Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugin Newsletter - June/July 2014
CONTENTS
PLUGIN GALAXY 3.01 FOR WINDOWS:
16 New Blend Modes, 2 New Effects and Improved Filter Factory Support
ELEMENTSXXL 2.03 FOR WINDOWS: Less Flashing, Plugin Galaxy 3 Smart Filtering and Bug Fixes
METARAW 1.07 FOR WINDOWS: Support for new Cameras
PLUGIN ESSENTIALS UPDATE: Using Filter Factory Plugins under Newer OSes, Mac Gatekeeper/Retina Workarounds, Flash Panel Extensions No Longer Supported
POLL RESULT: In which types of Photoshop
plugins are you most interested?
NEW POLLS: Which was the last Photoshop version that offered essential new features for you? Which of the new Photoshop CC 2014 features do you consider most useful?
THE DISCUSSION FORUMS: Plugin Commander Installation Problem, Penta & Lokas Plugins
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: Vignette Corrector
6, Pog's Mono Renditionizer, RGB2Gray, Fotor
GRAPHICS NEWS: Photoshop CC 2014, Exposure 6, AfterShot Pro 2
Dear Reader,
With the arrival of Photoshop CC 2014 flash panel extensions are no longer supported. This is a very unfortunate decision of Adobe, because it makes hundreds of existing flash panels useless, which meant essential workflow imporvements for thousands of users. If Photoshop was only available as a perpetual license, Adobe would probably have thought twice before taking such a step. With the Creative Cloud model there is certainly much less to lose when dropping existing features in future Photoshop versions.
Flash panels are now superseded by HTML5 panel extensions, which already work in Photoshop CC. However, it requires a complete rewriting of the UI to convert flash panels into HTML5 panels. The documentation provided by Adobe is very poor and Adobe Extension Builder 3 only seems to produce panels for Photoshop CC and not CC 2014. Besides, HTML5 does not support all Flash options, so some panel features may have to be dropped in the HTML5 versions. So it is very likely that only a minority of the existing flash panels will become available as HTML5 panels.
Our FilterHub product is also affected by this change. The Mac version of FilterHub does not work in Photoshop CC 2014. The flash panel of FilterHub for Windows does not work either. But the Filter Hub automation plugin for Windows (File > Automation > FilterHub) can still be used in Photoshop CC 2014. It cannot be docked to the other panels, but it can be collapsed and repositioned. We still have to decide if there will be a HTML5 panel version of FilterHub in future or not.
Other than that have a look at the update of our Plugin Essential article, which offers important information about Photoshop Plugins since 2000.
Kind
regards,
Harald Heim
PLUGIN GALAXY 3.01 FOR WINDOWS
16 New Blend Modes, 2 New Effects and Improved Filter Factory Support
Version 3.01 of Plugin Galaxy now offers all blend modes of Photoshop CC plus 9 additional ones that are not available in Photoshop. In total there are 16 new blend modes. Plugin Galaxy also includes two new effects (String Theory & Full Min Blur), a new Median option for the Full Max Blur effect, 7 new presets and better default values for the Breakfast and Synthesizer effects. The new Undo button restores the effect values that were previously set for the current effect.
Additionally Filter Factory support was improved. We recommend that you reimport all .ffx files and those .8bf files that did not work previously. The Blend feature now works for all Filter Factory effects and Paint Shop Pro X3-X6 does not crash with certain Filter Factory filters anymore.
Plugin Galaxy 3 is a plugin for creating special effects and enhancing images with the help of 160 native filters and countless Filter Factory effects. It supports multiple CPU cores for fast rendering and can be used as a smart filter.
For more information and a demo version (with four
free effects) see the
Plugin Galaxy
Product Page
ELEMENTSXXL 2.03 FOR WINDOWS
Less Flashing, Plugin Galaxy 3 Smart Filtering and Bug Fixes
ElementsXXL 2.03 now suppresses image flashing when using the Convert for Smart Filters, Add Smart Filters, Image > Mode > 16 Bits/Channel, Ungroup Layers and the Fade dialog features. Plugin Galaxy 3 can now also be used as a smart filter. The new Preferences option to force English localization helps to deal with localization problems. Furthermore, several bugs were fixed and a few smaller improvements added.
ElementsXXL adds up to 230 powerful features to Photoshop Elements for Windows that were previously only available in Photoshop. These features are included as new menu items, icons, buttons, key shortcuts and dialogs, so they seamlessly integrate into the user interface of Photoshop Elements. ElementsXXL bridges the gap between Photoshop Elements and Photoshop and greatly enhances the image editing experience in Photoshop Elements.
For more information and a 14-day trial version
visit
ElementsXXL
Product Page
METARAW 1.07 FOR WINDOWS
Support for new Cameras
MetaRaw includes support for 18 new cameras in its latest two updates. Adobe DNG Converter 8.5 is now officially supported. MetaRaw 1.07 also offers improved handling of TIFF and DNG formats and produces better image quality for older Phase One, Sony and Panasonic cameras. Plugin Installer now displays "Photoshop CC 2014" instead of "Photoshop CC2".
MetaRaw extends the functionality of the Adobe Camera Raw plugin in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. It lets you open camera raw files with Adobe Camera Raw, which are normally not supported by it, and allows applying Adobe Camera Raw as a filter to image layers. In Photoshop Elements MetaRaw provides automatic lens correction and chromatic aberration removal features for Adobe Camera Raw. Additionally MetaRaw includes its own raw converter, which has several advantages over Adobe Camera Raw.
For more information and a 14-day trial version
visit
MetaRaw
Product Page
PLUGIN ESSENTIALS UPDATE
Using Filter Factory Plugins under Newer OSes, Mac Gatekeeper/Retina Workarounds, Flash Panel Extensions No Longer Supported
The Plugin Essentials article, which delivers the most essential knowledge about Photoshop plugins since 2000, was finally updated again. Three chapters were updates to reflect the latest developments. Thus you can now read how to make use of Filter Factory plugins under Windows and MacOS X and how to make plugins work despite Gatekeeper and missing Retina support. The "Other Photoshop Add-ons" chapter also discusses the dropped flash panel support in Photoshop CC 2014.
Using
Filter Factory Plugins under Newer Operating Systems
Mac
Gatekeeper/Retina Workarounds
Flash
Panel Extensions No Longer Supported
POLL RESULT
In which types of Photoshop plugins are you most interested?
In the latest poll 144 voters cast 373 votes, which is 2.5 votes per voter. Here are the results about your favorite plugin type:
1. Photo Enhancement Plugin 25.2%
2. Special Effects Plugin 20.6%
3. Graphic Design Plugin 11%
4. Texture Creation Plugin 10.5%
5. Workflow Enhancement Plugin 8.6%
6. 3D Effect Plugin 8%
7. Raw Conversion Plugin 7.8%
8. Other 4.8%
9. Web Design Plugin 3.5%
Photo enhancement and special effects still seem to be the most favorite types of plugins and twice as popular as other types. Nevertheless, they only score 45% of all votes. Graphic design, texture creation, workflow enhancement, 3D effects and raw conversion together gathered another 45% of the votes. So the poll results reflect a big interest in a wide variety of Photoshop plugins.
For more poll results please visit the
Resources section
NEW POLLS
Which was the last Photoshop
version that offered essential new features for you?
Which of the new Photoshop CC 2014 features do you consider most useful?
The latest polls ask two questions. First of all, which was the last Photoshop version whose new features you found useful. Is it the latest Photoshop CC 2014 or was it such an old releases as Photoshop 6? Secondly, you can vote for the most useful new features of Photoshop CC 2014, so that we see which ones you like best.
Please participate in this poll by visiting
the
Main page...
THE DISCUSSION FORUMS
Plugin Commander Installation Problem, Penta & Lokas Plugins
Here is an interesting post from The Plugin Site Forums:
Plugin Commander Installation Problem
dinasset wrote: "Just received last news and decided to install the updated
version of the PluginCommanderLite. ... Uninstalled what was in the system
... and reinstalled the new version. No errors, installation successful, but
clicking on the icon the program does not start (no errors, no loops, nothing,
simply doesn't react to the click). ... Can you ... help me?"
Read
More...
Penta & Lokas Plugins
Fran wrote: "... I'm working from request to use Penta Jeans, Lokas 3D
shadow. Would happen to know where I can get these plugins. ... I would greatly
appreciate your assistance."
Read
More...
Feel free to post comments or start a discussion topic
at
The Plugin Site Forum
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS
Vignette Corrector 6, Pog's Mono
Renditionizer, RGB2Gray, Fotor
Version 6 of Martin Vicanek's
free Vignette Corrector 32-bit plugin (for Windows)
offers higher quality rendering, vignette center positioning, a Help
button and tool tips option. Vignette Corrector contains controls for
adjusting the size and brightness of the vignette as well as modifying
tint and saturation. On the same web site you can also find small updates
of the Wire Worm and Perspective Transformations plugins.
Visit website...
Pog's Mono Renditionizer is a free
32-bit Photoshop plugin (for Windows) for turning images into black & white
photos. It allows setting the intensity and brightness of each color
via sliders. The original web site of this plugin is down, but here is
a new download location:.
Visit
website...
RGB2Gray is a 32-bit Photoshop plugin
(for Windows) of the Filter Factory type, which converts color images
to b&w ones via Red, Green and Blue sliders. It additionally adjusts
contrast, brightness and clipping. You can also open and use this filter
in our Plugin Galaxy 3 plugin or in Plugin Commander.
Visit
website...
Fotor is a free image editing tool
(for Win/Mac/iOS/Android) that offers a dark UI and various special effects.
It contains standard controls like exposure, brightness, contrast, white
balance, saturation, sharpen/blur,vignette and highlights & shadows
as well as rotate, straighten and crop tools. Additionally it offers
13 one-click scene effects and more than 60 other effects, e.g. color,
b&w, vignette, tilt-shift, borders and textures. Don't expect professional
features like selections and layers here.
Visit
Windows website...
Visit
Mac website...
For more free plugins and tool, please visit the
Resources
section
GRAPHICS NEWS
Photoshop CC 2014, Exposure 6, AfterShot Pro 2
Adobe released Photoshop CC 2014 two
weeks ago. New features include new Blur Gallery motion effects, a Focus
Mask feature for automatically selecting in-focus areas, Typekit desktop
fonts, a new font search and many enhancements and improvements to existing
features. On the downside some things were removed: the Oil Paint filter,
Flash Panel extensions (including Mini Bridge, Kuler, Configurator and
hundreds of 3rd party panels) and support for MacOS X 10.6.
Visit
website...
Visit
Adobe Blog...
Alien Skin Software released Version 6 of Exposure.
It offers a new processing engine for faster previews, a new user interface
and the effects of the Bokeh product. Exposure 6 simulates classic film
stocks and development techniques with more than 450 presets.
Visit
website...
Corel made version 2 of its raw conversion application AfterShot
Pro (for Win/Mac/Linux) available. It features a new 64-bit
architecture for more speed and processing large images. 250 raw camera
profiles are now available. A Noise reduction from Athentech was included
too. New High Dynamic Range tools have only been added to the Windows
version yet. Otherwise AfterShot Pro 2 offers small UI changes, improved
batch processing, manual red eye removal and a local contrast effect.
Visit
website...
