Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugin Newsletter - November/December 2017
CONTENTS
ELEMENTSXXL 5.02 for WINDOWS:
New features and bug fixes
METARAW 2.55 FOR WIN/MAC: New cameras supported and bug fixes
FILTERHUB 1.51 FOR WINDOWS: Bug fixes and installation improvements
PHOTOWIZ FOR WINDOWS: Improved preview scrolling, Enhanced support for Affinity Photo and ON1 Photo Raw, Installation support for PSP 2018
PLUGIN GALAXY / HYPERTYLE / HARRYS FILTERS / PHOTOFREEBIES FOR WINDOWS: Improved preview scrolling, Enhanced support for Affinity Photo
POLL RESULTS: Which Lightroom
version will you use in future? Which of these Lightroom-like applications
do you regularly use?
NEW POLL: Which image editing application(s) do you mainly use?
THE DISCUSSION FORUMS: PhotoWiz Editor, KPT3 Spheroid Designer
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: HEIC for Windows,
InPixio Photo Editor, PhotoDemon, BirdFont
GRAPHICS NEWS: Photoshop CC 2018, Affinity Photo 1.6, nik Plugins acquired by DxO
Dear Reader,
All of our major products (including the Harrys Filters and PhotoFreebies freeware) have been updated this autumn to keep up with the latest developments in software and hardware. We are determined to keep it up in future to ensure that our plugins are not outdated by new technology and get useless or even stop working some day. Unfortunately this has been the case with many other Photoshop plugins, which were abandoned in the last few years.
One positive development lately is that the nik Plugins were sold by Google and acquired by DxO. They will very likely loose their freeware status, but it also means that they will be improved again in future. See the Graphics News blurb about it below!
Photoshop CC 2018, which was recently released, offers several useful features. Even if you are a CC subscription adversary, this means that at least some of these new features will ultimatively become available in future Photoshop Element versions, or even more likely in the next major version of our ElementsXXL product.
We would like to thank all people who have supported ElementsXXL (and the other related products) and helped to make it a success story in the five years of its existence. An even bigger thanks applies to all users who have supported our PhotoWiz products in the last 15 years and helped to keep them evolving.
In any case I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Healthy, Prosperous and Very Happy New Year!
Kind regards,
Harald Heim
ELEMENTSXXL 5.02 for WINDOWS
New features and bug fixes
ElementsXXL 5.02 offers new Auto Lens Correction features, improvements
of the Perspective Warp and Fill Selection features as well as many bug
fixes.
The new Lens Defaults feature lets you define your own lens profile defaults, which makes manual adjustments unnecessary for unknown lenses. The Perspective Warp now works much more like the same tool in Photoshop, which is a big improvement. The Fill Layer/Selection dialog of ElementsXXL also behaves more similar to the classic version of Photoshop Elements. In Photoshop Elements 2018 the nik Viveza plugin was previously missing as a smart filter on the SmartFilter panel, which was fixed. As some people reported persistent problems with the ElementsXXL menu items on the Layers panel context menu, there is now an option in the ElementsXXL Preferences to deactivate them.
The trial period was renewed, so undecided users can test it again for another 14 days. Please note that there was a bug on the release day that was fixed on the next day. So if your ElementsXXL 5.02 trial version causes a crash when changing a brush setting, please redownload and reinstall it to have it work properly.
Thanks to the numerous people who sent bug report and improvement suggestions for ElementsXXL! Such feedback helps us to make ElementsXXL an even more reliable and effective tool. ElementsXXL 5 will continue being improved in 2018.
For more information and a trial version visit the
ElementsXXL
Page
METARAW 2.55 FOR WIN/MAC
New cameras supported and bug fixes
MetaRaw 2.55 supports Adobe DNG Converter 10.0 as well as new cameras
and offers bug fixes. The Lens Correction and CA Removal options (in Photoshop
Elements 10 and higher) now work even if an XMP file already exists for
a raw file. Under MacOS the MetaRaw format plugin finally runs correctly
in Photoshop CS3/CS4 and Photoshop Elements 8. The Windows uninstallation
now now makes sure that Photoshop and Photoshop Elements are closed before
MetaRaw is actually uninstalled.
For more information and a trial version visit the
MetaRaw Page
FILTERHUB 1.51 FOR WINDOWS
Bug fixes and installation improvements
The FilterHub 1.51 automation plugin (for Windows) now displays an error
message to avoid crashes with three old and faulty Flash Player versions.
Additionally the filter scanning algorithm of the FilterHub automation
plugin was improved, which makes sure that e.g. nik Viveza is displayed
in Photoshop Elements 2018. The installation was adjusted to match the
installation of our other products, which means that you will be able
to fully overwrite old versions and trial version in future. The installation
into Photoshop CS5.1 was also fixed.
The FilterHub extension (for Win/Mac), which only works in Photoshop CS4 to CC 2013, was not updated and still has version number 1.05. It is not very likely that it will be updated in future, because it is based on technology that was dropped by Adobe with Photoshop CC 2014. The FilterHub automation plugin for Windows is still under development and works in the latest thirteen Photoshop versions from 7.0 to CC 2018 as well as Photoshop Elements 2.0 to 2018.
For more information and a trial version visit the
FilterHub Page
PHOTOWIZ FOR WINDOWS
Improved preview scrolling, Enhanced support for Affinity Photo and ON1 Photo Raw, Installation support for PSP 2018
The latest PhotoWiz update offers improved preview scrolling, enhanced
support for Affinity Photo and ON1 Photo Raw, PaintShop Pro 2018 installation
support as well as various bug fixes. There is also a fix for a freeze
problem in the Color modes of LightMachine and it makes sure that all
PhotoWiz products are installed correctly as external editors in Lightroom.
The manual was extended with instructions on how to manually install PhoWiz
in other Lightroom-like applications. The PhotoWiz standalones also support
the raw files of 200 new cameras based on MetaRaw 2.54.
For more information and a trial version visit the
PhotoWiz Page
PLUGIN GALAXY / HYPERTYLE / HARRYS FILTERS / PHOTOFREEBIES FOR WINDOWS
Improved preview scrolling, Enhanced support for Affinity Photo
Similarly to the latest PhotoWiz update our other Photoshop plugins (Plugin
Galaxy, HyperTyle, Harrys Filters and PhotoFreebies) were updated with
similar improvements. Scrolling the preview with a maximized window on
a 4K (and even HD) screen now works much more fluently. This is especially
the case in Adobe applications with UI Scaling activated and in non-Adobe
applications, e.g. Affinity Photo. Additionally support for 16-bit images
and a maximized window in Affinity Photo was added. Our Plugin Installer
tool now supports Paint Shop Pro 2018 as well as Corel Draw & Photo-Paint
2017 and has an improved Add Folder button.
For more information and a trial version visit the
Products Page
POLL RESULTS
Up to 125 voters took part in both of the latest poll about Lightroom and Lightroom-like applications. Here are the results:
Poll 1: Which Lightroom version will you use in future?
1. I will stay with Lightroom 6 as long it supports my camera. 33%
2. I plan to switch to an alternative Lightroom-like application. 26%
3. I do not know yet what to do in future. 20%
4. I plan to switch to version 7 of Lightroom Classic CC. 16%
5. I plan to use the new cloud-based Lightroom CC. 6%
Only one quarter of all voters intend to switch to Lightroom Classic CC and Lightroom CC. 20% are uncertain which Lightroom version they will use in future or if they will switch to another application. Another quarter of the voters plan to switch to an alternative application and one third want to stay with the old Lightroom 6 version. So there is quite some skepticism about the new Lightroom version among the voters.
Poll 2: Which of these Lightroom-like applications do you regularly use?
1. Adobe Lightroom 44%
2. Topaz Studio 26%
3. DxO OpticsPro 22%
4. ON1 Photo RAW 21%
5. Other 20%
6. ACDSee 10%
AfterShot Pro 10%
Raw Therapee 10%
7. Nikon Capture (NX) 8%
8. Zoner Photo Studio 7%
9. Capture One 6%
10. Darktable 5.5%
11. Luminar 5%
Canon Digital Photo Professional 5%
12. SilkyPix 3%
PhotoDirector 3%
13. Exposure 1.5%
SIGMA Photo Pro 1.5%
14. LightZone 1%
PT Photo Editor 1%
15. Photo Ninja 0%
44% of all voters use Lightroom, but each voter uses on average 2 applications, because there were slightly more than double as many votes than voters. After Lightroom itself the most popular applications are Topaz Studio, DxO OpticsPro and ON1 Photo RAW, each used by around 20-25% of all voters.
For more poll results visit the
Resources section
NEW POLL
Which image editing application(s) do you mainly use?
Please vote for your main image editing application(s) in our latest poll.
You can choose between various versions of Photoshop, Photoshop Elements
and PaintShop Pro as well as vote for seven other applications, e.g. Affinity
Photo, and an "Other" option. There was a similar poll 1.5 years
ago, but only for the first three tools. As several new versions and applications
have been released since then it was time to redo this poll and see what
has changed.
Please participate in this poll by visiting the
Main page...
THE DISCUSSION FORUMS
Here are the latest posts from The Plugin Site Forums:
PhotoWiz Editor (the possible future of PhotoWiz)
KPT3 Spheroid Designer
pnjnca wrote: "Dug out my ancient KPT3 Spheroid Designer: Enabled
mutations and hit the preview window for a preview of the most current
mutation. Is there any way to constrain that current mutation shown in
preview so it is the one that actually applies to the image? As I click
to leave the preview window the mutations continue to evolve so the actual
apply is never the same as was being shown in the preview. It's been so
darned long I cannot recall if it was even possible to constrain, and
am fast running out of keystroke combinations to try."
Read More...
Feel free to post comments or start a discussion topic at
The Plugin Site Forum
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS
HEIC for Windows, InPixio Photo Editor, PhotoDemon, BirdFont
HEIC/HEIF is a new format introduced with iOS 11 that only requires half
the disk space of JPEG. HEIC for Windows allows you viewing
these files with Windows Picture Viewer as well as use them in Windows
Explorer and MS Office. There is also an Explorer context menu item for
converting HEIC to JPEG. By the way, a commercial tool that also supports
HEIC/HEIF under Windows is Zoner Photo Studio X. Adobe only supports the
format on Apple OSes.
Visit
website...
The free version of the InPixio Photo Editor (for Windows) was developed for enhancing photos that are meant
to be shared on social media. It offers effect presets, crop preset, sliders
and curves for manual adjustment as well as frame effects. The commercial
version includes more features.
Visit website...
PhotoDemon is an open source image
editing tool (for Windows) with a more traditional UI and a layers feature.
Other features include 100 image effects, macro recording, batch processing
and presets for all tools. It is localized to more than 20 languages.
Visit website...
BirdFont (for Win/Mac/Linux) is a
font desig tool, which exports TTF, EOT and SVG fonts. You can open existing
font files for editing, create a font from scratch, trace letters or import
SVG files. BirdFont offers many vector drawing tools for designing each
letter. BirdFont is free to use as long as the created fonts are released
under an open font license. A commercial license is rather inexpensive,
but updates are limited to one year.
Visit website...
For more free plugins and tools, please visit the
Resources section
GRAPHICS NEWS
Photoshop CC 2018, Affinity Photo 1.6, nik Plugins acquired by DxO
The latest CC 2018 edition of Photoshop offers a new
brush preset management, brush stroke smoothing and paint symmetry, a
new curvature pen tool and various typographic enhancements. For beginners
there are rich tool tips and a new Learn panel available. Lightroom users
can now access their Lightroom photos from the Photoshop start screen
and panorama photographers benefit from a new spherical panorama workflow.
There were also smaller improvements added like copy & paste of multiple
layers, improved image resizing, better PNG compression, various performance
improvements and some enhancements for retouching tools.
Visit
website...
Version 1.6 of Affinity Photo (for Win/Mac) offers a
performance boost concerning speed and working with large files. There
is also a new light user interface option, a stroke stabilization mode
and better support for Photoshop plugins. Other new features include a
new font chooser, new Glyph browser, an "align to key items"
feature, custom brush wet edges, outlier stacking mode, PDF export as
well as text placement improvements.
Visit website...
At the end of October Google sold the Nik
Collection to DxO Optics. DxO plans to release a new “Nik
Collection 2018 Edition” mid 2018. In the meantime DxO already included
the Nik U Point technology in the new DxO PhotoLab software, the successor
of DxO Optics Pro. You can still download the free Nik Collection by leaving
your email address. However, it would not be surprising if the free plugins
would disappear as soon as the new commercial version becomes available.
Visit website...
Visit website...
