Plugin Newsletter - December 2013

 

 

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

ELEMENTSXXL 1.05 FOR WINDOWS: German manual and bug fixes

METARAW 1.03 FOR WINDOWS: New cameras supported and bug fixes

FILTERHUB 1.03 for MAC: Support for Photoshop CC under MacOS X 10.8 and 10.9

POLL RESULT: Which version of Lightroom do you use?

NEW POLLS: Which versions of Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Paint Shop Pro do you use under Windows and MacOS?

THE DISCUSSION FORUMS: Achieving a Certain Look

FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: Mehdi Plugins, HD View & Deep Zoom Plugin, VTF Format Plugin, BlendMe.in, FlatIcon, ImageOptim

GRAPHICS NEWS: Analog Efex Pro, Snap Art 4, Filter Forge 4, Perfect Photo Suite 8

 

Dear Reader,

I hope you had a great year 2013 and wish that 2014 will be even better. The Plugin Site has released more new products and major upgrades this year than ever before. As ElementsXXL has been the most popular of them, a lot of work was put into its Version 2, which will be released soon. You can also expect more Photoshop-Elements-specific products in 2014 as well as updates and upgrades of the PhotoWiz line. Thanks for your ongoing support and loyality!

Wishing you a Marvellous and Happy New 2014,
Harald Heim

The Plugin Site

 

 

 

ELEMENTSXXL 1.05 UPDATE

German manual and bug fixes

As ElmentsXXL is quite popular among German users, we decided to translate its manual to German and include it with ElementsXXL 1.05. ElementsXXL 1.05 also offers many smaller bug fixes.

ElementsXXL adds up to 130 powerful features to Photoshop Elements for Windows that were previously only available in Photoshop. These features are included as new menu items, icons, buttons, key shortcuts and dialogs, so they seamlessly integrate into the user interface of Photoshop Elements. ElementsXXL bridges the gap between Photoshop Elements and Photoshop and greatly enhances the image editing experience in Photoshop Elements.

For more information and a 14-day trial version see the
ElementsXXL Product Page

 

 

 

METARAW 1.03 FOR WINDOWS

New cameras supported and bug fixes

MetaRaw 1.03 supports several new cameras, e.g. Nikon D610, Nikon Df, Olympus E-M1, Panasonic DMC-GM1, Fujifilm XQ1, Fujifilm X-E2, Fujifilm X-A1. Additionally it now supports and requires Adobe DNG Converter 8.3, which also offers various new camera raw formats. A new Off button for deactivating MetaRaw was added and MetaRaw finally cooperates with DxO Optics without causing problems. Neither does MetaRaw 1.03 prevent Photoshop Raw files from being opened anymore.

MetaRaw extends the functionality of the Adobe Camera Raw plugin in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. It opens raw files with Adobe Camera Raw, which are not supported by it, and allows filtering image layers with Adobe Camera Raw. In Photoshop Elements MetaRaw provides automatic lens correction and chromatic aberration removal features. Additionally MetaRaw includes its own raw converter, which has several advantages over Adobe Camera Raw.

For more information and a 14-day trial see
MetaRaw Product Page

 

 

 

FILTERHUB 1.03 for MAC

Support for Photoshop CC under MacOS X 10.8 and 10.9

Under OS X 10.8 and 10.9 FilterHub was not able to store its settings when running in Photoshop CC. So this small fix, which is still available under version number 1.03, makes that possible. If you are a registered user and have not received the update yet, please contact us.

FilterHub is a powerful replacement for the Filter menu of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements and offers many advantages over it. It supports built-in filters (from the Filter, Adjustments and Enhance menus), filter plugins and third-party automation plugins. The FilterHub panel runs in Photoshop under Windows and MacOS X and in Photoshop Elements under Windows.

For more information and a 14-day trial version see
FilterHub Product Page

 

 

 

 

POLL RESULT

Which version of Lightroom do you use?

190 people voted in the previous Lightroom poll. Here are the results that show which version of Lightroom the voters use:

1. Version 5: 67%
2. Version 4: 25%
3. Version 3: 5%
4. Version 2: 3%
5. Version 1: 1%

Only 8 percent use Lightroom 3 or lower, which could be explained by the fact that Lightroom 4 was dramatically reduced in price, so that many people upgraded. Lightroom 4 is still used by a quarter and Lightroom 5 by 2/3 of all users. In previous polls new versions of Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Paint Shop Pro did not have such a high adoption rate.

For more poll results please visit the
Resources section

 

 

NEW POLLS

Which versions of Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Paint Shop Pro do you use under Windows and MacOS?

A similar poll was carried out 12 months ago, but now we have Photoshop CC and Photoshop Elements 12, so it will be nice to see which version is used by the majority in the meantime. Additionally you can vote for your version of Paint Shop Pro under Windows.

Please participate in this poll by visiting the
Main page...

 

 

THE DISCUSSION FORUMS

Achieving a Certain Look

Here is an interesting post from The Plugin Site Forums:

argonyx wrote: "I see sometimes photos with vivid beautiful colors taken in clubs or stage, with flash. It is obvious that the result is achieved using some effect and I would so much like to find out how to achieve it. I attach an example of what I mean...."
Read More...

Feel free to post comments or start a discussion topic at
The Plugin Site Forum

 

 

 

FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS

Mehdi Plugins, HD View & Deep Zoom Plugin, VTF Format Plugin, BlendMe.in, FlatIcon, ImageOptim

Two plugins of the Mehdi Plugins (for Windows) were updated. Equalizer 2 comes up with a new and more effective slider, which replaces three old sliders, and a better looking curve. Noise shampoo 3.1 offers a more convenient user interface and produces slightly better results.
Visit website...

Microsoft's HD View & Deep Zoom Photoshop Plugin (for Windows) saves an image as a special type of web page, which is optimized for displaying, panning and zooming very large images. Curved projection is used when zooming out the image in the browser.
Visit website...

The VTF Format Plugin (for Windows) enables opening and saving single-frame 2D textures in VTF format in Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Paint Shop Pro. 3D textures can also be opened, but with some limitations.
Visit website...

BlendMe.in is a panel (for Win/Mac) that lets you search for vector assets within Photoshop and Illustrator CS6 and CC and drag them directly onto your document. For installation in Photoshop/Illustrator CC you have to download the Adobe Extension Manager CC.
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The FlatIcon panel (for Win/Mac) gives its users access to more than 28,000 vector icons from within Photoshop CS5, CS6 and CC.
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ImageOptim is a tool (for MacOS X) that reduces the size of PNG, JPEG and GIF files by using the best compression settings and removing comments as well as color profiles. It claims to further reduce the size of image files saved by Photoshop's Save for Web feature.
Visit website...

For more free plugins and tool, please visit the
Resources section

 

 

GRAPHICS NEWS

Analog Efex Pro, Snap Art 4, Filter Forge 4, Perfect Photo Suite 8

The Google nik Collection (for Win/Mac) was extended with a new plugin called Analog Efex Pro, which aims at recreating the look and feel of classic cameras, films and lenses.
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Alienskin Snap Art 4 (for Win/Mac) is a Photoshop Plugin that turns images into paintings. It offers a redesigned dark UI and speed improvements. There is also a new visual preset browser. Snap Art supports Photoshop CS6 and CC, Elements 12, Lightroom, Apple Aperture and can be used as a standalone application.
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Filter Forge 4 (for Win/Mac) is a texture creation and image effects plugin as well as standalone program with currently 4700 filter effects. They can be edited via a visual node-based environment. Version 4 includes a new filter manager for organizing filters with the help of folders and a tree view. Component grouping allows making components out of parts of the filter tree with customizable inputs and parameters. There is also a new Loop component for repeating operations.
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onOne Perfect Photo 8 (for Win/Mac) is a standalone application and collection of Photoshop plugins. The new Perfect Eraser tool provides content-aware fill technology, the new Perfect Enhance offers various photo adjustments and a new Browser lets you directly access and view images. The Perfect Batch engine processes multiple images with the help of presets. Perfect Effects now provides twice as many filters as before and integrated FocalPoint technology.
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