Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugin Newsletter - October/November 2013
CONTENTS
20% DISCOUNT ON ALL PRODUCTS
OF THE PLUGIN SITE
ELEMENTSXXL 1.04 FOR WINDOWS: Support for Photoshop Elements 12
METARAW 1.02 FOR WINDOWS: New cameras supported and bug fixes
POLL RESULT: Which is your favorite
tool for viewing images?
NEW POLL: Which version of Lightroom do you use?
THE DISCUSSION FORUMS: Disabled Filter Menu Item, Adobe Subscriptions
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: AutoFX Mystical
Freebies, Free Photo Blemish Remover, MetaEditor, StarStaX, digiCamControl
GRAPHICS NEWS: Photoshop Elements 12, Photoshop Photography Subscription, Focus Magic 4, Lazy Nezumi Pro
Dear Reader,
At the end of September (like almost every year since 2001) a new version of Photoshop Elements was released. This time is was version 12. The Mac version of Photoshop Elements 12 is finally 64-bit, whereas we have to wait another year for a 64-bit Windows version. While Photoshop Elements 12 is a good investment for Mac users who require more performance, I am rather disappointed about Photoshop Elements 12 for Windows. For sure, there are new content-aware features and things that make it easier for newbies, but there are no essential new features for more advanced users. Additionally some plugins are not included anymore, e.g. Lighting Effects and Magic Extractor.
Adobe offers a new Photoshop Photography subscription for owners of Photoshop CS3-CS6 for $10 per month. It includes both Photoshop and Lightroom. This is certainly a big step forward for people who consider the regular subscription prices too high. In any case one wonders why Adobe did not come up with it sooner and why they will close this offer by the end of the year. Additionally, for people who dislike subscriptions in general or do not own an old version of Photoshop, this offer does not help at all.
20% DISCOUNT ON ALL PRODUCTS OF THE PLUGIN SITE
Until November 15, 2013, you can order all products of The Plugin Site with a 20% discount. All you have to do is to enter the following coupon code on the order page:.
TPS-54RF-52E86D
Please Note: We recommend paying via Paypal when ordering with the coupon. If you order two or more products via Element5, the coupon is not applied to the first product. This is a technical limitation, on which we unfortunately have no influence. If you nevertheless prefer Element5, we can only offer to discount the surplus amount from a future order.
Have a look at our products on the
Products Page
The coupon needs to be entered on the order page
on
Order Page
ELEMENTSXXL 1.04 UPDATE
Support for Photoshop Elements 12
ElementsXXL 1.04 now supports Photoshop Elements 12, which was recently released. It also offers various bug fixes concerning e.g. smart filtering and 16-bit mode.
ElementsXXL adds up to 130 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 see
ElementsXXL
Product Page
METARAW 1.02 FOR WINDOWS
New cameras supported and bug fixes
Version 1.02 of MetaRaw includes enhanced support for several new cameras, e.g. the Canon 70D, and requires Adobe DNG Converter 8.2. When opening the same raw file again with Adobe DNG Converter, the previously used Camera Raw settings are now restored. A bug fix makes MetaRaw Converter run faster again.
MetaRaw extends the functionality of the Adobe Camera Raw plugin in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. It opens raw files with Adobe Camera Raw, which are not supported by it, and allows filtering image layers with Adobe Camera Raw. In Photoshop Elements MetaRaw provides automatic lens correction and chromatic aberration removal features. Additionally MetaRaw includes its own raw converter, which has several advantages over Adobe Camera Raw.
For more information and a 14-day trial see
MetaRaw
Product Page
POLL RESULT
Which is your favorite tool for viewing images?
Approximately 300 participants took part in the last poll about image viewers. Unfortunately there was a problem with the poll server and poll results were lost. This is the first time such a thing has happened within the last 15 years that polls are conducted on The Plugin Site. We have now changed to another poll service to avoid such a problem in future.
The results below are written down from memory when viewing the poll results several days before the poll was damaged. So they are not absolutely precise and do not cover all 20 items, but better than nothing.
1. IrfanView 19%
2. FastStone Image Viewer 13%
3. Adobe Bridge 11%
4. Lightroom 9.5%
5. Other 9%
6. Paint Shop Pro 8%
7. XnView 7%
8. ACDSee 6%
9. Windows Photo Gallery 3%
10. Thumbs Plus 2%
11. Windows Explorer 2%
12. iPhoto 1.5%
13. Zoner Photo Studio 1.2%
14. MacOS Finder 1%
Like in the poll from 2006 IrfanView still seems to be the most popular image viewer, although it lost 10% of its votes. The second most popular image viewer is FastStone Image Viewer. Both have a rather old-fashioned UI, but are freeware, which explains their popularity. Adobe Bridge seems to be used by twice as many people compared to 2006 whereas Paint Shop Pro received as many votes as before. Lightroom made it to rank 4 in this poll, which is not surprising. ACDSee was Nr. 2 in 2006, but lost 66% of its votes in the meantime.
It is surprising to see that the image viewers built into Windows and MacOS did not score more votes. So dedicated image viewers are still preferred by most users.
For more poll results please visit the
Resources section
NEW POLL
Which version of Lightroom do you use?
Previous polls asked about which versions of Photoshop, Elements and Paint Shop Pro are in usage. It is time to do the same for a raw converter like Lightroom. So this poll lets you vote for the Lightroom version that you use, from version 1 to 5.
Please participate in this poll by visiting
the
Main page...
THE DISCUSSION FORUMS
Disabled Filter Menu Item, Adobe Subscriptions
Here are the latest posts from The Plugin Site Forums:
Disabled Filter Menu Item
Someone wrote: "I have installed a few of Harry's filters. The Plug In
Site appears on my filters pull-down menu but it is not active so I can't select
it. Did I do something wrong or was it installed in the wrong place?"
Read
More...
Adobe Subscriptions
mldavis2 wrote: "Admittedly an old topic but it is an ongoing source of
frustration, irritation and outright anger among non-professional hobbyists
without deep pockets. I am eager to hear customer reactions at the meetings
this week. I suspect they may be booed from the stage by many. ..."
Read
More...
Feel free to post comments or start a discussion topic
at
The Plugin Site Forum
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS
AutoFX Mystical Freebies, Free
Photo Blemish Remover, MetaEditor, StarStaX, digiCamControl
AutoFX offers
five free effects (for Win/Mac) from its Mystical product line for
free. They are available as Photoshop plugins as well as standalones.
The effects are called Focal Zoom, Light Brush, Mood Lighting, Vitality,
Lighten & Sharpen and Sharpen Details.
Visit
website...
Free Photo Blemish Remover (for Windows)
removes blemishes and other imperfections in photos by clicking on them.
It can be used to fix point-like stains, blemishes and skin problems.
Visit
website...
MetaEditor is a freeware tool (for
Windows) for editing meta data of JPEG, TIFF and PNG files. It supports
EXIF, IPTC and GPS meta data. When saving the changed meta data it does
not recompress the image. It also lets you batch process files and export/import
meta data to/from files.
Visit
website...
StarStaX (for Win/Mac/Linux) is an
image stacking software, which merges a series of photos into a single
image using different blending modes. It was developed with star trail
photography in mind, but can also be used for general image blending
tasks, e.g. noise reduction or dynamic range increase. StarStaX also
offers features for interactive gap-filling and can create an image sequence
of the blending process for time-lapse videos creation.
Visit
website...
digiCamControl (for Windows) lets
you remote control your camera from your computer via USB. You can see
a live view on your computer display, trigger the camera from a computer,
tablet or smartphone as well as control multiple connected cameras at
the same time. digiCamControl can be used with various cameras from Nikon
and Canon.
Visit website...
For more free plugins and tool, please visit the
Resources
section
GRAPHICS NEWS
Photoshop Elements 12, Photoshop Photography Subscription, Focus Magic 4, Lazy Nezumi Pro
The new Adobe Photoshop Elements 12 (for
Win/Mac) includes a content-aware move tool, content-aware support for
the Straighten tool, a pet eye correction feature, Auto Smart Tone for
one-click corrections, Quick Frames, Effects and Textures presets, Guided
Edits tutorials, Elements Mobile Albums for sharing photos and vidos
via different devices, Twitter sharing and 64-bit support for Mac only.
The UI has not changed and still looks almost identical to Photoshop
lements 11.
Visit
website...
The Photoshop Photography Subscription offers
people who own Photoshop CS3 or higher an Adobe Creative Cloud membership
for $9.99/month. It includes Photoshop CC, Lightroom 5, 20 GB of online
storage, Behance ProSite, Access to Creative Cloud Learn’s training
resources as well as future updates. This subscription offer is only
valid until the end of the year.
Visit
website...
Visit
website...
FocusMagic 4 (for Win/Mac) is a Photoshop
plugin for repairing out-of-focus blur and motion blur in images. The
new update includes 64bit versions for Windows as well as Mac. It is
a good alternative to Photoshop CC'S camera shake reduction filter.
Visit website...
Lazy Nezumi Pro is a tool that allows
users to smooth their lines while drawing with a mouse or graphic tablet.
It can be used with many different applications, but there is also a
plugin, which directly integrates it with Photoshop.
Visit website...