| Plugin Newsletter - June 2000
CONTENTS ========
INTRODUCTION LATEST POLL RESULTS: YOUR FAVOURITE GIF ANIMATION SOFTWARE NEW POLL: YOUR FAVOURITE TEXTURE TOOL EDGE & FRAME CD-ROM NOW AVAILABLE FOR MACINTOSH NEW FREE PLUGINS & APPLICATIONS NEW REVIEWS IN THE PLUGIN GUIDE FREEWARE OF THE MONTH: ULTIMATE FX LATEST REVIEWS Hi people,
I have already got some emails from people who were worried because there was no issue of this newsletter within the last four weeks. The reason is that I was on holiday. I had a great time and shot almost 1000 photos of the landscape and sea. Maybe I'll prepare a gallery with the best shots if you are interested. I'm glad to see that over 10000 people are subscribed to this newsletter. If you like it, please recommend it to other people who you know. I'd be happy to serve even more readers. See the end of this email for subscribing options. But before we continue with some new stuff, I'd like to mention that this issue of Plugin News is sponsored by AV Bros who produced two great plugin products. Here's what they have to tell you: -------------- AV Bros. Page Curl 1.2 (turning page effect), AV Bros. Puzzle Pro 1.2 (jig-saw puzzle effect). If you are looking for a professional Photoshop (Paint Shop Pro, Photo-Paint...) plug-ins, powerful and flexible - you MUST try these products! Both are awards winning software (ZD Net 5 stars, Shareware Junkies 5 stars...) with an attractive and easy to use interface, great options and also the coolest setup routine. Both plug-ins give you opportunities you have never had before concerning these kinds of effects. TRY it for FREE! All information on our web site: http://www.avbros.com/statadv/pcomhq.html -------------- Yours, Harald Heim LATEST POLL RESULTS: YOUR FAVOURITE GIF ANIMATION SOFTWARE The latest poll was run four weeks and got over 200 votes. Here are the results: 1. Jasc Animation Shop 42% 2. Ulead Gif Animator 17% 3. GIF Construction Set 7% 4. Macromedia Fireworks 6% Not listed here! 6% 5. GIF Movie Gear 3% 6. WWW Gif Animator 3% Animagic Gif Animator 3% 7. Coffee Cup Gif Animator 2% 8. 3D Gif Designer 2%
The rest of the tools scored below 2%. So the winner is Animation Shop which isn't surprising, because it is a free add-on to Paintshop Pro. Both tools make a perfect combination, although I sometimes wonder why many of PSP's features aren't directly integrated in Animation Shop. Swapping images between both applications is sometimes a bit time consuming. For other poll results, visit the Know How/Poll Results page at http://pico.i-us.com NEW POLL: YOUR FAVOURITE TEXTURE TOOL The new poll deals with texture creation software. Vote for one of 14 texture creation applications at http://thepluginsite.com or http://pico.i-us.com. If you don't find you favorite texture tool among them, you now have the chance of entering it after selecting the "Other" choice. As usual, if you know a good question for a new poll or want to know people's opinion about a graphical topic, please suggest it by emailing me.
EDGE & FRAME CD-ROM NOW AVAILABLE FOR MACINTOSH My latest product, the Edge & Frame Galaxy CD-ROM which was previously only available for Windows is now available for Macintosh users. I also produced a demo with sample edges and frames for the Mac. The Edge & Frame Galaxy CD-ROM includes over 1400 edges and 150 colored frames in over 120 categories. You can use them to give your photos a personal touch, as backgrounds for titles and credits, to design greeting cards, CD booklets and labels, to create unique shaped buttons, animations and speical video effects. http://pico.i-us.com/products/efgcd/efgcd.htm NEW FREE PLUGINS & APPLICATIONS AccessFX T-1000 RoboVision is a free plugin for Adobe Premiere that makes your video look as if it was seen through the eyes of the T-1000 cyborg from the movie "Terminator". Nice to bring some thrill into your family videos :-) http://www.accessfx.com/robovis.htm Strata 3D is a full featured 3D modeling, animation and rendering applications. Previously it sold at $200, now it is available for free. Prepare yourself for the download of 22 MB. http://www.strata3d.com/html/strata3d.html ABC VideoRoll is a free video application that is build around Quicktime 4. It offers moer than 100 effects and some basic video editing features. Requires QuickTime4 and for full install Microsoft DirectX Media 6. http://www.abc-tv.com/ For more free plugins or tools visit http://thepluginsite.com NEW REVIEWS IN THE PLUGIN GUIDE There are three new reviews in the Plugin Guide at http://pico.i-us.com on AV Bros Page Curl, AV Bros Puzzle Pro and the book "Scanner Solutions". All three got a full 5-star-rating and they are worth every penny. http://pico.i-us.com FREEWARE OF THE MONTH: ULTIMATE FX This time the freeware of the month award goes to Ultimate FX. It contains dozens of nice image effects, knows various file formats and even supports Photoshop-compatible plugins. So it is the best free plugin host and maybe even the best freeware image editing tool. You won't believe that this nice application is freeware, but it is. Actually, it is advertisement sponsored. Make sure you click a few times on its banner window when being connected to the internet. The author really deserves a few pence for making this tool available for free. If you want to get rid of the banner window, you can register Ultimate FX for only $9.95. http://www.ultimatepaint.com/ufx/ LATEST REVIEWS My web sites and products have received some attention during the last three months. The Plugin Site (http://thepluginsite.com) received the Web Exellence Award and the "It's too Cool" Award. (If you want to nominate your web site for some awards, too, please get the Aesop Award Submitter tool from http://www.roibotlibrary.com/freesoftware.htm) HTML Shrinker got a full 6-cow-rating from tucows.com, got a 95% rating and the title "Best software of its class" from bestfreeware.de, was an Editor's Pick at webattack.com and was featured in the Lockergnome Newsletter. Plugin Commander got a full 5-doves rating at cfs.com and a full 5-smileys rating at rocketdownload.com, was "Cool Tool of the Day and Week" at cooltool.com, received two Cybia Awards and was a "Pick of the Day" at Slaughterhouse.com. Plugin Galaxy received a Cybia Awards and was a "Pick of the Day" at Slaughterhouse.com, too. It was commented as "some of the nicest dialog boxes available", a "wonderful tool for creating a variety of unusual and lovely effects" and was recommended together with EyeCandy and the KPT series as one of the first sets of plugins newbies should look into. Finally if you understand German, you may be interested in reading an interview with me at http://www.bestfreeware.de
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