The Plugin Site - Plugin Newsletter

Plugin Newsletter - December 2006

Contents
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EDITORIAL

NEW PHOTO WEB SITE: www.HaraldHeim.com

POLL RESULTS: Which DSLR camera do you use?

NEW POLL: Which is your favorite technique for selectively adjusting a photo?

FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: 8bf Plugins, Pog’s Color Filtrator, Toadies 2, Luce for AE

GRAPHICS NEWS: Imagenomic Plugins, HS Calendar Templates, Adobe Camera Raw 3.6, XtraSens Retina

PRODUCTS FROM THE PLUGIN SITE

ABOUT THE PLUGIN SITE

Hi,

The creative things that I did always have an influence on the software products that I created. Ten years ago I started with digital video editing, then concentrated on graphics design and in the previous few years focused on photography. Now I finally created a new web site for presenting my photos and photographic stuff to the public. Of course, some of the photos were edited with PhotoWiz plugins and they gave me ideas for new products or improving my existing plugins. I hope you will like the new web site. See below for the URL.

I hope you will enjoy this issue of the newsletter!

Wishing you a Nice Christmas Season,
Harald Heim

http://www.thepluginsite.com

NEW PHOTO WEB SITE: www.HaraldHeim.com
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I designed another web site for displaying my photos and placing my photographic articles. The biggest section of the web site contains photos that I have taken from 2000 up to now. But I have many more photos, which will be uploaded there in future.

There is also a newsletter option for information about future web site updates and a guest book. I would appreciate any comment that you enter there. The web site is available in English as well as German language. So far there is only one article there, but I plan to add more, especially about enhancing and retouching photos in Photoshop.

You can visit the web site at
http://www.haraldheim.com/

POLL RESULTS: Which DSLR camera do you use?
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More than 1300 people voted for the DSLR camera that they use. Here are the results:

Results by Brand:

1. Canon 42%
2. Nikon 26%

3. Olympus 6%
4. Pentax 4.1%
5. Fujifilm 4%
6. Sony 3%

7. Panasonic 1%
8. Sigma 0.4%
9. Samsung 0%

Results by Camera Model:

1. Canon 30D / 20D 16%
2. Canon 400D / Rebel XTi / 350D / Rebel XT 15%
3. Nikon D70(s) 7 - 8% (Estimated Value)
4. Nikon D200 7%

5. Canon 5D 5%
6. Fujifilm S5, S3, S2 Pro 4%
7. Nikon D50 3.8%
8. Sony A100 3%

9. Nikon D2X(s) 2.1%
10. Nikon D80 2%
11. Canon 1Ds 1.1%
12. Canon 1D 1%

Please note that the Minolta and Kodak DSLRs were not included in the poll, because they are not produced anymore. One mistake that I made was not to have a Nikon D70(s) item and to have it included in the "Other Nikon DSLRs" item. I nevertheless added it in the results with an estimated value of 7 to 8%, which was extracted from the 11% value of the "Other Nikon DSLRs" item. There were also 13% of votes from people who don't have a DSLR.

As you can see from the results more than two thirds of all used DSLRs are from Canon and Nikon and one third of all used DSLRs are the Canon 30D and 400D/Rebel XTi and their predecessors.

For more poll results, please visit the Know-How section at
http://thepluginsite.com/knowhow/

NEW POLL: Which is your favorite technique for selectively adjusting a photo?
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Recently I have noticed that different people prefer different techniques for selectively enhancing a photo. So I thought it would be nice to do a poll and see which is liked best by most people. In this poll you can choose between 7 alternatives. I understand that some people will use more than just one of these techniques, but you can only vote for one of them. So please choose the one that you use most of the time or like best.

Please cast your vote at the bottom of
http://www.thepluginsite.com/

THE DISCUSSION FORUMS: LightMachine Group on flickr, Photoshop Hangs Up, Mirroring Fonts, Color Picker Replacement, Removing Hot Pixels, Straightening Images in Photoshop, Deform Plugin, Photo Stitching Problem
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Here are some of the latest messages from The Plugin Site Discussion Forums:

Carl Berger wrote: "There is a new public group in flickr for LightMachine users. Share your LightMachine adjusted images, join the discussions and spread the word..."
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2399

kade wrote: "since yesterday my photoshop doesn't start. at the begining everything is normal but when it start to read/load the global textresources it is hanging up"
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2345

gyllingdk wrote: "I'm looking for a fast solution to mirror fonts on my advertising banners. Is there a free plugin which will make a mirror of tekst (vertikal)?"
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2417

olias32 wrote: "I was wondering if anyone knows a good replacement for the default adobe color picker within photoshop (on WINDOWS)... The features that i really need are color wheel, harmonies and a automatic color palette generator."
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2398

pfgbel47 wrote: "With long exposure times, I get of course hot pixels in my pics and I'm looking for a plugin I could add to my PhotoShop 6.0 which could help me to remove these numerous hot pixels."
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2388

Tim4Peace wreote: "I have Photoshop 7. Is there a plugin available to make straightening of an image easy?"
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2386

Jerry Noftsger wrote: "I lost an Elements plugin that allowed one to deform photos. It was a simple program... A tool bar runs down the left side of the screen. It's two primary "buttons" were one to blow-up/expand the selected area, and one to shrink/deflate the selected area. ... Can someone perchance tell me what the name of that program is?"
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2358

Conurg1958 wrote: "I have a compositing job to do that requires a background which is stitched together from about 5 photos... Now for the tricky bit - I need to keep the central image totally intact with only the other four warping to align with its various features. So far, Photomerge will only work by warping all five images to get a result. Anyone have any ideas on how I might get what I'm looking for... ?"
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2416

For more interesting discussions please visit
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/

FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: 8bf Plugins, Pog’s Color Filtrator, Toadies 2, Luce for AE
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The free 8bf plugin collection (for Windows) has been extended with two new plugins. The Single Hue plugin lets you change the hue and saturation of your image and the Granularity plugin adds monochrome grain to your image. Additionally the Foto Fix from the collection plugin was updated.

http://8bf.net/

Pog’s Color Filtrator (for Windows) is a selective desaturation tool that offers specific hue ranges for creating B&W images.

http://gopog.net/

The popular Toadies Filter Factory plugins (for Windows) are available again from the developer's web site as one self-extracting file. They contain button, distortion, color and mosaic effects.

http://photoshop.msk.ru/

Luce, which was released two years ago as a Photoshop plugin, is now available as a plugin for Premiere Pro and After Effects (for Windows). Luce produces volumetric light effects.

http://amicoperry.altervista.org/luce/main.html

GRAPHICS NEWS: Imagenomic Plugins, HS Calendar Templates, Adobe Camera Raw 3.6, XtraSens Retina
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Imagenomic released two new plugins for Photoshop and Elements called RealGrain and Portraiture (for Mac/Win). RealGrain simulates grain patterns and the look of film grain. Portraiture removes imperfections in portrait shots while retaining important picture details.

http://www.imagenomic.com/

Human Software now sells a package with more than 50 calendar templates for Photoshop and Elements (for Mac/Win). You can change the size, font size and color or style in these templates and ad your own images,

http://www.humansoftware.com/

Adobe released Version 3.6 of the Camera Raw plugin and DNG converter version (for Win/Mac).13 new cameras from Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Fujifilm, Leica, Panasonic, Pentax and Samsung are supported.

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw/

The Retina plugin package (for Windows) from XtraSens offers 22 filters and functions for enhancing perceived contrast, brightness, sharpness, depth and resolution. There are automatic as well as manual plugins for processing various types of photos.

http://www.xtrasens.com/products.htm

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