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The Photoshop Blog offers the latest Photoshop news and software updates, Photoshop tips and tutorials, and random thoughts from graphic artist and Photoshop expert Jennifer Apple.
Alien Skin Exposure 2 - Photoshop Film Stock Simulator Plugin
October 01, 2007
I want to start by mentioning that our friends at Alien Skin Software have set us up with an exclusive special offer discount link that will give you some sweet savings at their online store. Just follow this link and you'll see 10% and 20% price drops on their products when you get to the Alien Skin Online Store area. This special offer includes their latest release Exposure 2 (regular $249 - our price $229). Here's a press release, followed by my short review of the product.
Alien Skin Exposure 2 - Press Release
Alien Skin today announced the release of Exposure 2, the latest version of its industry-leading film stock simulator and effects package. Exposure 2 lets digital photographers and graphic artists enhance any digital photo by simulating the rich, organic look of film.
Developed from a detailed, scientific analysis of current and discontinued color and black and white print and slide stocks, Exposure 2 features more than 300 presets that emulate the warmth, softness, and realistic grains of film — the vivid colors of Velvia, the natural skin tones of Portra, and the ethereal glow of infrared — to provide new and alternative looks for fashion, wedding, magazine, event, and portrait photographers, photo hobbyists, and a wide array of creative, printing, and graphic arts professionals. Exposure 2 even simulates the retro colors of faded Polaroid.
More sophisticated than merely adding simple digital noise, Exposure 2’s grain simulation models the size, shape, and color of real world grain, including the unique salt and pepper grain of TRI-X and the large, intensely colorful grain of the discontinued GAF 500.
Exposure 2 grain size is automatically adjusted to image size so grain looks the same on high- and low-resolution photos. A roughness control gives Exposure 2 users subtle control over grain shape.
While other digital image products produce flat, lifeless black and white conversions, Exposure 2 also brings back the high impact of black and white film to digital photography.
A simple yet flexible channel mixer interface provides subtle control over the color to black and white conversion process. Color toning, contrast, and grain add the finishing touches to turn color photographs into dramatic black and white works of art.
Beyond the ability to reproduce the look and feel of film, Exposure 2 offers a range of effects previously available only in darkrooms and photo labs, such as push and cross processing and glamour portrait softening.
Exposure 2’s controls enable users to easily manage color saturation, tone, sharpness, and grain, streamlining workflow for photographers and graphic artists with one comprehensive yet easy-to-use tool.
Applying Exposure 2 settings to batches of images is easily accomplished using Photoshop Actions. Any Exposure 2 preset can be the starting point for a signature look by adjusting it to suit a particular subject. This new look can be saved as a setting for future use. All Exposure 2 settings can be deployed nondestructively in a new Photoshop layer named after the setting used. Exposure 2 supports Photoshop CS3 Smart Filters.
For ease of use, Exposure 2 settings are organized into categories, and last-used settings are remembered and highlighted. Previews are automatically scaled to fit the current window size. Multithreaded to run faster on multiprocessors or multi-core processors, Exposure 2 also easily handles 16-bit images, allowing RAW images to be manipulated at their highest quality.
Exposure 2 sells for $249 USD (special $229 through this link) with an upgrade price of $149 USD for registered users of Exposure 1. Online delivery is available directly on the Alien Skin website. Free upgrades are available to purchasers of Exposure 1 who purchased on September 1, 2007 or later.
Alien Skin Exposure 2 - Product Review
As Alien Skin Software proclaims, Exposure provides the closest thing to film since film. This user-friendly plug-in brings the look and feel of film to digital photography, allowing the user to recreate the qualities of a variety of film stocks in their digital images – "the vivid colors of Velvia, the rich blacks of Kodachrome, or the sensitivity of Ektachrome," among others.
Compatible with Adobe Photoshop and other host programs, Exposure offers a simple interface with a set of controls that allow you to adjust color, sharpness, saturation and grain of your digital image. Although the tools offered by Exposure do not differ wildly from those provided by Photoshop, this plug-in is still invaluable in terms of its overall simplicity.
Easy To Use — And Chemical Free!
It becomes remarkably easy to simulate the subtle differences that would be found when exposing and processing conventional film, without the hassle and cost of chemical processing. Rather than simply replicate their effects using pixels, Alien Skin developers used scans of actual film stock to create the filters. You can even define a signature personal effect that can be applied to future images with a single click.
Included are a series of pre-sets that allow you to mimic the effects of favorite conventional films. Even a number of discontinued film stocks are given new digital life by Exposure, lending credence to the notion that far from seeking to render conventional film obsolete, the developers at Alien Skin have sought to adapt it to the digital world.
Beyond its ease of use, this is perhaps the most striking appeal of Exposure. Rather than focus its attentions exclusively on the e-domain, it seeks to bring the best of both digital and conventional worlds to the desktops of the modern photographer.
Expose Yourself To Exposure
This is a fantatsic and easy to use plugin that will delight the amateur and professional photographer alike. And it's a seriously good tool for graphic designers to keep around, as it offers a very nice collection of classic and modern artistic photo effects that can be used in a variety of ways. Available from the Alien Skin website is a downloadable, fully functional demo version of Exposure – free of charge for a period of 30 days.
I'd also like to mention that what's nice about Alien Skin is that these people, over and above being a company in business, actually use this stuff and offer extraordinary products. They know what Photoshop users crave and they deliver.
Get special pricing, bundles, and free demos at the Alien Skin website.
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Photoshop CS3 Upgrade Options And Bundles From The Adobe Store
Photoshop CS3 Extended is ideal for film, video, and multimedia pros and for graphic and web designers using 3D and motion. Get the full version for US $999, or upgrade for US $349. The standard version of Photoshop CS3 is available for US $649, or as an upgrade for US $199. See all upgrade options at the Adobe Store. See our CS3 Resource Center for free Photoshop CS3 tutorials.
Photoshop Extended is also available as part of Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium, which combines all-new CS3 versions of Photoshop, Flash Pro, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, InDesign and Acrobat 8 Pro. Upgrade options for customers in Europe, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Asia can be found at the Adobe International Store.
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Available At The Adobe Store
There are tons of new features in Adobe Lightroom 1.0 that you won't find in the beta version. From Clone and Healing functionality to metadata browsing, you'll be able to free-up post-processing time like never before. Get it now at the Adobe Store. Customers in Europe, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Asia can find special pricing and offers at the Adobe International Store. For free Lightroom tutorials see our Lightroom tutorials page.
SiteGrinder Photoshop Plugin - Create Websites Instantly
There often seems to be a strict division of labor within the world of web design and development. Creative professionals tend to stick to the Photoshop domain, while those well-versed in scripting are left to the task of implementing their work. Indeed, the two realms are quite different from each other, to which any of us even vaguely familiar with either can easily attest.
Essentially, Photoshop is a no-holds-barred design studio, offering the artist a seemingly endless array of creative options. On the other hand, HTML, CSS, Java and the like follow strict rules of engagement, requiring the developer to take any number of esoteric concerns into consideration in order to ensure that designs are properly displayed on the web.
Turn Photoshop Into A Complete Web Design Tool
SiteGrinder seeks to bridge this gap between design and development. Basically, this program turns Photoshop into an easy-to-use and fully functional web design tool. With SiteGrinder, designers will now have the freedom to totally let their creativity loose and then, without skipping a beat, transfer their designs to the web. Bringing esthetic concerns together with more practical considerations, this program is an amazingly powerful tool that would make a fantastic addition to any web designer's bag of tricks.
Generate Your Web Pages Directly From Photoshop
By generating web pages directly from Photoshop, you'll be able to spend much more time on the creative end of the spectrum, since you'll know right off the bat how well particular designs will translate to the web. No more going back to the Photoshop drawing board after getting a phone call from your development team, telling you that what you had envisioned doesn't have a chance of being displayed on the web. You can immediately visually and interactively test your designs, which permits you to then make changes to either esthetics or functions while it's still relatively early on in the design process.
Pricing and Availability
Mac OS X and Windows versions of the SiteGrinder unlockable demo are available now via download. SiteGrinder can be ordered from Media Lab's online store.
Photoshop CS3 Book - CS3 Essential Skills - By Mark Galer And Philip Andrews
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An inspirational and user-friendly guide to creative image editing, Photoshop CS2: Essential Skills provides direction for photographers and designers alike who have ventured into the realm of the 'digital darkroom.' The book offers a progressive curriculum to guide you through Photoshop with a series of clear, step-by-step projects designed to place knowledge into a practical context.
Whether you simply want to retouch an image, create a glamour makeover or create a highly sophisticated montage - this book will give you the essential skills to complete the work to a professional standard.
Read 2 free sample chapters:
How To Sharpen An Image In Photoshop — Advanced Sharpening Techniques
Working With Shadows In Photoshop - Advanced Shadow Techniques
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Learn Adobe Photoshop with 21 hours of interactive Adobe Photoshop tutorials. This is training for real-world situations and includes additional tips and techniques used by the pros.
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