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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.



Photoshop Plugin Reviews From Jay Nelson - April 2008
April 22, 2008

Here are the latest Photoshop Plugin Reviews by Jay Nelson, the editor-in-chief of Design Tools Monthly.

Intuitive Image Fixing
onOne Software's PhotoTune 2.2 ($130, formerly 20/20 Color MD) is an image-enhancing and color-correcting plug-in for Photoshop that's remarkably easy to use. All you do is look at a series of side-by-side images, each time clicking on the one you think looks best. After you complete this 15-second process, it applies the minimum number of adjustments to make your image look like your final choice. You can work on your entire image, one layer, or a selection. In our tests, it increased both detail and color in shadow areas, balanced colors, and toned down glare. You can also save up to four "snapshots" of your adjustments at any point in the process to compare with subsequent adjustments, and include PhotoTune's adjustments in a Photoshop Action for batch processing. Version 2 adds support for 16-bit and Raw images. Version 2.2 lets you apply changes to a selection and includes SkinTune to accurately adjust skin colors.

Color Efex Pro 3
Nik Software's Color Efex Pro 3 adds up to 52 professional-quality photographic filters to Photoshop, with more than 250 unique effects. Amazingly, you can "paint" the filters onto your image with variable strength, using a Wacom pressure-sensitive pen and tablet. The basic filters let you apply traditional color lens effects to enhance skin tones, skies, and foliage, all without damaging the rest of the photograph. One amazing filter is the Sunshine filter, which transforms the dull colors in a picture taken on a cloudy day into the colors you would see on a bright summer day. Other filters include B/W Conversion, Classical Soft Focus, Vignette, Darken/Lighten Center, Fog, Remove Color Cast, Graduated Blue and other colors, Polarize, Silver and Gold Reflectors and White Neutralizer. The Stylizing filters include artistic effects such as Indian Summer, Midnight, Monday Morning, Old Photo (Color & B/W), Pastel, Solarization and many others. Among the new filters are Film Effects, Film Grain, and Glamour Glow. Versions are available priced from $100 to $300, with a 15-day free trial.

Brush On Detail
Pixel Vistas' PhotoLift ($40) is a plug-in for Photoshop that is shockingly effective at increasing detail and contrast in areas of interest. You can use it on a selection, or brush it on interactively. We encourage you to roll your mouse over the samples at their website.

Recolor Fabrics and Products
If you have a project where you need to change the color of many items, such as articles of clothing, products, etc., Clicdesign's ColorVision ($350) can save you hours and hours. This plug-in for Photoshop maintains the original texture and feel of an item or fabric, without losing shading or details. You can use a standard Adobe color Swatches file to assign colors, or even let it generate new colors for you.

Kodak GEM Removes Blemishes
Kodak's Professional GEM Airbrush Plug-in 2.1 ($100) is a remarkable filter for Photoshop that lets you remove blemishes, spots, wrinkles, shadows and film grain from an entire image or from a selection. It works with 8-bit and 16-bit images, and magically preserves details such as hair, eyelashes and eyebrows. The technology is extremely advanced and the results are remarkable. You can download a trial version to test it for yourself.

Amazing Color Adjustments in Illustrator
If Adobe Illustrator is your preferred design tool, you may miss some of the creative capabilities available in Photoshop. Astute Graphics' Phantasm CS is a remarkable plug-in for Adobe Illustrator CS2/CS3 that adds color controls similar to Photoshop's: brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, and levels and curves -- but you can use them on native Illustrator shapes and imported images. It also adds controls for invert, levels, shift to color, and overprint removal. All controls are available as both a Filter and a Live Effect, so that you can later edit or remove your changes. It's available in three versions ranging from $45 to $175. The "Designer" version adds halftone, duotone and other effects, while the "Studio" version adds industrial-strength output features such as previews for separations, overprints and ink coverage, and the ability to edit inline images.

AKVIS Enhancer
Akvis Enhancer 8 ($69) is a unique plug-in for Photoshop that pulls detail out of shadows and highlights. It can dramatically improve most photos, especially those with strong light behind your subject. Besides enhancing details in shadows and highlights, Enhancer can also improve details in a photo's midtone areas, making it an effective tool for sharpening an otherwise well-exposed photo. It's also extremely effective at removing the haze that sometimes covers a photo, which is usually the result of non-optimal camera settings. A fully functional, 10-day free trial is available.

Image Doctor 2
Alien Skin's Image Doctor 1 was a breakthrough plug-in for Photoshop. Now Image Doctor 2 is here ($199), and it improves the speed and quality of its results, and its interface. Image Doctor comprises several filters: Dust and Scratch Remover, JPEG Repair, Blemish Concealer, Skin Softener, and Smart Fill. These filters do what their names imply: restore rips, scratches, and dust in scans of old photos; repair overly compressed and blocky JPEG images, such as cell phone photos; remove unwanted objects from pictures with a seamless recreation of the nearby background; and retouch and soften skin areas by removing moles, birthmarks, scars, wrinkles, tattoos, pimples, and oily or splotchy skin patches. We've used them and they work beautifully.

A Unique Focus Tool
onOne Software's FocalPoint ($160) is a unique plug-in for Photoshop that lets you apply creative focusing effects to an image. You set the location of a "sweet spot" of focus and then control the amount and kind of blur, and then optionally lighten or darken the edges. Remarkably, you can tilt the plane of focus, much like a tilt-shift lens, or simply lighten or darken the areas outside the sweet spot, for a vignetting effect. Blur choices include a standard defocused look as well as a blur that simulates motion. You can save your favorite effects as presets for easy use later on, even as an Action on an entire folder of images. There's nothing else quite like it.

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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 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.

Photoshop Masking Plugin Fluid Mask 3 - $15 Discount Special

The 4 1/2 out of 5 star review of Fluid Mask 3 at MacWorld begins by saying that this "Photoshop plug-in takes the pain out of extracting backgrounds," and goes on to recommend the latest version, stating that "Fluid Mask 3.0.2 is a very effective tool for separating objects from their backgrounds. It offers a variety of useful features for tackling almost any difficult image, from wispy hair to complex foliage. Online video tutorials and live training sessions help ease the learning curve."

Our friends at Vertus, the makers of Fluid Mask 3 Photoshop Plugin, have set up a special exclusive discount for PhotoshopSupport.com. Just follow this discount link and instantly get $15 off your purchase of Fluid Mask 3.

Fluid Mask 3 is designed for photographers, image editors, graphic designers and all those who take digital image editing seriously. In a streamlined interface and workflow, Fluid Mask 3 instantly shows key edges in the image and provides comprehensive easy to use tools that work with difficult-to-see edges and tricky areas like trees & lattices. Features include: