Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugin Newsletter - November 2001
Contents
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EDITORIAL
SPECIAL OFFERS: 20% reduced prices for some of our products
PHOTO TEXTURES: 1100 royalty-free photographic textures
VISITOR GALLERY: 18 new images
POLL RESULTS: Download vs. CD Software
NEW POLL: Web vs. Hard drive applications
REVIEWS: Franklin eBookMan, PicMaster 2.5
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS
GRAPHICS NEWS from www.GraphicsNews.com
PRODUCTS FROM THE PLUGIN SITE
THE PLUGIN SITE MAP
Dear Reader,
After many great new graphics software has already been released this autumn, there seems to be a small calm at the moment. But I'm sure there's a lot of new exiting graphics stuff coming next year. So enjoy this newsletter issue until then.
As usual this newsletter includes news about The Plugin Site, the results of the latest poll, product review summaries, recommendations for free plugins and other free graphics tools as well as the latest news from the computer graphics world. If you think there's something you would like to see missing in this newsletter, please let us know.
Yours,
Harald Heim
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The Plugin Site - Your guide to image and video effects
http://ThePluginSite.com/
SPECIAL OFFERS: 20% reduced prices for some of our products
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We have reduced the prices for our Plugin Galaxy and Edge & Frame Galaxy products by $10 until the end of this year. Even more, Plugin Galaxy is also available on CD-ROM now. Concerning the Edge & Frame Galaxy CD 20 new Xmas edges have been added and the Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro and Premiere tutorials have been updated. Don't miss this opportunity!
Here are the prices of these special offers in detail:
Plugin Galaxy Download - $39.95 (instead of $49.95)
Plugin Galaxy CD - $49.95 (instead of $59.95)
Edge & Frame Galaxy CD - $39.95 (instead of $49.95)
For more information please visit:
http://thepluginsite.com/products/plugingalaxy/
http://thepluginsite.com/products/efgcd/
PHOTO TEXTURES: 1100 royalty-free photographic textures
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The second Photo Galaxy volume called "Photo Textures" is available now. It is a collection of 1100 royalty-free photographic textures on CD-ROM for Windows and Macintosh. The photo textures are provided at a resolution of 1760x1168 pixel (which is 4 x 6 inches or 10 x 15 cm at 300 dpi) as high quality JPG files. It is allowed to use the photos on a royalty-free basis, which means that the photos can be used for commercial purposes at no additional costs.
The Photo Textures CD-ROM contains 1100 photos divided into 78 different topics as follows: Aquarium, Autumn Leaves, Bark, Blurred, Branches, Brick, Carpet, Clothes, Clouds, Clouds 2, Coins, Conifers, Curtain, Dark Clouds, Decoration, Drops, Earth, Fabric, Fabric Pattern, Fence, Flowers, Folded Fabric, Food, Fruits, Glass, Grain, Grass, Ivy, Knitwork, Leaf, Leaves, Letters, Marble, Meat, Metal, Mixed Flowers, Mortar, Mosaic, Moss, Mushrooms, Other, Pavement, Planks, Plants, Plastic, Pool, Puffy Clouds, Red Flowers, Rock, Roof, Roots, Roses, Sand, Seaweed, Shells, Sky, Slotmachine, Snow, Stone, Stones, Stripes, Sunlight, Surreal, Tires, Toys, Tracks, Tree, Vegetables, Wall, Water, Water Reflection, Weave, Wet Leaves, Wet Stones, White Flowers, Wood, Woodwork and Yellow Flowers.
For more information and for downloading some free samples please visit
http://thepluginsite.com/products/photogalaxy/
VISITOR GALLERY: 18 new images
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18 great new images were added to the Visitor Gallery. The artists are Glenn Slingsby, Mark David Rogers, Tony Stanovich, Veera, Michael Wischniewski, Fabrizio Fella, Pia Lier, Richard Worell, Andy Taylor, Theodor, Jeff Simpson, Andre Salters, Wynn Schaible and Betsy Logan.
Have a look at them at
http://thepluginsite.com/gallery/visitors/
POLL RESULTS: Download vs. CD products
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The latest poll on thepluginsite.com was about download and cd product purchases. Here are the quite differentiated results:
I prefer to buy download products if I can save some dollars. 37%
I prefer to buy products on CD even if I have to pay a bit more. 29%
I don't mind if a software is offered as a download or on CD. 23%
I only buy download products. 7%
I only buy products offered on CD. 4%
The total number of people who voted was 264. Here are some voter's comments:
- "Downloading is great for tryouts, but for keepers I'll go for the CD every time. "
- "The most of times, we need/want a software in a hurry. The most of times if there is a downloadable software, we will choose to download, just to get it right now. "
- "I like the idea of downloading even on my sloooow modem and have done so many times, but always, always will burn the file to CD."
- "I prefer to try before I buy, so this is good!! However I like to have cd if I like program for back ups in case of crash!!"
Previous poll results can be viewed at
http://thepluginsite.com/knowhow/
NEW POLL: Web vs. Hard Drive Applications
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Our latest poll is about Web vs. Hard Drive Applications. Hard drive applications are the ones you install on your hard drive, while web applications are the ones you run on your internet browser. You can vote which application type you like best, you can vote for both or you can enter a different opinion. Of course you can also enter a more detailed comment on the poll's message board. Thanks to Mike for suggesting this poll.
To cast your vote please visit
http://thepluginsite.com/
REVIEWS:
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Here are the summaries of two reviews that were added to the Reviews section of thepluginsite.com lately:
PiCMaster 2.5 update (rating increased to two stars):
"Picmaster is a good choice for people who only want to create simple image effects, batch process images or need some of the other features and don't want to spend much money for a graphics application. "
Franklin EBookMan 900-501 & 911 (an ebook reading device with PDA functionality and MP3 Player):
"The Franklin eBookMan is great for reading ebooks, but not an optimal solution for managing your contacts and dates or for playing MP3 files, although the additional functionality can be handy sometimes. If you buy the eBookMan mainly for the purpose of reading ebooks or listening to audiobooks, you should be quite satisfied with it."
For the full reviews as well as other reviews please visit:
http://thepluginsite.com/reviews/
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS
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Philipp Spoeth has released the Sinedots II (Windows) plugin which now includes enhanced antialias, color support, blend modes, more parameters for enhanced control, 16Bit support and enhanced compatibility. There's a Photoshop-compatible and an After Effects version available. The web site also offers two other effect plugins.
Tim Lister has added two new Filter Factory plugin sets to his web site. The Contour Series (for Windows) consists of three filters that create contour lines for Hue, Saturation & Brightness. The Halftone Filters collection (Win/Mac) contains 8 filters that produce different half-tone effects e.g. diagonal dither 2x2 & 4x4, square dither 2x2 & 4x4, hex dither order 1 & 2, Random Noise and Spiral Dot dither 4x4. The Halftone Filters can be used on the Mac, too, because some AFS files are included that can be opened with the Filter Factory plugin in Photoshop. There are some other plugins available on the web site, too.
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~tal/Filters/
Tiles from Syntrillium (for Windows) is a small tool for making seamless fractal patterns. The patterns are created randomly and the colors palette can be randomised, too. There's a lot of noise in the created patterns, but that can be removed by editing the saved tile in a graphics application.
http://www.syntrillium.com/free.htm
EVE (for Windows) is an application for drawing vector diagrams. It features advanced vector line drawing with 'sticky' lines, built-in drawing elements (circles, lines, etc plus icons), pictures, sound and other EVE files can be embedded. EVE isn't very user friendly, so it can be quite hard to understand when used for the first time. But for a file size of 41K this tool offers unbelievable functionality.
PhotoModeler Lite is a program (for Windows) for creating 3D models from photos of the same object from different angles. The 3D models are created with points, lines, surfaces, and photo-textures mapped on right from the photos. The model can be viewed or measured in PhotoModeler Lite's 3D Viewer or exported in VRML, DXF and 3DS formats. The Lite version is free for non-commercial use and there is a Pro version for commercial users.
http://www.photomodeler.com/Lite/
GRAPHICS NEWS from www.GraphicsNews.com
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ReelSmart Motion Blur 2.0
This After Effects plug-in applies more natural-looking motion blur to a video sequence by automatically tracking every pixel. RE:Visions tracking technology is at the heart of ReelSmart Motion Blur, so there is said to be no handwork involved. Available for Mac and PC, with downloadable demo versions.
http://www.graphicsnews.com/article.php?sid=75
1 Cool Button Tool Updated
Now save buttons as either Flash files or Java applets -- different situations require different approaches. Sometimes Java applets are smaller, faster and more effective. On other occasions you might prefer the polish and reliability of Flash files. This is particularly useful with the arrival of Windows XP, which will currently not provide java support. Trial version available.
http://www.graphicsnews.com/article.php?sid=74
Vue d'Esprit 4 Updated
Vue 4 is a powerful 3D application optimised for the creation, rendering and animation of natural scenery. It's unbeatable at 3D scenery, and it's great for other kinds of art too. Free trial download available.
http://www.graphicsnews.com/article.php?sid=73
Graphics Unleashed Releases Buttons Unleashed
You'll find lots of pre-made buttons for Web design. Hardly will you find anything that can truly be used. They are almost always supplied in GIF or JPEG format, meaning that lots of data is missing. On top of that, text is almost always present and rarely the text you want. For this reason, Graphics Unleashed has released Buttons Unleashed. All of the buttons are stored in Adobe Photoshop's PSD format.
http://www.graphicsnews.com/article.php?sid=48
Sapphire Innovations Shapes Volume 9
Sapphire Innovations has released Volume 9 of its series of image add-ons for Photoshop 6/Elements. This new set of vector custom shapes contains wavy and warpy shapes, and includes 400 royalty-free shapes. A free trial download is available.
http://www.graphicsnews.com/article.php?sid=40
PixelPrintz Launched
PixelPrintz is a new online service that lets visitors order printed copies of a variety of digital imagery. They are printing designs by some of the most respected wallpaper artists, including their well known wallpaper images as well as a few original 'only for print' images.
http://www.graphicsnews.com/article.php?sid=45
For daily graphics news updates, visit http://www.GraphicsNews.com
