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Plugin Newsletter - July 2002

 


SPONSOR AD: APOLLO 26 to release DEFCON DESIGN KIT
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GRAB YOUR GASMASK - Apollo 26 announces its first retail release, DEFCON, an eclectic mix of DIGITAL ELEMENTS for designers and hobbyists. The DEFCON Design Kit will feature fonts, icons, digital illustrations, Photoshop Art, and sounds. It will go on sale Aug. 20. Each Design Kit will come packaged in a LIMITED-EDITION collector's tin with goodies such as a T-shirt and postcards. Only 199 of the Design Kits will be sold, ensuring their rarity and collectability.
Visit http://www.apollo26.com/ for more information.

 

Contents
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EDITORIAL

HYPERTYLE 1.0: Our latest Texture Effects Plugin
GALAXY CONTEST 2002 UPDATE

POLL RESULTS: What would you like to see on The Plugin Site in future?
NEW IN THE DISCUSSION FORUMS
REVIEWS: flAIR

FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS
GRAPHICS NEWS from www.Graphics.com

PRODUCTS FROM THE PLUGIN SITE
THE PLUGIN SITE MAP

 


Dear Reader,

I was happy to see many artists participating in the Galaxy Contest 2002. The Contest Gallery is bursting with more than 500 images only after 4 weeks and two more months to go. There is enough bandwidth and web space for some thousand images more, so don't hesitate to send your cool images.

During the latest two weeks we've been working at full steam on our latest product called HyperTyle, a texture effects plugin, to get it ready until July 31. When the work on HyperTyle started in November 2001, probably no one thought that it would get that packed with features.

I got the idea for such a plugin two or three years ago while investigating other texture plugins which lacked some useful features. I also noticed that there was no single plugin package which combined most of the possible texture effects. Therefore I think that HyperTyle will be a useful addition to the plugin world by closing this gap. There's probably no plugin available which lets you apply so many effects simultaneously without leaving the plugin dialog.


Stay creative and have a great summer time!
Harald Heim
----------------------------
The Plugin Site - Your guide to image and video effects
http://ThePluginSite.com/

 


HYPERTYLE 1.0: Our latest Texture Effects Plugin
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After 9 months of work, we have finally released a new filter plugin called HyperTyle. We think that it is one of the most sophisticated texture plugins available. HyperTyle is a sophisticated plugin for generating texture, surface, paint, erosion, transparency, edge, frame and shadow effects. These main effects are based on seamless textures, so there are unlimited variations possible.

Additionally there are also zoom, rotation, metal, chrome, pop-art, warp, mirror, blur, noise, blending and other secondary effects which can be simultaneously applied to the seamless texture which is used for the main effect. Up to 20 different effects can be applied at the same time without leaving the plugin dialog.

The download version of HyperTyle is delivered with 128 seamless photo, synthetic and painting textures. The CD version has 1000+ seamless textures including 100 high resolution ones. You can also use other textures in BMP format in HyperTyle e.g. self-created textures, textures downloaded from the web or textures from various image applications like Paint Shop Pro.

The dialog of HyperTyle is skinned and consists of a large preview on the left side and a tab sheet control with all filter parameters on the right side. HyperTyle is quite easy and intuitive to use. For beginners there's even a Tutorial Mode which displays explanations and tips when the mouse pointer moves over a control. A preset feature lets you save effect settings and reuse them later. 100 useful preset files are already delivered with HyperTyle.

For downloading a demo version and for more information, please visit
http://thepluginsite.com/products/hypertyle/

 


GALAXY CONTEST 2002 UPDATE
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Thanks to everyone who participated in the Galaxy Contest 2002. An unbelievable number of over 570 images and animations has been uploaded to the Contest Gallery so far. As usual there are images from beginners as well as images from professional artists. The Contest Gallery is definitely worth a visit to see some of the great artwork.

As expected there have also been various problems: Many people uploaded too large images (with a bad compression/quality consideration) or images which were much larger than 800x600 pixels. These images were recompressed or sized down. There were also a few cases of using copyright material without permission and one case of visualized violence. Of course those images were removed. If you find any images that violate the contest rules, we appreciate notifying us accordingly.

There are still a lot of images in the Contest Gallery without an author name and email address. If you didn't add your name to your creation, please do so as soon as possible. At the end of the contest these anonymous images will be removed and won't be able to win a prize.

If you want to raise your chances to win one of the 70 prizes, I suggest that you consider submitting an image to the category "Nicest Interface Design". There are only 20+ images submitted there, whereas there are 50 to 100 images submitted to the other categories.

The Galaxy Contest 2002 page is located at
http://thepluginsite.com/gallery/galaxy2002/

 


POLL RESULTS: What would you like to see on The Plugin Site in future?
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A total of more than 500 votes has been submitted to our latest poll. Here are the results of the question "What would you like to see on The Plugin Site in future?":

1. More freeware from us 21%
2. More detailed reviews of freeware plugins and tools 15%
Tutorials about using plugins 15%
3. Tutorials for various image applications 12%

4. More news about commercial plugins and tools 6%
5. More Premiere/After Effects stuff 5%
More Contests 5%
More reviews of commercial products 5%
6. Extended Resources section of our web site 4%
Extended Gallery section 4%
More commercial products from us 4%
7. Improved Graphics Galaxy Search Engine 3%

Thanks for your votes. We will doubtlessly consider these results when adding new things to www.thepluginsite.com.

Previous poll results can be viewed at
http://thepluginsite.com/knowhow/

 


NEW IN THE DISCUSSION FORUMS
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ArendsArt asked: "Does Graphic software in general and plug-ins specifically make creating artwork too easy? I showed some of my digital "paintings" to a group of people and one of the guys said, "Oh yes, Photoshop has some good filters in it too." The implication seemed to be that "anybody can do stuff like this nowadays." So my question is, are people really impressed by artistically enhanced photographs or output from Auto-painting programs like Studio Artist?"
You can tell your opinion about this interesting question at
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=128

ArendsArt also asked: "I notice in the advertising of artists who feel they have a unique creative style, they are very quick to play up this fact. ... So I would like to throw this out to the group: how important IS a unique style for an artist's success? ... Plugins can add some unique effects to an artist's repertoire. The problem is, there are so many wonderful effects available it is almost impossible to decide on a single one. "
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=129

CherokeeCandy asked: "I have had a problem getting the photobevelsolo.8bf to work in Paint Shop Pro 7. It is there....... an error appears that it is not supported and the error returned is a 17500. I have tried it via PSP plugins folder and also preferencing the path in filters to Photo Shop and Photo Deluxe where the filter works fab. Any help would be greatly appreciated. The filter is an Extensis filter I think. ... Any Help to get it to work in PSP would be greatly appreciated."
If you know a solution please post it at:
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=116

There are a lot of forums about plugins, graphics application, digital video as well as our products, so feel free to have a look and write some lines at

http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/

 


REVIEWS: flAIR
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Only one plugin product has been reviewed for this month's issue. It is called flAIR and was created by Philipp Spoeth who some peopke should know from his free Dragonfly plugins. It got three full starts. The review summary states: "flAIR contains a lot of interesting 3D, blur, sphere and light effects. The large amount of parameters gives you great control over the effects and let you produce exciting new effects even after experimenting for hours. It needs some time to get used to it firstly, but here
after it is a joy to use, especially as it reacts so quickly to your commands."

For the full review, please go to
http://thepluginsite.com/reviews/flair.htm

Other review can be read at
http://thepluginsite.com/reviews/

 


FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS
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David Blend asked us to host his plugin filters (for Windows) which were created with Filter Factory. The collection consists of 13 plugins.
The three "Frosted Edger" plugins apply a vignette of varying radius and intensity. The three "Gradient Sky" plugins overlay the image with user defined color gradient for enhancing the colors of photos. "Highlight Correction" darkens overly bright image areas. The two "Transparent Sky" plugins replace bright or dark image areas with transparency for making composite images.
Finally, "B/W v Color Tiling" and "Contrast Checkers" generate tiling effects, "Zebra Stripe Frame" creates zebra stripe frames and "Alternating Even Bars" is a two-color stripe maker. The white vignette filter and two of the gradient sky filters are the best ones in the collection and are recommended.

http://thepluginsite.com/resources/blend/


Pro Canvas (for Windows) is an automation plugin designed to enhance and replace the existing Canvas command in Adobe Photoshop. While providing you with all of the standard Canvas options (in Absolute mode), Pro Canvas also adds a powerful new Relative mode that allows you to add or subtract from each side independently and simultaneously.
Additionally, you may specify horizontal and/or vertical uniformity to add or subtract the defined amount from the width, the height, or all four sides. Pro Canvas even has a New Size display area allowing you to preview the canvas dimensions while working within the dialog. Pro Canvas is Shareware and costs $8, but has no nags and no time limits.

http://photoshopplugins.tripod.com/


Richard Rosenman has released three filter plugins (for Windows). 3D Sphere Generator generates a 3D sphere and allows you to configure virtually all of its properties. Color Bar Generator creates color bar templates for computer and television monitor calibration. Scanlines creates hard to produce scanlines on your image to simulate a monitor.

http://www.richardrosenman.com/photoshop.htm


The Fresnel Reflection Plugin is a free Filter Factory plugin which creates a transparent sphere effect. It is available for Windows and as an AFS file for using in Filter Factory on the Mac.

http://www.stereopsis.com/fresnel/


Nvidia offer two free plugins (for Windows) . The Normal Map Generation Filter allows you to convert any image or layer to a normal map. It also includes a 3D preview with per-pixel lighting to view the generated normal map. The PhotoShop DXT Compression Plugin lets you read and write compressed or uncompressed .dds files.

http://developer.nvidia.com/content/nvidia-texture-tools-adobe-photoshop


Some of the links in the Free Plugins page have been updated. The Axion FX Freebies (Windows) can now be found at
http://www.axionfx.com/free_stuff.asp
and the Extensis PhotoBevel & Extensis PhotoText freeware plugins (Windows/Macintosh) can be found at
http://www.extensis.com/download/index.cgi/Freeware


Tint (for Mac OS X) is a tool for adjusting the color balance of images. Color adjustments with original color near the pixel color are applied more, whereas color adjustments that differ in original color from the pixel color have little or no effect. This allows changing different colors separately.

http://www.orcsoftware.com/~martin/Tint.html

 


GRAPHICS NEWS from Graphics.com
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Optipix 1.0
Optipix is a suite of Win/Mac Photoshop plugins for enhancing the contrast and content of digital images. This includes images taken from digital cameras and those from high-quality scanners.
http://www.graphics.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=969

Adobe Photoshop Targa Plugin Update
In response to user feedback, this plugin restores the earlier behavior of the Targa plug-in. Both Mac and Windows versions are available free from Adobe.
http://www.graphics.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=950

Sapphire Innovations Releases Innovations Vol 7 for Windows
This Photoshop plugins set of Gradient effects for Photoshop 6 and 7 and other applications is for Windows only.
http://www.graphics.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=947

Adobe Ends Free Access to Plugin Development Tools for Photoshop 7
It seems that would-be plugin developers must now pay $195 to first join the Photoshop developer program and then hope that Adobe provides them with access to the SDK.
http://www.graphics.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=927

Softener 1.11
Softener is the perfect plugin for adding smooth, soft and glossy effects to your images. It's ideal for making your 3D renders more "organic", or giving your images a unique touch. Windows only.
http://www.graphics.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=914

Dragri Interactive Video Editor
Dragri is an innovative video manipulation software technology that allows you to handle video content by grabbing objects right in the video. For example, if you want to see a golfer's swing closely, you can grab his golf club and drag it to examine the specific position and movement. Pretty cool.
http://www.graphics.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=970

Curious Labs Announces Poser 5
Curious Labs has announced Poser 5, the new version of their award-winning 3D-character animation tool for artists and animators. Poser 5 is expected to be available in late summer 2002 with a suggested retail price of US $549.
http://www.graphics.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=965

Mover 4 For Vue d'Esprit 4
Mover 4 is an animation pack for Vue d'Esprit 4, e-on software's rendering and animation tool. With Mover 4, Vue d'Esprit 4 is transformed into a powerful but easy to use animation solution.
http://www.graphics.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=963

For daily graphics news updates, visit
http://www.Graphics.com



 

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