Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugin Newsletter - October/November 2019
CONTENTS
ELEMENTSXXL 7.0 FOR WINDOWS:
200 new features, Support for Photoshop Elements 2020
ADJUSTSHOP 1.01 FOR WINDOWS: Many Improvements, Support for Photoshop Elements 2020
METARAW 3.06 FOR WIN/MAC: Support for New Camera Models and Photoshop Elements 2020
MORE UPDATES FOR WIN/MAC: Support for Photoshop Elements 2020
POLL RESULTS: What screen resolution do you use for image editing?
NEW POLL: Which versions of these image editing applications do you use?
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: Redfield Saturation EQU, AlphaPlugins Laplacian Blend, Red Eye Pilot & EXIF Pilot
GRAPHICS NEWS: Photoshop Elements 2020, PaintShop Pro 2020, macOS Catalina Problems
Dear Reader,
Version 7 of ElementsXXL took a bit longer to release this year, but is finally here. It includes a lot of new functionality, e.g. editing adjustment layers on the Adjustments panel, a Range Adjust filter and adjustment layer, new color controls, sophisticated pen tools, 36 new blend modes and a dark mode. Check below for more details. Many of these new features pave the way for many new features in future upgrades of our plugins.
We plan to work on various upgrades of our plugins next year and still have plenty of new ideas for ElementsXXL 8. So the next 12 months will be dedicated to making existing plugins even better thus making Photoshop and Photoshop Elements even more feature-rich.
By the way, if you use a Mac, please check out the News section below about problems of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements with macOS 10.15 Catalina. We also provided instructions for using our plugins with macOS Catalina in the Download Center on our web site.
Kind regards,
Harald Heim
ELEMENTSXXL 7.0 FOR WINDOWS
200 new features, Support for Photoshop Elements 2020
Photo Credits: Opolja & Chunhahca/Dreamstime
Version 7 of ElementsXXL offers as usual 200 new features and support for the latest Photoshop Elements 2020 version. The main new features are editing ElementsXXL adjustments layers on the Adjustments panel, a Range Adjust filter and adjustment layer for selectively adjusting the tone and color of an image area, a Color Balance feature with six new intuitive color controls, a Pen Pro feature with 7 different pen tools for creating and editing paths and shapes and a Content-Aware Fill dialog for producing a better content-aware fill result.
Additionally ElementsXXL 7 also provides Fade/Blend Pro features with 36 new blend modes, opacity values beyond 100% and masking features, frequency separation with 8 new filters, 13 new channels for the Curves adjustment layer, 265 new presets, a Paste Smart Object command as well as a Dark Mode and slider styles. A large number of smaller improvements were also implemented.
ElementsXXL for Windows adds up to 1300 powerful features to Photoshop Elements that were previously only available in Photoshop. ElementsXXL bridges the gap between Photoshop Elements and Photoshop and greatly enhances the image editing experience in Photoshop Elements.
For more information and a trial version visit the
ElementsXXL Page
ADJUSTSHOP 1.01 FOR WINDOWS
Many Improvements, Support for Photoshop Elements 2020
Photo Credits: studio10artur/Pond5
AdjustShop 1.01 is now compatible with ElementsXXL 7 and Photoshop Elements 2020. It also offers a whole list of bug fixes and smaller enhancements. Tonal Adjust now supports selections and Match Color works with a single image too. The Curves dialog now shows all edited curves as overlays independent of the currently selected channel. Some features also display a progress bar and keep their settings even after exiting Photoshop (Elements).
AdjustShop adds up to 400 new features to Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. It includes 700 presets, 24 new filters, 10 new fill layers and 11 new adjustment layers. The features are included as new menu items and dialogs, so they seamlessly integrate into the user interface. AdjustShop can be used in Photoshop CS2-CS6, CC and higher as well as Photoshop Elements 11 and higher.
For more information and a trial version visit the
AdjustShop Page
METARAW 3.06 FOR WIN/MAC
Support for New Camera Models and Photoshop Elements 2020
Version 3.06 of MetaRaw fixes an incompatibility with Photoshop Elements 2020, which was introduced by Adobe and makes older versions of MetaRaw as good as unusable with Photoshop Elements 2020. It now supports DNG Converter 11.4.1. The built-in MetaRaw Converter supports more than 25 new camera models.
For more information visit the
MetaRaw Page
MORE UPDATES FOR WIN/MAC
Support for Photoshop Elements 2020
We have released updates of ElementsXXL for Mac as well as the Windows versions of LayersXXL, CameraXXL, ActionsXXL and FilterHub. They are needed to make these plugins work correctly with Photoshop Elements 2020. Previous versions of these products are not able to detect the main Photoshop Elements 2020 window, which makes them unusable in Photoshop Elements 2020.
In the case of LayerXXL 1.57 four new fixes and improvements were additionally implemented. CameraXXL 1.06 also supports installing Camera Raw 11.4 into Photoshop Elements 2019 and 2020.
For more information and trial versions visit the
ElementsXXL Mac Page
LayersXXL Page
CameraXXL Page
ActionsXXL Page
FilterHub Page
POLL RESULTS
Which image editing application(s) do you mainly use?
The latest poll asked about your screen resolution. 126 people voted with the following results:
1. Full HD 47%
2. 4K/UHD 25%
3. QHD 13%
4. HD 6%
5. 5K 5.5%
6. 8K 2%
7. Lower 1%
So almost half of all voters still use a Full HD screen. It has only dropped by 2.5% since 2015. Back then only 6.5% used a 4K screen, which has dramatically increased to 25% today. 5K and 8K screens are still rare with 7.5%. It seems that many people who had a screen with lower than Full HD resolution upgraded directly to 4K.
For more poll results visit the
Resources section
NEW POLL
Which versions of these image editing applications do you use?
A poll about various versions of image editing applications was last conducted in January 2018. So it is time to do it again and see what has changed. You can choose between versions of Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, PaintShop Pro and Affinity Photo, which are currently the main image editing applications.
You are welcome to participate in this poll by voting at
Main page...
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS
Saturation EQU, Laplacian Blend, Red Eye Pilot & EXIF Pilot
Saturation EQU (for Windows) from Redfield is a hue and saturation adjustment plugin with a 12-channel equalizer. It displays a saturation histogram. It is meant for correcting oversaturated images, human skin, landscapes, architecture images and more.
Visit
website...
The Laplacian Blend plugin (for Win/Mac) by AlphaPlugins excels at blending images with natural objects like hairs, grass, bushes, human faces etc. It uses a laplacian pyramid for seamlessly mixing different images parts with different opacity values according to image details. The result looks organic without a noticable transition between the blended images.
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Red Eye Pilot (for Windows) is a free standalone program and plugin for removing red eyes. It only takes two clicks, one on each of the red eyes. Exif Pilot is a free tool for viewing, editing and creating EXIF data. It supports various image formats including camera raw files.
Visit website...
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For more free plugins and tools, please visit the
Resources section
GRAPHICS NEWS
Photoshop Elements 2020, PaintShop Pro 2020, macOS Catalina Problems
Photoshop Elements 2020 includes an automatic skin smoothing filter, an auto photo colorization filter, one-click subject selection, support for HEIF/HEVC files under Windows, new guided edits, new autocreations, faster facial recognition in the Elements Organizer and an enhanced home screen.
Overall, it is probably worth getting version 2020, especially if you only have 2018 or older. Photoshop Elements 2020 seems to launch faster than previous versions.
You usually get Photoshop Elements with a big discount in online shops compared to the adobe.com price. Better not buy it in the App Store or MS Store if you want to avoid plugin incompatibilities or overpay.
Visit
website...
PaintShop Pro 2020 (for Windows) offers a new SmartClone feature for merging different image elements into one image, a simplified Photography Workspace with touch support and a Refine Brush tool for selecting objects. The UI looks more and more like Photoshop.
Visit website...
Adobe warns against using older versions of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements under macOS 10.15 Catalina. Even the latest Photoshop and Photoshop Elements version causes various problems, e.g. plugins not working, problems when saving files and a color picker crash. Workarounds are described at the links below.
Additionally Catalina does not support 32-bit programs, so if you still use some older plugins, they will not work anymore. It makes a lot of sense to install macOS 10.15 Catalina on a different SSD partition to be able to run an older version of macOS if needed.
Visit website...
Visit website...
