Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugin Newsletter - September/October 2015
CONTENTS
ELEMENTSXXL 3 FOR WINDOWS:
200 New Features and Support for Photoshop Elements 14
LAYERSXXL 1.04 FOR WINDOWS: Support for Photoshop Elements 14 and UI Scaling
POLL RESULTS: Which new features of Photoshop
CC 2015 do you consider useful?
NEW POLL: What type of camera do you mainly use for taking your photos?
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: Auto FX Free Effects,
Rosenman Plugins, Fotowall, digiKam
GRAPHICS NEWS: Photoshop Elements 14, Particle Shop, DigitalChaos & RichText, PhotoPlus X8
Dear Reader,
Version 3 of ElementsXXL is finally ready. We managed to almost double its feature count and implemented many of the highly requested functions. ElementsXXL 3 now also supports usage on 4K/UHD monitors in Photoshop Elements 13 & 14 and Windows' HiDPI setting in Photoshop Elements 11 and higher.
Photoshop Elements 14 was also released recently. Its Shake Reduction and Haze Removal filters (known from Photoshop CC) are certainly interesting for photo editing. If you still use a 32-bit version of PSE (12 under Windows or 11 on the Mac), version 14 is certainly a highly recommended upgrade. If you upgrade to ElementsXXL 3, you should also consider using Photoshop Elements 13 or 14, because ElementsXXL 3 now offers more features for them than for older versions of Photoshop Elements.
Ironically Adobe introduced the DNG file format claiming that current camera raw files may not be accessible by software in future. But then Adobe's DNG Converter 8.4, released in July last year, did not support Windows XP and MacOS X 10.6 anymore. So the DNG format has already become inaccessible for certain users in the present. Luckily some open source developers developed a DNG Converter as part of the digiKam tool, which runs under XP and MacOS 10.6. See the Free Plugins and Tools section below.
Kind regards,
Harald Heim
ELEMENTSXXL 3 FOR WINDOWS
Trial version works another 14 days, Improved Render feature, Path Panel Improvements, Many Bug Fixes
ElementsXXL 3 adds up to 430 powerful features to Photoshop Elements
for Windows that were previously only available in Photoshop. It also
supports Photoshop Elements 14 as well as UI Scaling and HiDPI.
Among the 200 new features are a new Curves dialog for editing all four curves, new Channels and Properties panels, five new 16-bit filters (Exposure, Vibrance, Color Balance, Selective Color, Black & White), an enhanced Color Range dialog, new Warp and Perspective Warp filters as well as Perspective Crop and History Brush tools. Other important features include an Edit in Camera Raw command for smart objects, a new Color Settings dialog, conversion and assignment of color profiles, 12 new Soft Proof presets, saving CMYK image files, nine luminosity masks as well as splitting a layer into special RGB, CMY, Lab, HSL and Frequency layers. ElementsXXL 3 offers even more new features and more than 20 other changes and bug fixes.
For more information and a 14-day trial version visit
the
ElementsXXL
Product Page
LAYERSXXL 1.04 FOR WINDOWS
Support for Photoshop Elements 14 and UI Scaling
Version 1.04 of LayersXXL can now be used with Photoshop Elements 14.
It supports the UI Scaling feature of Photoshop Elements 13.1 and 14.
In Photoshop Elements 11, 12 and 14 it also scales its menu items according
to the dpi setting of Windows. Thus this update is highly recommended
for people who use Photoshop Elements 14 and 4K monitors.
For more information and a 14-day trial version visit
the
LayersXXL Product
Page
POLL RESULTS
Which new features of Photoshop CC 2015 do you consider useful?
Only 62 voters took part in the latest poll about the new features of Photoshop CC 2015. It seems that the interest in new Photoshop CC features is very low among our readers and web site visitors. There were still more voters than for the same poll about Photoshop CC 2014, but there have never been fewer participants than in both polls so far. Anyway, here are the results:
1. Content-aware improvements 44%
Removing/adding haze 44%
2. Faster healing and patching 39%
3. None 23%
4. Cumulative layer styles 18%
5. Other 16%
6. Improved image export 15%
7. 3D improvements 11%
8. Artboards 10%
Blur Gallery noise effects 10%
9. Glyph panel 8%
10. Linked Assets 6%
Adobe Stock marketplace 6%
HiDPI screen support 6%
11. Device preview panel 0%
The latest news speak of 5.3 million subscribers to the Creative Cloud, which is an amazing number if you hear from almost all individuals that they dislike Adobe's subscription-only model. Now that Photoshop CS6 cannot be ordered from the Adobe web site anymore (except for the Middle East and Indian section of the Adobe Store), the subscription number is likely to increase. In any case the latest new features of Photoshop CC 2015 (just like those of 2014) consist of small improvements and no real innovations. This may very well continue with future versions as there is no financial pressure for Adobe anymore to get more creative.
For more poll results please visit the
Resources section
NEW POLL
What type of camera do you mainly use for taking your photos?
The latest poll asks you about which type of camera you mainly use. You can choose between Medium Format Digital Camera, Digital Mirrorless Camera, DSLR, Digital Compact Camera, Smartphone, Old Film Camera and an Other option.
Please participate in this poll by visiting
the
Main page...
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS
Auto FX Free Effects, Rosenman Plugins, Fotowall, digiKam
AutoFX has added four new free effects
(for Win/Mac) from its Mystical product line to the other six effects
that were already offered. They are available as Photoshop plugins as
well as standalones. The new effects are called Abstract Edges, Photo
Border, Dreamy Photo and Mosaic.
Visit
website...
The 35 free Rosenman Photoshop plugins
were updated for Windows 10 and include a crash fix.
Visit
website...
Fotowall (for Win/Mac/Linux) is
a tool for creating pictures, wallpapers, postcards and covers. It lets
you arrange photos and text together with live video from a webcam and
images from the internet. It can also print huge posters with a small
printer.
Visit
website...
digiKam is an open source image
management and editing tool (for Win/Mac/Linux). It offers various useful
tools, but one may especially appeal to users of Windows XP and MacOS
X 10.6: digiKam includes a tool DNG Image Converter, which converts raw
files to dng files. As Adobe DNG Converter does not work under Windows
XP and MacOS X 10.6 since Version 8.4 anymore, this tool may be an alternative
for these people.
Visit website...
For more free plugins and tools, please visit the
Resources section
GRAPHICS NEWS
Photoshop Elements 14, Particle Shop, DigitalChaos & RichText, PhotoPlus X8
Version 14 of Photoshop Elements includes
a new Shake Reduction tool for removing motion blur caused by camera movement,
a new Haze Removal tool, a Refine Selection Brush tool, easier guided
edits, a new category of Quick Effects and redesigned Quick Edit pages.
The Elements 14 Organizer provides access to images with improved naming,
facial recognition and location functionality.
Visit
website...
Corel released a Photoshop/Lightroom brush plugin
called ParticleShop (for Win/Mac), which uses Corel's
Painter Particle brush technology from Painter 2015. It allows creating
photo-realistic effects like smoke, dust, fabric, fire, hair, lighting
and fur. These effects are added to photos using real brush strokes. ParticleShop
comes with 11 brushes. Each of the 11 other brush packs are available
for purchase at more than half of the price of the plugin. ParticleShop
can also be used in PaintShop Pro and Corel PHOTO-PAINT.
Visit
website...
Alpha Plugin released two new Photoshop plug-ins called
DigitalChaos and RichText (for Win/Mac). Both plugins
create type effects using words, symbols, numbers, hieroglyphs or anything
you can type.
Visit website...
Serif PhotoPlus X8 (for Windows)
is on the market. The older Windows brother of Affinity Photo offers the
following new features: an enhanced Crop tool, additional color droppers
for the Hue & Saturation filter and adjustment layer, new features
like Surface Blur, Defringe and Insert Picture, enhanced 16-bit support
and the built-in Photo Organizer was replaced with the external PhotoStack
application.
Visit
website...
