Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugin Newsletter - February 2006
Contents
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EDITORIAL
PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT: B/W Styler
PLUGIN GUIDE #3: Rosenman Filters
POLL RESULTS: Which subjects do you like to photograph the most?
NEW POLL: How many of the Photoshop plugins that you regularly use are commercial?
THE DISCUSSION FORUMS: Color Stripe Plugin, Shine Plugin, CD Cover, Image Arc, Aquarium Background
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: Mosaic Toolkit 2, Topaz DeJPEG, Foto Fix Optimizer, Mehdi Fur, Amphisoft Filters
GRAPHICS NEWS: Camera RAW 3.3, LightRoom Beta 2, CS2 Patch, DFT Snap, Exposure, CorelDRAW X3
PRODUCTS FROM THE PLUGIN SITE
ABOUT THE PLUGIN SITE
Hi,
A lot B/W plugins are already available, so we thought we should announce our next PhotoWiz product called B/W Styler some time before it is released. So if you are looking for a B/W plugin and like our current PhotoWiz plugins, it may be worth to wait a bit for our new B/W Styler product. It would be nice to hear what you think about this product and if you have any suggestions for more features (Please don't reply to this email but use our contact form on the website). See below for more details.
Sorry to anyone who had problems making use of the free plugin offer from Kodak/ASF. Seems that the offer was only meant for European users, which wasn't stated on the promotion web site. Kodak got cold feet and stopped the campaign prematurely after the promotion code was made public and they got much more downloads than expected.
Sincerely,
Harald Heim
PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT: B/W Styler
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B/W Styler is a Photoshop plugin that will be released in Spring 2006. We have worked on it for more than a year until we decided on a final concept for the product. We think that B/W Styler will be the ultimate tool for B/W conversion and B/W photo styling, because it goes beyond what other available tools can do.
B/W Styler will simulate the whole workflow of B/W photography from shooting the photo, processing it in the lab to framing the end result. It lets you recreate the look of films, lens filters and lab effects that are popular in analog B/W photography, but it even goes further. Starting with a color photo B/W Styler lets you produce stunning B/W images that are not possible with B/W film. B/W Styler uses the whole contrast and spectrum of color photos to achieve dramatic B/W images. With B/W Styler dull color photos can be transformed to interesting B/W pictures. Additionally you can enrich B/W photos by colorizing them, manipulating brightness and contrast, masking certain image areas, adding soft focus and glow effects, simulating film grain, applying lab effects and framing the image.
For more information and sample images see
http://thepluginsite.com/products/photowiz/bwstyler/
PLUGIN GUIDE #3: Rosenman Filters
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The third article in this series concentrates on the 23 freeware plugins of Richard Rosenman. There is a small introduction with installation tips and three short tutorials. They show you how to achieve diffuse glow effects, correct vignetting and lens distortion and how to create fun images. See yourself at
http://thepluginsite.com/knowhow/pluginguide/rosenmanfilters/
POLL RESULTS: Which subjects do you like to photograph the most?
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Here are the results of the latest poll with the question "Which of the following subjects do you like to photograph the most?":
1. Landscape 316 votes
2. Flowers 211 votes
3. Animals 157 votes
4. People 128 votes
5. Light Phenomenons (Sunset, Fireworks, Lights) 120 votes
6. Family & Friends 117 votes
7. Architecture 109 votes
8. Small Objects (Macro) 83 votes
9. Women 82 votes
10. Portraits 80 votes
11. Children 68 votes
12. Night Scenes 61 votes
13. Still Life or Abstract Details 59 votes
13. Textures & Patterns 59 votes
15. Events (Sport, Shows, Weddings) 52 votes
16. Other 42 votes
17. Technological Themes 26 votes
18. Underwater 17 votes
19. Astronomical Objects 16 votes
20. Men 15 votes
Landscapes, flowers and animals seem to be the most attractive subjects for most people. It is surprising to not see People among the Top 3, but I guess its votes were distributed among other topics, e.g. Family & Friends, Woman and Children. Next comes light phenomena, probably mostly sunsets, architecture and macro photography. It is a bit sad to see "Men" on the last rank, so I would like to appeal to you to find some interesting men in your surroundings and make photos of them. They will certainly be grateful if someone finally makes nice photos of them :-).
For more poll results, please visit the Know-How section at
http://thepluginsite.com/knowhow/
NEW POLL: How many of the Photoshop plugins that you regularly use are commercial?
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There were already polls about how many plugins people use or how much people would pay for plugins, but there was no poll that asked for the relation of freeware to commercial plugins. In the latest poll we want to find out if you use more freeware or more commercial plugins on a regular base.
Please cast your vote at the bottom of
http://www.thepluginsite.com/
THE DISCUSSION FORUMS: Color Stripe Plugin, Shine Plugin, CD Cover, Image Arc, Aquarium Background
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Here are the latest interesting post from the discussion forums:
SabraKhan wrote: "I am looking for a Photoshop plugin that will allow me to create different colored stripes of my choosing for backgrounds. Either stripes of the same size or alternating pattern of different size stripes as in fabric..."
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1933
marathonwt wrote: "I'm looking for a plugin for photoshop [for Mac] that is like the Affter Effects plugin shine. If your not fimiliar whith that it goes around text and acts as a light shinning from behind the text. ..."
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1977
rendez2k wrote: "As I use the CD_Utilities action (it makes CD templates), does anybody know the best way to get a data CD/DVD directory listing into Photoshop to make covers? I think it could make a cool plugin if anybody wants a challenge!"
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1910
pyrodan wrote: "I'm looking for a way to shape a photoshop image into an arc... Similar to the way you can fit text to a path, only with the entire image.
"
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1974
chaitereye wrote: "I'm trying to make an underwater or aquarium background I can insert fish, mermaids, etc. into. Is there an easy way to do that?"
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1946
For more interesting discussions please visit
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: Mosaic Toolkit 2, Topaz DeJPEG, Foto Fix Optimizer, Mehdi Fur, AmphiSoft Plugins
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Version 2.01 of Mosaic Toolkit from Lance Otis offers new features and bug fixes. For example there are two new mosaic styles called triangles and quilt and the cell size can be adjusted horizontally and vertically.
http://thepluginsite.com/resources/lotis/
Topaz DeJPEG 1.3 is a freeware plugin for removing JPEG blockiness, fringes and other compression artifacts in JPEG images while maintaining image details and clarity.
http://www.topazlabs.com/download.html
Foto Fix Optimizer is a plugin from Jim Clatfelter which lets you adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, gamma, color balance and focus from one dialog. An opacity slider allows more precise adjustments. There is an option to save and recall your favorite settings and a Reset button. The plugin is meant for quick and simple adjustments and not for very difficult ones.
The Fur plugin from the Mehdi collection was updated to Version 2. It distributes lines or circles over the whole image.
The 10 AmphiSoft Plugins have been updated with a bigger preview and some minor bug fixes.
GRAPHICS NEWS: Camera RAW 3.3, LightRoom Beta 2, CS2 Patch, DFT Snap, Exposure, CorelDRAW X3
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Camera RAW and Lightroom Beta 2
Adobe released the final version of the Camera RAW 3.3 plugin with support for the 17 new camera models, an enhanced Bayer demosaic algorithm and a few smaller improvements. Adobe also published Beta 2 of Lightroom, which supports the new intel-based Apple computers. A Windows version of Lightroom will be available at the end of 2006 after the final Mac version.
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3267
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/
Security Patches for CS 2
Adobe issued security patches for the CS 2 suite. It seems that the file and folder permissions for Photoshop, Illustrator and Adobe Help Center can be compromised, providing the ability for others on shared systems to replace the program files thus gaining complete access to the system.
http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/332644.html
DFT Snap
Digital Film Tools released Snap for Photoshop. Snap is an interactive image cutout tool using a coarse to fine editing approach.
http://www.digitalfilmtools.com/snap/
Alien Skin Exposure
The new Exposure plugin from Alienskin tries to recreate the look of traditional B/W and color films. It lets you adjust exposure and contrast, colorize, soften, add film grain and more from one interface.
http://www.alienskin.com/exposure/
CorelDRAW X3
The latest version of Corel's graphics suite features more than 40 new features and 400 enhancements, e.g. PowerTRACE for bitmap to vector conversion, an Image Adjustment Lab with controls for color and tone corrections and an enhanced Cutout Lab for creating more accurate selections.
