Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugin Newsletter - August / September 2010
CONTENTS
PHOTOWIZ FOR WINDOWS:
Plugin updates and new Standalone/Lightroom versions
PLUGIN GALAXY FOR WINDOWS: Version 2.01 with several nice new features
PLUGIN COMMANDER: Version 1.61 installs and runs more reliably
TPS PANEL: Version 1.04 supports Photoshop CS5 and new plugin updates
POLL RESULTS: Which is your favorite masking
tool?
NEW POLL: Do you use Lightroom as well as Photoshop for processing your photos?
THE DISCUSSION FORUMS: New Lightroom Forum Sections, The Ulead Story
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: Kill White, Refocus
DC, Big PNG, CollageIt, Pola, Corel MediaOne 2 Starter
GRAPHICS NEWS: Photoshop
CS5 Update, Lightroom/Camera Raw Update, Bokeh 2, PaintShop Photo Pro
X3 Ultimate, Nikon Photo Contest
Dear Reader,
The Plugin Newsletter took a summer break, but we were
not lazy. A lot of updates of our products became available as you can
see below. With the release of the Standalone and Lightroom
versions of our PhotoWiz plugins, more resources concerning standalone
tools and Lightroom add-ons will be added to The Plugin Site and also
mentioned in this newsletter. There are already two new sections for Lightroom
users on The Plugin Site Forum. So hopefully The Plugin Site will become
more interesting for other user groups.
Kind Regards
Harald Heim
PHOTOWIZ FOR WINDOWS
Plugin updates and new Standalone/Lightroom versions
New Windows updates of the ColorWasher, FocalBlade, LightMachine, B/W
Styler and ContrastMaster plugins were released. The main goal of these
releases was to align the user interface of all PhotoWiz plugins. The
main improvements are the following: new tool bar, selection display in
the preview, faster sample area/split view/spot movement, maximize/exit
buttons, Instant Preview feature, new key shortcuts, silent installation
and Prefs saving on Cancel.
Standalone/Lightroom versions of these five PhotoWiz plugins were released too. They consist of a standalone application and an external editor for Adobe Lightroom. Both let you open and edit multiple images non-destructively as well as batch save them. The standalone supports Camera Raw, JPEG, TIFF, PNG, PSD and other image formats and can be (mis)used as a raw converter.
For more information and for a demo download visit
PLUGIN GALAXY FOR WINDOWS
Version 2.01 with several nice
new features
Version 2.01 of Plugin Galaxy for Windows contains the following main improvements: A 64-bit version is available, it renders 1.5 to 4 times faster, features an interactive preview cross, displays selection in the preview and offers 23 new presets. The update is free for registered users of Plugin Galaxy 2.
The Plugin Galaxy 2.01 demo version offers four free effects (Fusion>PopArt and Zoom), which do not add a watermark when used.
For more information and for a download see
PLUGIN COMMANDER
Plugin updates and new Standalone/Lightroom
versions
Version 1.61 of Plugin Commander for Windows contains various installer improvements and bug fixes to make it install and work more reliably. Additionally Plugin Commander now supports visual styles.
Plugin Commander lets you edit, convert, preview and
run Photoshop plugins and also supports various other plugin types. The
Light Version of Plugin Commander is free, the Pro version is commercial.
TPS PANEL
Version 1.04 supports Photoshop CS5 and new plugin updates
ThePluginSite Panel is a free flash panel for Photoshop (for Win/MacOS
X). It allows you to apply all Photoshop plugins created by The Plugin
Site in a very convenient way. Version 1.04 now works in both Photoshop
CS4 and CS5. It was also updated for the latest plugin releases.
For more information and for a demo download visit
POLL RESULTS
Which is your favorite masking
tool?
415 people participated in the masking tool poll.
Here are the results:
1. Photoshop: 42%, 176 votes
2. Paint Shop Pro: 15%,61 votes
3. Topaz Remask: 7%,
30 votes
4. Photoshop Elements: 7%, 28 votes
5. OnOne Mask Pro: 6%, 25 votes
6. Photoshop's Extract plugin: 6%, 24
votes
7. AKVIS SmartMask: 5%, 20 votes
8. Vertus Fluid Mask: 4%, 17 votes
9. Corel Knock Out: 3%, 11 votes
10. Other: 3%, 11 votes
11. DFT EZ Mask / Power Mask:
1%, 6 votes
12. ImageSkill Background Remover: 1%,
3 votes
13. GrowCut: 0%, 2 votes
14. GML Matting: 0%, 1 votes
More than 2/3 of all users are content with the masking features of their graphics application. Those people who use masking plugins favor Remask, Mask Pro, Smart Mask, Fluid Mask and Knock Out.
For more poll results please visit the
Resources section
NEW POLL
Do you use Lightroom as well as Photoshop for processing your photos?
Actually this poll about Photoshop/Lightroom usage was
already done two years ago, but a lot can happen within two years. So
it will be interesting to see if more user moved in one or the other direction.
There are five choices: either that you use only Photoshop or only Lightroom,
both evenly or one more than the other.
THE DISCUSSION FORUMS
New Lightroom Forum Sections, The Ulead Story
There are two new forums about Adobe Lightroom available now:
Lightroom
(for discussing Lightroom related things)
Lightroom
Add-ons (for discussing add-ons, plugins and external editors for
Lightroom)
Here is an interesting post on the forum:
The Ulead Story
ddurso wrote: "What's the story on Ulead? I know Ulead is kind of
low end, but I really liked all the programs. I found it easy to use and
it has (or had) tons of stuff in the application. ... Somewhere along
the line there seemed to be some kind of virtual turf battle and about
the time that Corel wound up with it and started taking it apart it pretty
much turned to junk. ..."
Read More...
For discussions and asking questions please visit
The Plugin
Site Forum
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS
Kill White, Refocus DC, Big PNG,
CollageIt, Pola, Corel MediaOne 2 Starter
Kill White is a plugin
(for Windows) that makes white color in an image transparent. There is
also a Pixel Bender version that can also be used on the Mac. There are
also four free scripts for Photoshop on the same web site.
Visit website...
The Refocus DC plugin (for Windows) repairs
blurred unfocused images. It works only for slightly blurred images and
offers a deblurring radius of up to 10 pixels. It claims to be an advanced
version of the Remove Lens Blur option of Photoshop's Smart Sharpen filter.
Visit website...
Big PNG is a file format plugin (for Win/Mac)
that is faster than Photoshop's built-in PNG format and supports 16 bit
images. Additionally it allows opening and saving PNG image files that
are larger than 30,000 pixel on one side. Several of the other plugins
of Telegraphics are now also available as a 64-bit Windows and Mac version.
Visit website...
CollageIt is a free collage maker (for Windows)
which automatically creates a collage out of multiple photos. There are
a few parameters like space, margin, rotation, sparse, shadow and frame
that influence how the photos are distributed. But the photos are distributed
more or less randomly and you cannot change their position manually.
Visit website...
Pola is a tool (for Win/Mac/Linux) that simulates
the look of polaroids. It is more a toy than serious software and the
user interface needs familiarization. The Pola window looks like a Polaroid
and you have to drag and drop an image on it. Pola automatically saves
the result in the same folder as the image file. Unfortunately the output
size of the image is limited to 410x497 pixel. Additionally you can add
some text below the Polaroid if you click on the bottom border of the
window.
Visit website...
Corel MediaOne 2 Starter is a free digital
image editing and management tool (for Windows). It lets you create multimedia
slide shows and scrapbooks, search for photos, add picture frames and
text, remove blemishes, whiten teeth or paint on a sun tan, watch and
trim video clips and save video frames as a still pictures. As Corel does
not offer it for download anymore, you can get it from these web sites:
Download
Site 1...
Download
Site 2...
Download
Site 3...
For more free plugins and tool, please visit the
Resources section
GRAPHICS NEWS
Photoshop CS5 Update, Lightroom/Camera Raw Update, Bokeh
2, PaintShop Photo Pro X3 Ultimate, Nikon Photo Contest
The Adobe Photoshop 12.0.1 update (Photoshop
CS5) offers increased performance and fixes crashes, error messages and
UI problems among other problems.
Windows
download...
Mac
download...
The Lightroom 3.2 and Camera Raw 6.2 updates
include support for 16 new popular camera models including the Canon EOS
60D and Sony Alpha NEX. 120 new lens profiles are also included. The Lightroom
3.2. allows publishing directly to Facebook and SmugMug. It also addresses
a number of issues reported by customers.
Visit website...
Alien Skin Software released Bokeh 2, a new
version of its lens simulation software. Support for Lightroom and a 64-bit
Photoshop version are included. Multiple focus regions are supported and
there are new focus region shapes. The preview reacts much faster and
more interactive.
Visit website...
Corel announced the release of Corel PaintShop
Photo Pro X3 Ultimate. Apart from PSP X3 it contains an extended set
of tools including KPT Collection, Painter Essentials 4 and a 144-page
manual.
Visit website...
The 33rd Nikon Photo Contest International accepts
entries by November 30, 2010. Over 51,000 photos were submitted to the
previous contest two years ago. There are two contest categories: a free
subject category and one called "Energy". 53 prizes are awarded
by a panel of international photographers. An exhibition of the winning
photographs is planned.
Visit website...
