXY 1.5 RELEASED
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Version 1.50 of Plugin Galaxy for Windows was released yesterday. Plugin Galaxy 1.50 includes a new plugin and 18 new filter effects. The new Page Curl plugin produces page curls of 12 different directions and page rolls in 4 directions. It lets you colorize the page curl, make it transparent, position it on the image and many more. The new Star Field effect can place up to several hundred stars with various shapes and colors all over your image. Among the other new effects are Rippled Glass, Diffuse, Cave Edge, Jungle Edge, Curved Edge, Cutline Edge, Quad Feedback, Tunnel Feedback, Space Worm, Dragon's Tail, Butterfly, Plate, Wall, RGB Saturation, Erode En/Decryption and Cross En/Decryption.

Additionally many of the old effects were improved e.g. Bluuur and Feedback render up to two times faster, in Edge Tool the edge can be positioned anywhere on the image, there are new Overlay and Expose features in four of the plugins and the Warp 1/2 Shadow effect looks better. The 1.50 update is free for registered users and will be available for Macintosh soon.

The old Plugin Galaxy demo version only contained two free plugins. Now you can download the other 19 plugins (as demo versions) and test them, too. For more information and for downloading the demo version, please visit:

http://thepluginsite.com/products/plugingalaxy/

UPDATES OF THEPLUGINSITE.com
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The MacOS X version of our product Plugin Galaxy for AE has been released recently. Plugin Galaxy for AE is a collection of 20 After Effects plugins containing 129 different animatable video effects. The new MacOSX version can currently be used only with Adobe After Effects 5.5.

http://thepluginsite.com/products/pgforae/

The broken link for downloading our patched Filter Factory version has been renewed. This version of Filter Factory has an improved dialog (e.g. a bigger preview) compared to the original version.

http://thepluginsite.com/knowhow/plugincreation.htm

Don't miss visiting our recently opened Discussion Forums about various graphics and video topics!

http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/

POLL RESULTS: Preferred pixel size of digital photos
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205 people have voted for the latest poll with the question "What pixel size should digital photos from a photo CD have to fit your needs?". Here are the results:

1 Megapixel (37.5 %):
320 x 240 4 %
640 x 480 10 %
800 x 600 10.5 %
1024 x 768 22.5 %
1280 x 1024 10.5 %

2 Megapixe (16.5 %):
1536 x 1024 3 %
1600 x 1200 9.5 %
1800 x 1200 4 %

3 Megapixel (7 %):
2048 x 1536 4 %
2100 x 1500 3 %

4 Megapixel (2 %):
2272 x 1704 0.5%
2500 x 1900 1.5%

High-End (15.5%):
3072 x 2048 3.5%
3200 x 2400 5 %
6144 x 4096 7 %

Doesn't matter 1.5%

So the largest need still seems to be in the low-resolution area, followed by mid-resolution and maximum resolution photos. Surprisingly photos in the 3 and 4 Megapixel area are needed by less than 10% of all people.

Previous poll results can be viewed at
http://thepluginsite.com/knowhow/

NEW POLL: Preferred pixel size of textures
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Similar to the latest poll, our new poll is about the pixel size of textures. So the poll question is "What pixel size should textures have to fit your needs?". 15 answers are available ranging from 100x100 to 2100x1500 with seamless and non-seamless variations.

Please cast your vote at
http://thepluginsite.com/

FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS
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Simplifier (for Windows), a free filter plugin from AmphiSoft, has been updated. It provides a wide range of color\shape simplification operations, resulting in "painterly" artistic effects. With the latest update the "painterly" effect was improved.

http://photoshop.msk.ru/as/simplifier.html

Reindeer Games Inc. released Photoshop 7.0 compatible version of their free plugins CustomFilter, MagnificationBar and AdaptiveEqualize. They work with versions 3.x to 7.0 of Photoshop under Mac OS X and Windows XP. All of them work with 8 and 16-bit channels, grayscale and RGB images.

http://ReindeerGraphics.com/free.html

Strichzeichner (Win/Mac) is a freeware painting tool for generating brushed metal surfaces. You can choose between two methods of painting the surface. The first method draws continuously three lines in different colors. The second method draws continuously only one gradient line. The color of the lines can be adjusted through the whole grayscale. The direction, the color and the length of the lines can be changed during the drawing process.

http://www.daytraderppc.de/strichzeichner/index_us.html

Fractal Explorer (Windows) is a freeware fractal generation tool that can draw classical fractals, 4D-complex fractals , 3D "strange" attractors and IFS. Also, Fractal Explorer has many features for the creation of special effects and improvement of the pictures. There's also an additional plug-in called Fractal Landscapes Library for rendering fractal landscapes and a compiler for your own formulas available as a separate download available. Images can be saved as BMP, GIF or JPEG and animations as AVI files.

http://www.eclectasy.com/Fractal-Explorer/

Blender Creator (Win/Mac/Linux) is a fully integrated 3D creation suite and distributed as freeware. Blender features a versatile animation system, contemporary modeling principles, an advanced rendering engine, character animation tools, an editor for post-production and tools for creation and playback of real-time interactive 3D. Blender can be used to create commercials and other broadcast quality linear content, while the incorporation of a real-time 3D engine allows for the creation of 3D interactive content for PCs, next generation game consoles and mobile devices.

http://www.blender3d.com/BlenderProducts/creator_general.php

The Blender Creator 2.25 download is currently disabled on the Blender homepage. However, there are several mirror sites for the old 2.23 version mentioned at
http://www.pablosbrain.com/blender3d/mirrors.php

Now3D (Windows) is a free and easy to use raytracing tool for the creation of animations and 3D objects. Now3D has evolved from an application for astronomical visualization called Planets. The Now3Dweb site contains the manual as well as galleries of images created with it.

http://web.tiscalinet.it/GiulianoCornacchiola/Eng/

GRAPHICS NEWS from GraphicsNews.com
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Summer Semester at LVS starts soon
LVS offers over 50 affordable online courses starting on May 18. Registration closes on May 17. In addition to the Filter Frenzy 1-3 classes, which are about filter plugins including our Plugin Galaxy, Edge & Frame Galaxy and Plugin Commander products, there are also plenty of courses about various graphics, web and office applications.
http://www.lvsonline.com/schedule.shtml

Softener from Namesuppressed
Softener is a low-priced filter plugin for adding smooth, soft and glossy effects to your images. It allows you to create many special effects, whether you're after warm & subtle glows, brilliant flashes of light, or extreme blurs.
http://www.namesuppressed.com/design/plugins-soften.shtml

Corel Seeks Beta Testers for Graphics Suite 11
Always wanted to be a beta tester? If so, head over to the application page on Corel's site to test Graphics Suite 11 for Windows or Mac.
http://www.graphicsnews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=674

TextureWorkshop 1.5
This Windows app is a multifunctional toolbox that allows you to turn practically any picture into a repeatable tile very quickly and easily.
http://www.graphicsnews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=670

IrfanView 3.70
Fast freeware 32-Bit graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME, WinNT, Win2000 and Windows XP. The new version has many fixes and enhancements.
http://www.graphicsnews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=668

Color Wheel Expert 4.0
Based on the color wheel and color harmony theory, Color Wheel Expert for Windows lets you select a color, and then have 12 harmonious colors displayed in the accompanying boxes.
http://www.graphicsnews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=667

Andromeda Releases New ScatterLight Lenses
ScatterLight Lenses, a new multi-platform Adobe Photoshop compatible plug-in from Andromeda, is now available.
http://www.graphicsnews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=663

Sapphire Innovations Releases Tubed Vol 1 - 6 Special for PC and Now Mac
Tubed Vol 1 - 6 for PC and now all tube sets are available for Mac as well. The PC tubes are for Paint Shop Pro but the PC and Mac tubes can now be used in the Splat! plugins.
http://www.graphicsnews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=662

Aurora Technology Changes The Weather In Your Pictures
Aurora allows Photoshop users to change the weather in any 2D Photoshop image to enhance an existing picture or create new content from scratch.
http://www.graphicsnews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=660

RETAS! Pro 5.5
RETAS! Pro is an award-winning Win/Mac digital animation production package, which replaces all the labor-intensive processes of conventional animation production.
http://www.graphicsnews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=658

Image Styles 2.5
Image Styles is a way to make an unlimited amount of beautiful and photo realistic graphic images in a minimum amount of time.
http://www.graphicsnews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=630

For daily graphics news updates, visit
http://www.GraphicsNews.com

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