Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugin Newsletter - September 2006
Contents
========
EDITORIAL
THE PLUGIN SITE UPDATES: New Plugin Commander Installation
POLL RESULTS: How much time do you usually spend on correcting and enhancing
one digital photo?
NEW POLL: Which application do you mostly use for correcting and enhancing your photos?
THE DISCUSSION FORUMS: Water Spray Plugin, Copying a Palette, Index print, KPT 6 Goo Problems
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: Pog's Lab Blender, Dynasty Plugins, Bryce 5, Photoshop
SpeedUp, JPEGCrops
GRAPHICS NEWS: OptiPaint, Blow Up, imageSynth, PD Particles, Filter Forge Update, SizeFixer XL
PRODUCTS FROM THE PLUGIN SITE
ABOUT THE PLUGIN SITE
Hi,
Unlike announced in the previous issue B/W Styler will only be released by mid or late September. The additional time is really necessary to hunt down and fix bugs. Sorry for the additional delay. Version 2.01 of ColorWasher for Mac, which will feature a resizable window, is also in preparation.
Otherwise, enjoy the latest issue of the Plugin Newsletter. I hope I was able to compile some interestings bits and pieces from the plugin world as usual.
Kind regards,
Harald Heim
www.thepluginsite.com
THE PLUGIN SITE UPDATES: New Plugin Commander Installation
------------------------------------------------
As more and more people reported problems with installing Plugin Commander,
we decided to repackage it with a new installation program. The software
itself hasn't been changed, so only if you had problems installing Plugin
Commander Light, please redownload it from
http://thepluginsite.com/products/picopro/
Users of the commercial Pro Version can contact us
for a download with their order details at
http://thepluginsite.com/about/contact.htm
POLL RESULTS: How much time do you usually spend on
correcting and enhancing one digital photo?
------------------------------------------------
More than 320 people voted in the latest poll about the average time they
spend on enhancing one photo. Here are the results:
1. 5 minutes 21% 67
2. 30 minutes 16% 51
3. 15 minutes 13% 41
4. 2 minutes 10% 33
10 minutes 10% 33
6. 2 hours 7%
7. 1 hour 6%
8. 45 minutes 5%
9. 4 hours 4%
10. More than a day 3%
11. 1 minute 2%
12. No time. I leave my photos as they are. 1%
Less than 1 minute. 1%
13. 8 hours 1%
70% of all people seem to spend 2 to 30 minutes on processing one photo and 18% invest 45 minutes to four hours. A small but noteworthy 3% work on one image more than a day. So correcting and enhancing photos seems to be quite important for most people, at least for the people who voted in this poll.
For more poll results, please visit the Know-How section
at
http://thepluginsite.com/knowhow/
NEW POLL: Which application do you mostly use for
correcting and enhancing your photos?
------------------------------------------------
In previous years we asked you about which image applications you use
for doing all kind of things. The latest poll will ask you which image
application you use for a specific task: the correction and enhancement
of digital photos. You can choose between 17 commercial and freeware tools
and an "Other" item.
Please cast your vote at the bottom of
http://www.thepluginsite.com/
THE DISCUSSION FORUMS: Water Spray Plugin, Copying a Palette, Index print,
KPT 6 Goo Problems
------------------------------------------------
Here some of the latest messages from The Plugin Site Discussion Forums:
Kali Autumn Lynn asked: "Does anyone know of
a plug-in that will simulate an image of water being sprayed on something
or someone? Is there a plug-in that can do this?"
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2229
Alell asked: "How can I copy a palette from a
photo in Photoshop? If Photoshop doesn't allow this, is there any application
that does?"
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2206
acampos wrote: "I want to find a plugin for Photoshop
(or software) to create thumbnails and arrange them on a CD label (25
- 36 Thumbnails/ CD label). I know I can do it manually but I have tons
of CDs and a I want to save time."
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2205
LordLogic wrote: "I had kpt6 goo in psp 8 and
everything was working fine but I decided to uninstall psp 8 and kpt 6
goo to upgrade to psp 10! Well, it didn't work ... so I uninstalled 10
AND reinstalled 8 and also kpt6 goo, now psp 8 works but kpt 6 goo doesn't!
... Any and all help or suggestions would be appreciated, LL"
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2223
For more interesting discussions please visit
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: Pog's Lab Blender, Dynasty Plugins, Bryce 5, Photoshop
SpeedUp, JPEGCrops
------------------------------------------------
Pog is working on a new plugin called Lab Blender. It basically does an overlay blend of the image with itself in Lab mode. The interface looks quite complex with its dozens of sliders, but you can use it as a toy and play a bit with it. For the latest Version 0.48 please click the "[FYI] Lab Blender minor update" link at
http://gopog.net/
Dynasty Software expanded their collection with 30 new Photoshop-compatible
plugins (for Windows). They mostly produce psychedelic patterns, colorful
gradients and noise effects. The plugins are quite simple, because they
were created with the old Filter Factory tool. The plugins are free, but
the author asks for a small donation if you like them.
http://www.dynastysoftwareusa.com/pages/plugin.htm
DAZ Productions Offers Bryce 5.0 (for Win/Mac), a 3D content creation
application, as a free download until September 6. Bryce 5 creates realistic
3D landscapes and animations. It also supports network rendering for saving
time by letting you render images on multiple computers.
http://www.daz3d.com/program/bryce/bryce5free.php
Photoshop SpeedUp (for Windows ) is a tool that decreases the time it
takes to load Adobe Photoshop by disabling unused plugins, fonts and presets
You can also set the memory usage and restore the original settings. Photoshop
SpeedUp works with Photoshop versions 3 to 8 (CS).
http://www.acropdf.com/
JPEGCrops (for Windows) provides lossless cropping with fixed aspects.
You can process single images or batch process whole folders. Apart from
cropping the JPEG files you can also losslessly rotate them. JPEGCrops
is freeware for private use only and is localized to various languages.
http://ekot.dk/programmer/JPEGCrops/
GRAPHICS NEWS: OptiPaint, Blow Up, imageSynth, PD
Particles, Filter Forge Update, SizeFixer XL
------------------------------------------------
The Light Strokes OptiPaint system is the first input device that lets
you use real paint brushes and other actual artist tools directly with
your favorite paint software. The package consists of a hi-speed USB input
device and Photoshop-compatible plugin. The product costs $2495 plus shipping.
http://www.optipaint.com/
Alienskin Blow Up is a Photoshop plugin for high quality image resizing.
It claims to be better than bicubic interpolation and any other third
party solution. Blow Up preserves smooth, crisp edges and lines, and creates
four times enlargements from any image without jagged artifacts or halos.
It includes features such as photo grain controls, enlargement-specific
sharpening, and supports even 32-bit images.
http://www.alienskin.com/blowup/
Luxology has now made a Photoshop plugin version of their imageSynth product
available. It generates high-resolution, tiling images from low-resolution
sources using advanced image synthesis algorithms. Manually or automatic
options can be used to generate the final image.
http://www.luxology.com/store/imageSynth.aspx
PD Particles (for Windows) is a software program for sketching, doodling, painting and drawing with particles. It is based on the award-winning particle painting system called OptiPustics, found also in Project Dogwaffle. PD Particles contains a number of natural fx brushes and can be used as a complete, self-contained painting program, although it is intended as a companion to your existing graphics tools.
http://www.thebest3d.com/pdp/
The updated public beta of the Filter Forge plugin now provides increased
speed and functionality. Filter Forge lets you combine filters for the
creation of seamless textures, visual effects, distortions, patterns and
backgrounds. New features include a zoomable workspace, four new blending
modes, new components, the ability to load and save PNG files and many
more. The final version is planned for autumn.
http://www.filterforge.com/
A Windows version of SizeFixer XL, which had only been available for the
Mac up to now, was made available by FixerLabs. It claims to enlarge images
up to 400% with no loss of sharpness. SizeFixer XL uses FixerLabs' patented
Super-Resolution technology and is designed for extreme enlargement of
8-and 16-bit images.
http://www.fixerlabs.com/New_Website/pages/sizefixerxl.htm
