Plugin Newsletter - October 2005

Contents
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EDITORIAL

COLORWASHER 2.0b FOR MACOS X

POLL RESULTS: Your Favorite Lens Correction Tools

NEW POLL: Your Favorite Photo Effects

THE DISCUSSION FORUMS: Flexagon Plugin, Animated Fire Plugin, Shape Warping, Textil Design, Icy Letters, Unplugged Plugins, Saturation Gradient, Radial Warp

FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: Clatfelter Plugins, Histotext Filter, Daz Studio, Foto-Mosaik, CBN Selector, Kidsnapper

GRAPHICS NEWS: Elements 4, PhotoImpact 11, Starizona, Gertrudis, Alienskin Patches, Camera RAW 3.2

PRODUCTS FROM THE PLUGIN SITE

ABOUT THE PLUGIN SITE

Dear Reader,

You may wonder why you didn't get the Plugin Newsletter a few days earlier. I was on holiday so I didn't have the time to prepare it earlier. But it will be sent out again as usual at the end of each month with the next issue.

As you may have noticed the Graphics News in this newsletter aren't provided by Graphics.com anymore. Graphics.com recently decided to publish mostly design and publishing orientated news, so a large part of the plugin scene won't be covered by them anymore. They are now compiled again by myself to ensure that they have a high relevany. Previously I asked people to post news at graphics.com. Now if you have any special news, please send them directly to The Plugin Site at http://thepluginsite.com/about/contact.htm

Sincerely,
Harald Heim

www.thepluginsite.com

COLORWASHER 2.0b FOR MACOS X
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We have released another quick update of the Mac version of our ColorWasher plugin. Version 2.0b for MacOS X now works in Canvas, GraphicConverter and probably some more applications that support plugins. A bug prevented access to the language files in these applications, which has been fixed. FireWorks previously crashed after pressing the OK button when the histogram tab sheet was visible. That was fixed, too. Furthermore, the Info tab now shows correct pixel values for 16bit images and the
Beta screen isn't accidentally displayed anymore if the ColorWasher window is inactive.

For those who don't know yet, ColorWasher is a Photoshop-compatible plugin for performing color corrections on 8bit and 16bit photos easily and effectively. Additionally it also offers manual and automatic contrast, exposure and saturation adjustment features. A Windows version is available, too.

For more information about ColorWasher and downloading a demo version please visit:
http://thepluginsite.com/products/photowiz/

POLL RESULTS
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143 people voted in our latest poll with the question "Which is your favorite lens correction tool?". The results are as follows:

1. Photoshop CS2 Lens Correction 29%
2. PTLens 16%
3. Paint Shop Pro Barrel/Pincushion Distortion Correctin 15%

4. Other 11%
5. DxO Optics Pro 6%
6. Andromeda LensDoc 5%

7. 55mm Lens Correction 3%
7. Rosenman Lens Distortion Corrector 3%
8. Helmut Dersch Panorama Tools 2%
8. DCE Tools Lens Distortion Correction 2%
8. Photo-Plugins Lens Correction 2%
8. Powerretouche Lens Correction 2%
8. Rosenman Lens Corrector PRO 2%
9. Flo's UnDistort Filter 1%
9. HumanSoftware PhotoFixlens 1%
9. ImageAlign Pro 1%
10. Kekus Panotools LensFix 0%
10. The Imaging Factory Debarrelizer 0%

The Lens Correction tool in CS2 seems to be liked best, but I consider the free PTLens superior. Only as far as chromatic abberations are concerned CS2 Lens Correction does an impressive job. The PaintShopPro lens tools are quite basic, so I wouldn't really recommend them, but some people seem to like them for quick'n'dirty corrections. In the middle ranks are Optics Pro and LensDoc, which are quite nice tools, but commercial. Finally, there are a lot of other tools that seem to be favored only by few people.

For more poll results, please visit the Know-How section at
http://thepluginsite.com/knowhow/

NEW POLL
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Our latest poll is about your favorite photo effects and asks the question "Which of these photo effects do you like best?". You can vote for up to 20 photo effects which are each described with several words to avoid misunderstandings. Please vote only for your most favorite effects and don't vote for more than 5 to 10 effects, otherwise the poll results won't be very distinctive. Thanks for your participation!

Please vote at the bottom of the page at
http://thepluginsite.com/

THE DISCUSSION FORUMS
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Here are the latest interesting posts from The Plugin Site Forums:

Will asked: "Would anyone be interested in helping me develop a shareware plugin for photoshop on flexagons. Flexagons are mathematical way of manipulating paper so that you can play with them to reveal hidden sides."
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1758

df asked: "Is there a free plug in for premiere pro to create fire/flames/smoke?"
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5496

Rilo wrote: "I'm lookin for a ps-Plugin (not nessecarily PS) to drag any kind of Picture selection into any kind of shapes ... E.g. I have a rectangular selection and want do redraw it like an arc (or anything else)."
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1653

shdpl wrote: "I am Textile Designer. I have looked all over the web for such a plug-in where one can put different textures on sofas, etc thru photoshop. Only came up with Style Draper but that too is expensive."
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=167

vasege wrote: "Help me please! I need ice plug-in! To make letters icy.."
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1737

vzlion asked: "I recently had a hard disk failure and lost my Unplugged filters. Anyone kinow where I can find them?"
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1745

scriptdoc wrote: "I have an image that I want to start with color on 1 end, and gradually fade it to black and white by the time it gets to the other end. Plugins for that? Help?"
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5497

photoChop wrote: "... I have a banner ... would like to radial warp to set in a color band (circle) to be printed on the exterior edge of a disc. The warping plugins and applications I've used fail to correct the ends of the banner in radius fashion."
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1724

For more interesting discussions please visit
http://www.thepluginsite.com/forum/

FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS
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Jim Clatfelter offers 7 free Photoshop plugins (for Windows) on his website. The AAA Multi-Filter plugin offers two dozen simple effects that are only adjustable with one slider, the Focus Filter lets you blur and sharpen images, the Color Adjustment Filter adjust some image parameters and the Gamma Adjustment Filter does some channel-specific gamma-ing. The Edge Art plugin turns photos into drawings and the Custom filter does convolutions. While these six plugins produce rather simple and common effects, the Simplifier generates nice illustrations out of photos by removing less important details.

http://www.clatfelter.net/8bf/plugin.html

Telegraphics offer a Histotext Filter plugin (for Win/Mac) that exports histogram numbers as a text file.

http://www.telegraphics.com.au/sw/

Daz Studio is a free 3D figure posing and animation software (for Win/Mac). Don't miss the free PowerPose plugin for Daz Studio that can be downloaded, too.

http://www.daz3d.com/program/studio/

Foto-Mosaik (for Windows) is a postcardware tool that creates a photo mosaic picture by arranging many small images as tiles. A wizard guides you through the process and lets you specify the size and number of the tiles and even blend the photo mosaic with the original.

http://www.sixdots.de/mosaik/en/

CBN Selector (for Windows) is an application for quickly changing the color of certain parts of digital images. It is aimed at buildings and interior design, but can also be used on clothing and other things. It offers color wheels, color harmonies and thousands of standard industry colors. There is also a monitor calibration and reporting tool.

http://www.cbnsystem.com/software/selector_benefits.asp

Kidsnapper is a freeware tool (for Windows) from Phillip Spoeth, who is known for his Dragon Fly and Frischluft plugins. It doesn't abduct the photos of your kids (Please read it as Kid-snapper and not Kids-napper!), but sends screenshots to browsers on remote computers over the internet. You just need to select what you want somebody else to see.

http://www.philipp-spoeth.de/kidsnapper/

GRAPHICS NEWS
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Elements 4 for Windows Only
Adobe announced the Windows version of Photoshop Elements 4. There is a new auto red-eye removal function, a Magic Selection brush, a new Magic Extractor, Skin Tone Adjustment tool, a slideshow feature with many effect. The Mac version is said to become available in the near future.

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/

The 11th Impact
Ulead announced Version 11 of PhotoImpact. The new version throws in a new workspace feature, enhanced 16-bit editing, RAW/DNG support, SmartCurves corrections, a Scene Compositor, non-destructive Layer Masks and editable alpha-channel masks for objects.

http://www.ulead.com/pi/

Enhance Your Astronomical Shots
Starizona released two Photoshop plugins that are mainly intended for astronomers. The Zone Mask Filter works by selectively brightening faint detail and enhances detail. Levelizer on the other hand enhances faint detail in images with high dynamic range.

http://www.starizona.com/show.cfm?StockNo=PSPI-PKG&Show=1

Paint Over Your Photos
Gertrudis Graphics greatly enhanced their free paint program and now made it commercial. Gertrudis is a stand alone software that transforms an image or photo into an original artwork. It lets you create different versions of the picture, e.g. oil painting, aquarela, crayon and other styles.

http://www.gertrudisgraphics.com/

Alien Bites Tiger
Alien Skin Software announced free Mac OS X 10.4 updates of their Photoshop plugins. These updates address compatibility as well as a few, minor bugs.
http://www.alienskin.com/support/patches/index.html

RAW Power for CS2 Guys
The Photoshop Camera Raw plugin has been updated to Version 3.2 and supports 16 RAW formats. Unfortunately, this update only works with Photoshop CS2 and not CS. So you will have to buy CS2 if you recently purchased a new camera and can't live without Adobe's Camera Raw.

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html

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