Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugin Newsletter - February/March 2019
CONTENTS
ELEMENTSXXL 6.03 FOR WINDOWS:
Many Improvements, Bug Fixes
CAMERAXXL 1.05 FOR WINDOWS: Support for Camera Raw 11.2, Bug Fixes
METARAW 3.04 FOR WIN/MAC: Support for new cameras
REVIEW: Luminar 3
POLL RESULTS: What percentage of your time do you spend in Lightroom versus Photoshop (Elements)?
NEW POLL: Which product updates from The Plugin Site would you like to see released soon?
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: Flaming Pear Freebies, Gravit Designer, MediBang Paint Pro, digiKam 6
GRAPHICS NEWS: Electra, CorelDRAW 2019
Dear Reader,
I was probably a bit unfair to complain about too many companies imitating Lightroom in the editorial of the last newsletter. In fact, Adobe is the big giant in the image software business. No other company has a chance to overtake it. Corel and Jasc, which probably had the best chance, did not manage to do it in 25 years. Macromedia merged with Adobe, and Affinity will fail. So all of the companies in the "Adobe imitation business" (including The Plugin Site) are orientated on the big leader Adobe and try to provide viable software alternatives. Almost all are rather small companies without huge resources and can only occupy tiny pieces of the market.
When Adobe unveiled the subscription-only CC model in 2013, they knew (because of good research) that they would be able to pull through with it, even if much bigger companies like Microsoft would not even dare to think about such a step. So the most logical step for us smaller companies would have been to buy as much Adobe shares as possible in order to profit from Adobe grabbing an even larger part of the image software market and to hedge potential loses in our own businesses. The result until today would have been a 600% gain in invested capital. Unfortunately I did not have this insight back in 2013. So back to square one and providing software alternatives for the relatively few people who appreciate it.
The only solacing thought I have is that the people working for Adobe do not have as much fun and satisfaction producing software than we smaller companies have :-). We do not have to enjoy the inhibiting bureaucracy of big companies. As I once said jokingly, Adobe could fire the whole Photoshop Elements department, because I would be able to produce each new Photoshop Elements update on my own. But where would be the fun in having to deploy the feature ideas of one year over the next ten years and releases?
Kind regards,
Harald Heim
ELEMENTSXXL 6.03 FOR WINDOWS
Many Improvements, Bug Fixes
Photo Credits: Opolja, Chunhahca / Dreamstime
Version 6.03 of ElementsXXL features bug fixes and improvements for the HistogramXXL/Scopes panel, Curves, Lighting Effects, Auto Saturation, Render, Replace Background as well as localization enhancements.
ElementsXXL for Windows adds up to 1080 powerful features to Photoshop Elements 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 demo version visit the
ElementsXXL Page
CAMERAXXL 1.05 FOR WINDOWS
Support for Camera Raw 11.2, Bug Fixes
There were two updates of CameraXXL in the last two months. Version 1.04 added support for Camera Raw 11.2 for Photoshop Elements 2019. The new CameraXXL 1.05 fixes problems with the UI, key shortcuts and Reset features. When editing non-raw files, CameraXXL now correctly sets the color temperature and tint settings. The trial version now runs for another 14 days even if it already expired before, so you can test it again.
CameraXXL adds up to 100 new features to Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop Elements. It allows applying Adobe Camera Raw as a filter in Photoshop Elements. CameraXXL additionall enables users of Photoshop Elements to install a newer version of Camera Raw than provided by the Photoshop Elements update mechanism.
For more information and a demo version visit the
CameraXXL Page
METARAW 3.04 FOR WIN/MAC
Support for new cameras
MetaRaw 3.04 supports DNG Converter 11.2 and the MetaRaw Converter is able to correctly convert raw files from various new cameras and phones. It also fixes a problem with smart objects, which previously prevented them from being edited with ElementsXXL.
In case you need to open Canon EOS RP raw files with MetaRaw, you can download and install the beta version of DNG Converter 11.2.1. The next MetaRaw 3.05 update will offer installation support for the final version of DNG Converter 11.2.1.
MetaRaw extends the functionality of the Adobe Camera Raw plugin in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. It lets you open camera raw files with Adobe Camera Raw, which are normally not supported by it, and allows applying Adobe Camera Raw to image layers. In Photoshop Elements MetaRaw provides automatic lens correction and chromatic aberration removal features for Adobe Camera Raw. Additionally MetaRaw includes its own raw converter, which has several advantages over Adobe Camera Raw.
For more information and a trial version visit the
MetaRaw Page
REVIEW
Luminar 3
After two years Kay Michael Kuhnlein has finally found another piece of software that motivated him to write a review. He was intrigued by Skylum Luminar's possibilities and fast image editing workflow.
Read the full review here:
Luminar review
POLL RESULTS
What percentage of your time do you spend in Lightroom versus Photoshop (Elements)?
The previous poll about Lightroom vs Photoshop received 137 votes. Here are the results:
100% Lightroom: 4%
90% Lightroom: 10%
80% Lightroom: 7%
70% Lightroom: 2%
60% Lightroom: 4%
50% Lightroom/Photoshop: 6%
60% Photoshop: 1%
70% Photoshop: 2%
80% Photoshop: 4%
90% Photoshop: 10%
100% Photoshop 50%
With The Plugin Site concentrating on Photoshop plugins mostly it is not surprising to see that 2/3 of the voters mainly use Photoshop. As only 15% of all votes are in the middle (70%-50%-70%) area, both camps seem to be quite divided. The highest vote on the Lightroom side fell to "90% Lightroom / 10% Photoshop" whereas the largest number of people voted for "100% Photoshop". 75% of the Photoshop aficionados are content to use Photoshop alone whereas only 15% of the Lightroom fans rely on Lightroom alone. Lightroom is probably used for image management as well as quick & dirty enhancements whereas Photoshop is required for more demanding and complex image editing tasks.
For more poll results visit the
Resources section
NEW POLL
Which product updates from The Plugin Site would you like to see released soon?
The new poll asks you to vote for one or more product updates that you want to see released by The Plugin Site. Hopefully this will give us a better idea on what to concentrate next. You can choose between:
ElementsXXL 7.0
LayersXXL 2.0
CameraXXL 2.0
ActionsXXL 2.0
FilterHub 2.0
ColorWasher 4.0
FocalBlade 3.0
LightMachine 3.0
ContrastMaster 2.0
BWStyler 3.0
Plugin Galaxy 4.0
Edge & Frame Galaxy 2.0
Harrys Filters 5.0
You are welcome to participate in this poll by voting at
Main page...
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS
Flaming Pear Freebies, Gravit Designer, MediBang Paint Pro, digiKam 6
The Flaming Pear Freebies collection contains two new plugins called "Hyperbolic Disc" and "Hyperbolic Square". They turn a square seamless tile into a so-called hyperbolic tessellation, which means that the seamless pattern is repeated and made smaller and smaller towards the image borders.
Visit
website...
Gravit Designer is a full-featured vector application (for Win/Mac/Linux/Chrome). It can be used for screen design, icon design, presentations, illustration, print and app design. It can export as PDF, SVG or sliced images.
Visit website...
MediBang Paint Pro is a free painting and comic creation software (for Win/Mac). It offers layers, more than 50 brushes , snap guides, comic panel creation, page management, 800 pre-made tones, fonts and backgrounds as well as collaborative features.
Visit website...
digiKam 6 is an open-source image editing and management application (for Win/Mac/Linux). It now offers full support for video files, improved EXIF support, a time-stamp patching tool and web service export features.
Visit website...
For more free plugins and tools, please visit the
Resources section
GRAPHICS NEWS
Electra, CorelDRAW 2019
Richard Rosenman released Electra, which is a Photoshop plugin (for Windows) for generating electric rays, lightning bolts, electrical charges, power currents and more.
Visit
website...
The CorelDRAW Suite 2019 is finally available for MacOS after being 30 years exclusive to Windows. The new release offers new non-destructive bitmap and vector effects, more control over objects, layers and pages, an improved pixel workflow as well as CorelDRAW mobile app.
Visit website...
