Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugin Newsletter - June 2006
Contents
========
EDITORIAL
PLUGIN GUIDE #4: The Xero Plugins
POLL RESULTS: Which is your favorite freeware image editing application?
NEW POLL: Which is your favorite plugin or tool for B/W conversion?
THE DISCUSSION FORUMS: Globe Effect, Photo Captions, Silk Screen Prints, Convert Negatives
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: SmartCurve, Mosaic & Illumination Fix Toolkit,
Image Inc, MPEG Streamclip
GRAPHICS NEWS: PSD Repair, Filter Forge, Photo Detailer, Camera RAW 3.4, WDP Format
PRODUCTS FROM THE PLUGIN SITE
ABOUT THE PLUGIN SITE
Hi,
The current issue of the Plugin Newsletter is a bit shorter than usual, because I was on holiday this month. But I am already working on new plugin articles, product releases and a new web site. I asked someone to do an interview with me for the Plug-Talk series, so you will probably see that next month. I am also working on a new web site for presenting my photographic work and for publishing some photography-related articles. So I hope you enjoy this issue and look forward to the next one.
Kind regards,
Harald Heim
www.thepluginsite.com
PLUGIN GUIDE #4: The Xero Plugins
------------------------------------------------
After a small break here is the fourth article of the Plugin Guide series.
This time we will take a look at the Xero plugins. The Xero Plugins offer
many useful photo effects. Its selective desaturation, motion blur and
paint effects are demonstrated in three small tutorials that are easy
to reproduce.
http://thepluginsite.com/knowhow/pluginguide/xeroplugins/
POLL RESULTS: Which
is your favorite freeware image editing application?
------------------------------------------------
336 people voted in the latest poll for their favorite freeware image
editing application with the following results:
1. IrfanView 36%
2. Picassa 16%
3. GIMP 14%
4. Other 11%
5. FastStone Image Viewer 7%
6. XnView 4%
7. PhotoPlus 3%
8. Vicman's Photo
Editor 1%
Ultimate Paint / FX 1%
9. Studioline Photo Basic 1%
Paint .NET 1%
Image Analyzer 1%
ImageN 1%
10. Photobie 1%
Satori Photo XL 1%
Compared with the same poll a few years ago IrfanView managed to defend its first position whereas GIMP has been pushed on place 3 by Picassa. On the middle ranks you can find tools like FastStone Image Viewer, XnView and PhotoPlus. PhotoFiltre would probably have received a few percent of the votes if it had been mentioned in the poll. As it is now its votes are among the 11% in the Other category. Sorry for overlooking PhotoFiltre, folks.
For more poll results,
please visit the Know-How section at
http://thepluginsite.com/knowhow/
NEW POLL: Which is
your favorite plugin or tool for B/W conversion?
------------------------------------------------
Our latest poll asks you to vote for your favorite B/W conversion tool.
You have the choice between the Channel Mixer of Photoshop and PSP, some
commercial plugins and many freeware plugins. If you don't find your favorite
tool among them, you can also choose the "Other" item.
Please cast your vote
at the bottom of
http://www.thepluginsite.com/
THE DISCUSSION FORUMS:
Globe Effect, Photo Captions, Silk Screen Prints, Convert Negatives
------------------------------------------------
Here are the latest interesting posts from the discussion forums:
dvector asked: "Has
anyone used DreamSuite's Liquid Metal plugin to produce a globe? I'm trying
to create a very shiny ball bearing. The plugin is great on text and complicated
shapes but on a circle I can't get a nice round 3D globe. anyone else
using his plugin?"
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2135
dpritchie wrote: "I
have Photoshop Elements 2.0 and would like to be able to put the same
caption on a bunch of photos at once. Is there a plugin for PS Elements
2.0 that will allow me to caption many photos as a batch and have it do
all of them automatically?"
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2130
rhondalea wrote: "I
work on my mac and have CS2. I need to learn how to take a photo and turn
it into a design for silk screen prints."
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2137
tonyepler asked: "If
I scan a negative, what's the best way to convert it to a positive and
print it in Photoshop?"
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6533
For more interesting discussions please visit
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: SmartCurve, Mosaic & Illumination Fix Toolkit,
Image Inc, MPEG Streamclip
------------------------------------------------
The SmartCurve plugin from EasyFilter was developed for Photoshop Elements as a compensation for the missing Curves command, but you can use it in Photoshop and other applications, too. It supports RGB and Grayscale images with 8 and 16 bit color depth, displays a histogram and an Auto correction button.
http://free.pages.at/easyfilter/curves.html
Mosaic Toolkit (for Windows) from Lance Otis was updated to Version 2.022.
It adds more context help, a Grid Line option to the Blend combo box and
some example files. Secondly, the new Illumination Fix Toolkit plugin
(for Windows) from Lance Otis lets you fix over or underexposed images
with the special lighting gradients. The gradients can be adjusted by
right-clicking on the preview and with two sliders. There are also some
blend options and a cool warm slider.
http://www.thepluginsite.com/resources/lotis/
Image Inc from Cybia is a standalone image compositing tool. Its purpose
is to blend two images with the help of a transparent mask and various
blend modes. You can open your own B/W mask images or use the built-in
gradient mask feature. Although such functionality is available in major
graphics applications, Image Inc lets you do it in a quick and easy way.
http://www.cybia.co.uk/imageinc.htm
MPEG Streamclip (for WinXP and MacOS X) that can play, convert and edit
all major video formats. It can output QuickTime, DV/DV50, AVI/DivX and
MPEG-4 and HD video. It requires Apple QuickTime 7 or the free KL QuickTime
Alternative 1.61.
GRAPHICS NEWS: PSD Repair, Filter Forge, Photo Detailer, Camera RAW 3.4,
WDP Format
------------------------------------------------
Advanced PSD Repair
is a tool for recovering corrupt Photoshop files. It recovers the image
as well as the separate layers in PSD and PDD files as much as possible.
It can be integrated with Windows Explorer and also supports drag &
drop operation.
http://www.psd-repair.com/
Filter Forge Inc. released a public beta version of the Filter Forge plugin
allowing computer artists to build their own filters for creating seamless
textures, visual effects, distortions, patterns, backgrounds and more.
Filter Forge uses a visual node-based filter editor and a free online
library of user-created filters to which anyone can contribute.
Amphisoft released a photo editing plugin called Photo Detailer. Although
it's primary aim is recovering detail from unevenly lit or poorly exposed
photos, along with recovering old faded prints, the plugin also promises
to add more expression to flat photos.
Version 3.4 of the Adobe Camera RAW plugin for Photoshop CS 2 was released.
It now supports RAW files from the following cameras: Canon EOS 30D, Epson
R-D1s, Leaf Aptus 65 and 75, Olympus EVOLT E-330 and SP-320, Pentax *
ist DL2 as well as Samsung GX-1S.
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html
Microsoft announced the new Windows Media Photo (WDP) image file format
that promises to surpass the limitations of existing image formats. It
offers compression ratios close to JPEG 2000 but with the computational
requirements of JPEG. There will be lossless and high-quality lossy compression
options for it.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/wmphoto/default.aspx
