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Auto FX Mystical Lighting
Review by Jennifer Apple
(Get special pricing, bundles, and free demos at the AutoFX site.)
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Mystical Lighting allows you to apply realistic lighting and shading effects to digital images in order to achieve studio quality results. Used as either a standalone application or as a plug-in for Windows and Mac OS, it launches into its own user-friendly interface.
16 Visual Effects And 400 Presets
Mystical Lighting includes 16 visual effects and 400 presets, offering you the freedom to push the boundaries of your own creativity while retaining the option to achieve instantly formulated results.
Enhancing the ambiance and beauty of your digital images is made simple with Mystical Lighting's variety of layers, unlimited undo capability, masking and dynamic effect controls.
Superb Control & Precision
Though Photoshop does include lighting effects in its filter sets, Mystical Lighting includes many more lighting effects and options within those effects, while offering a higher degree of control and precision with which you can place them in your image. That said, it is highly integrative with Photoshop.
Good Value For The Money
Though the market for special effects software is vast, Mystical Lighting stands out from the pack in terms of its virtually infinite creative capacity. Its lighting and shading effects are powerful and its interface is effortless to use. While the 16 visual effects may not seem like a lot, the limitless number of ways in which these effects may be manipulated on their own or combined with others offers you immense value for the price.
Auto FX offers the option of purchasing a training video series directly from its site, providing over two and a half hours of instruction on how to optimize your use of Mystical Lighting. A downloadable demo is also available.
Integrated Support For Photoshop
Mystical Lighting features complete support for Adobe Photoshop versions 4.0 and higher - including Photoshop CS. This includes integrated support for layers and transparency features.
The plugin even saves to the Photoshop .psd file format with transparency intact. As you are working on your designs inside the Mystical Lighting plug-in or application version you can save out copies of your work as Photoshop .psd native files.
Mystical Lighting Features
Use Mystical Lighting in conjunction with Photoshop Actions and you can perform batch processing tasks to numerous images in one easy to apply session. Here are some of Mystical Lighting's other Photoshop features:
• Supports Photoshop Actions
• Supports Photoshop Layers
• Supports Photoshop's Last Filter Command
• Saves and Loads Adobe Photoshop native .psd files.
• Works as a Photoshop plug-in filter or as a stand alone application
• Supports Photoshop Transparency
• Easy to access in Photoshop under the filter menu
Mystical Lighting Includes 16 Effects
Each effect is built to provide an infinite number of possibilities to explore. Here is a list of the included effects.
Edge Highlights - Adds highlighting to hair and along the edges of your photographs
- Radial Light Caster - Generates light rays and patterns from a central point radiating outward
- Ethereal - Adds a soft diffused lighting effect to images to create ambiance
- Rainbow - Lets you draw rainbow arches or paths that form into photo-realistic rainbows
- FairyDust - Bezier based brushes paint stars, glowing fireflies and more
- Shader - Casts shading across your image to subtract existing light sources for a shaded result
- Flare - Light flares and bursts of light in different shapes and styles to highlight
- Shading Brush - Brush to naturally darken parts of your image and to subtract existing light from an area
- Light Brush - Paint on light, highlights and areas to simulate light striking the subject
ShadowPlay - Simulates a light source that casts shadows using content such as foilage or branches
- Light Caster - Creates streaming light, sunshine and light underwater effects
- Spotlight - Paint your photos with light striking the subject from varying angles and directions
- Mist - Soft billows of mist can be brushed into place behind and over images
- Surface Light - Project light through objects like window panes and have it cast into your photo
- Mottled Background - Painted canvas background effect can be layered then lit and shaded as a backdrop
- Wispy Mist - Generates a soft mist that has a gentle breeze that forms wisps
Summary
Ideal for both the professional digital photographer and the creative graphic designer alike, Mystical Lighting's effects can be used to achieve both photo-realistic and surrealistic effects. All in all, this truly is a great little plugin that will keep you busy experimenting with a variety of visual delights.
(Get special pricing, bundles, and free demos at the AutoFX site.)
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.
Photoshop Extended is also available as part of Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium ($1,799/$440), which combines all-new CS3 versions of Photoshop, Flash Pro, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, InDesign and Acrobat 8 Pro. International options are available at Adobe's UK Store, Europe Store, and Australia Store.
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SiteGrinder 2 - Photoshop Plugin
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 2 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 2, 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 2 can be ordered from Media Lab's online store.
Photoshop Book - Photoshop CS2: Essential Skills - By Mark Galer And Philip Andrews
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.
The accompanying CD-ROM and website, www.photoshopessentialskills.com, offer additional teaching and learning materials which form a library of indispensable supporting resources including:
• All of the images used in the text
• Over four hours of QuickTime movie tutorials to support the practical projects
• A range of presets (including layer styles, curves, shapes and gradients)
• Camera RAW files
• Free extra chapters in e-book form.
For a free sample chapter see our How To Sharpen An Image In Photoshop tutorial.
Photoshop CS2: Essential Skills (Amazon.com - save 34%)
