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Plugin Newsletter - October 2008

 

Contents
========

EDITORIAL


COLORWASHER 2.03 FOR WINDOWS: Many Improvements and Bug Fixes

B/W STYLER 1.01 FOR MAC: Several New Features


POLL RESULTS: Do you use Lightroom as well as Photoshop for processing your photos?

NEW POLL: Will you upgrade to Photoshop CS4?

THE DISCUSSION FORUMS: Vista Plugin Problems, Photoshop Animation Problem, Creating a Ring, Adobe Bridge Problem


FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: Color Replacer, Color Balance, Variable Blurrinator, Flaming Pear Freebies, Photobie Design Studio

GRAPHICS NEWS: Camera RAW 4.6, Photoshop CS4, Paint Shop Pro X2 Ultimate, Filter Forge for Mac, Black & White Book, ACDSee Photo Manager 2009


PRODUCTS FROM THE PLUGIN SITE

ABOUT THE PLUGIN SITE

Dear Reader,

The big news this month is the release of Photoshop CS4. Unlike previous updates there seem to be rather few new features, but a very large amount of detail and workflow enhancements. So we thought it would be a good idea to do a poll and ask you if you plan to upgrade to CS4 or not. See below.

The Windows version of Photoshop CS4 is now also available as a 64bit Vista application. Unfortunately the 64bit version does not let you run the current 32bit Photoshop plugins, so there need to be special 64bit versions of them released. But as Photoshop CS4 is also available as a 32bit application, all current plugins can still be used with it. As long as Windows itself is released as a 32bit version, Photoshop will certainly be available as a 32bit application, too. However, many older plugins will probably never be available as 64bit versions, so it is foreseeable that they will not be usable anymore with future applications in maybe 5 to 10 years from now.

Kindest regards,
Harald Heim

http:/www.thepluginsite.com


COLORWASHER 2.03 FOR WINDOWS: Many Improvements and Bug Fixes
-----------------------------------

As with the other PhotoWiz plugins we have added some general improvements to ColorWasher, e.g. DEP compatibility, support for host memory management, improved host compatibility and avoiding problems with restricted user permissions. But we also changed a few controls in ColorWasher to bring it in line with the other PhotoWiz plugins, e.g. by adding a Mode combo box, an arrow-down button menu and an Auto Preview check box. Additionally the installation (including the Plugin Installer) and manual have been updated and improved.

For those who do not know ColorWasher yet: ColorWasher is a plugin for correcting the colors, contrast, exposure and saturation of 8bit and 16bit photos. It offers a wide range of automatic, semi-automatic and manual tools for correcting, enhancing and restoring photos. There is an Easy Mode as well as an Expert Mode.

Registered users will receive the update by email within the next 24 hours.

For more information and a demo version see
http://www.thepluginsite.com/products/photowiz/colorwasher/


B/W STYLER 1.01 FOR MAC: Several New Features and Fixes
-----------------------------------

B/W Styler is a plugin for B/W conversion, creating traditional B/W effects and styling B/W photos. It simulates the whole work flow of B/W photography from shooting a photo to processing it in the lab and framing the end result.

The latest Version 1.01 of B/W Styler for Mac includes several improvements known from the Windows Version 1.02 and 1.01. Multiple CPUs and hyperthreading processors are supported for certain effects, B/W film simulation is more precise and offers 22 additional film presets, 7 new general presets were added and the dialog is now also available in German language. Additionally switching between modes works faster, Clock Mode works reliable and placing the PowerPC as well as the Intel version in the Photoshop plugin folder does not produce a crash anymore.

Registered users will receive the update by email within the next 24 hours.

For more information and a demo version see
http://www.thepluginsite.com/products/photowiz/bwstyler/

POLL RESULTS: Do you use Lightroom as well as Photoshop for processing your photos?
-----------------------------------
337 people voted in the latest poll about their usage of Photoshop and Lightroom. Here are the results:

I only use Photoshop. 46%
I mainly use Photoshop and occasionally Lightroom. 11%
I use Photoshop and Lightroom evenly. 16%
I mainly use Lightroom and occasionally Photoshop. 15%
I only use Lightroom. 2%
I use neither of them. 10%

Almost half of all users seem to use Photoshop without Lightroom, but only 2% only use Lightroom. 10% of all voters use neither of them and probably another tool. If you ignore these 10% voters, the percentage of Photoshop-only users rises to 52%. The remaining half of the voters uses Photoshop as well as Lightroom with a small tendency towards Lightroom. Almost one fifth of all voters use Photoshop and Lightroom evenly.

For more poll results, please visit the Know-How section at
http://thepluginsite.com/knowhow/


NEW POLL: Will you upgrade to Photoshop CS4?
-----------------------------------
Concerning the massive amount of features already available in Photoshop it seems to get more and more difficult to add new features that have a strong appeal to many people. So we are interested to hear if you plan to upgrade to Photoshop CS4 or not.

Please vote at the bottom of the page at
http://www.thepluginsite.com/

THE DISCUSSION FORUMS: Vista Plugin Problems, Photoshop Animation Problem, Creating a Ring, Adobe Bridge Problem
-----------------------------------
Here are some of the latest posts from the discussion forum:

Vista Plugin Problems
mrswolf wrote: "I just got the new PSP x2 and i have vista when i went to download VM Natural it said unable to load the requested plug-in filter. The plug-in may not be installed properly or maybe missing files. (Plugin: sparkel.8bf) It works fine on my XP but dosn't want to on here. what do you suggest"
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3059

Photoshop Animation Problem
madonna wrote: "Well iv'e created a sig>saved it as a gif>imported my animation>got all my frames>put my sig at the bottom of the layers>clicked save for web/devices and when i come to save it,i get this error. I have 1gb.of memory by the way,so what's going wrong?"
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3056

Creating a Ring
MadMikkie wrote: "I was a frequent Paint.net user until I met PSP and reformatted my computer and didn't re-install it. Paint.net had a plugin called - I think - shape 3d that helped make fantastic rings. I cannot find a tutorial or a plugin that can give me the same effect, for PSP. I tried following a tutorial for CS3 to create one - but lost the plot completely."
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3054

Adobe Bridge Problem
pluckyfilly wrote: "I am having problems with Adobe Bridge and would like to know and understand if possible the reason why. First upload using a card reader and Vista on my PC was fine no problems 61 images. Second upload 135 images but the message I got using Bridge: "The backup destination folder is low on disk space and could not obtain all files from the device. Please select a different folder or clean up disk space and try again." ... have good space on my hard drive and on my ext drive with 2 gig of ram, spoken to a few online friends - so far not cracked the problem - if anybody has ideas that might throw light I would appreciate some help please."
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3060


For more interesting discussion please visit our forums at
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/

FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: Color Replacer, Color Balance, Variable Blurrinator, Flaming Pear Freebies, Photobie Design Studio
-----------------------------------

The new Color Replacer plugin (for Windows) from Martin Vicanek is meant as a replacement for Photoshop's Replace Color command. It claims to be more flexible as it lets you select source and target colors independently. It also lets you colorize gray areas, which can be used e.g. for recovering color in overexposed areas.

http://www.vicanek.de/plugins.htm


The new Color Balance plugin (for Windows) from Easy Filter is very similar to the Color Balance filter in Photoshop. It lets you change the image colors in the shadow, midtones and highlights regions separately. In works on 8 and 16 bit RGB images.

http://free.pages.at/easyfilter/filtermeister.html


Pog’s Variable Blurrinator (for Windows) was updated to Version 0.2 and supports Vista now. It offers controls for blur radius, opacity and responsiveness, which create blur and soft focus effects.

http://gopog.net/


Two plugins from the Flaming Pear Freebies (for Win/Mac) have been updated. Pixel Trash 1.6 includes some new convenience features and the dialog of the Mac version is resizable now. Additionally Kyoto Color was updated to Version 1.44

http://www.flamingpear.com/download.html


Photobie Design Studio (for Windows XP/Vista) is an application for photo editing, scrap booking, animation, screen capture and more. The latest version includes improved support for Photoshop plugins. It is free for personal use. Commercial usage requires registration. Photobie Design Studio requires .NET framework 3, but there is also an older version that only requires the .NET 1.1 framework and also runs under Windows 2000.

For the latest version 1.8.6 with enhanced Photoshop plugins support please use the following download link:
http://www.photobie.com/Download/PhotobieInstallerDS1_8_6.exe

The .NET 3 framework can be downloaded here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=10CC340B-F857-4A14-83F5-25634C3BF043&displaylang=en

The official web site is at
http://www.photobie.com/


For more free Photoshop plugins see:
http://www.thepluginsite.com/resources/freeps.htm
http://www.thepluginsite.com/resources/freeff.htm


GRAPHICS NEWS: Camera RAW 4.6, Photoshop CS4, Paint Shop Pro X2 Ultimate, Filter Forge for Mac, Black & White Book, ACDSee Photo Manager 2009
-----------------------------------

Adobe released Camera RAW 4.6, which is the last version that works with Photoshop CS3. The following new cameras are covered: Canon 1000D/Digital Rebel XS/EOS Kiss F, Canon 50D, Fuji FinePix IS Pro, Nikon D700, Nikon D90, Pentax K2000, Sigma DP1, Sony A900 plus a few others.

Windows: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4036
Mac: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4033


Adobe announced the Photoshop CS4 (for Win/Mac). The main new features and improvements are the following: The Windows version is now available as 32bit as well as 64bit applications; improved interface; content-aware scaling for intelligently stretching images; rotated canvas view; adjustment layers got their own panel; new mask panel for layer masks; the Color Range command was enhanced; on-image dragging for adjusting Curves, Black & White and Hue/Saturation adjustment layers; the Sponge, Dodge & Burn, Clone Stamp and Healing Brush tools were improved; 16-bit printing supported; lets you blend multiple shots into one; new Camera RAW features known from Lightroom 2 and many more.

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/


Corel announced Paint Shop Pro X2 Ultimate (for Windows). In addition to the standard package of Paint Shop Pro X2 it includes support for more than 250 camera raw formats, a background remover plugin and 150 new photo frames, photo edges and picture tubes. The package also contains a 2 GB USB flash drive, Painter Photo Essentials 4 and a media recovery software.

http://www.corel.com/


Filter Forge announced that a Mac version of the Filter Forge plugin will be available soon. Preordering is already possible. A public beta is planned before the end of the year.

http://www.filterforge.com/more/news/990.html


If you are interested in Black & White Photography, you should have a look at the book "Basics Photography: Working in Black & White" from David Prakel. It covers all aspects of black-and-white photography for both film and digital.

http://www.photopartners.co.uk/


ACD Systems unveiled ACDSee Photo Manager 2009 (for Windows), an organization and photo sharing software. It offers real-time viewing, management and editing of multiple image files.

http://www.acdsee.com/





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