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Alien Skin Snap Art - Photoshop Plugin - REVIEW
Alien Skin Snap Art - Photoshop Plugin - REVIEW

Alien Skin Snap Art - Photoshop Plugin - REVIEW
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Alien Skin Snap Art - A Photoshop Plugin For Instant Artistic Effects

Alien Skin's new Photoshop plugin Snap Art creates beautiful, natural media artwork in a single step. This ten filter plug-in set includes effects for oil paint, pencil sketch, pen & ink, comics, color pencil, and more, and is capable of creating an unlimited variety of real-world art styles. For the advanced user there are detailed controls available to fine tune a composition.

Artists often use an underdrawing to outline key objects within a composition. This lightly drawn sketch serves as a guide, and it is usually painted or drawn over in the final composition.

Snap Art's advanced edge detection accomplishes the same goal, intelligently determining the shapes of the objects in the original image. Using this outline, Snap Art’s advanced paint engine strokes and fills the image with brushes and colors specified by the interface controls. This enables realistic reproduction of detail, but balances realism with convincing artistry.

Like other Alien Skin plug-ins, Snap Art includes many helpful usability features. First, there are keyboard shortcuts similar to those found in Photoshop. The online help and the Quick Start Guide include a complete list. Next, Snap Art includes filter-specific help. The F1 or Help key launches the online manual.

Snap Art is also scriptable with Photoshop Actions. Applying a setting to a folder of images as part of a batch process will quickly give them all a hand-crafted look. For photographers importing RAW files, Snap Art supports 16-bit images.

Review Of Snap Art By Jennifer Apple

As Alien Skin states, Snap Art features a variety of brushes, pencils, pastels, and pens, as well as an assortment of canvas and paper types, and includes hundreds of presets that can generate artwork with a single click. So after a few minutes in a hassle-free installation, I was ready to go.

For the purposes of this review I decided to use the same image for the various effects I would try. Alien Skin Snap Art - Photoshop Plugin - REVIEWI took my favorite holiday image (Peter Bower's snow and trees shot, which is the image on the right) and I zapped it in Snap Art.

The first sample image you see below was created from the Pencil Sketch Effect set.

Once inside the control panel for Snap Art's pencil sketch effect, I tried a variety of defaults and finally settled on "assorted - dense hard pencil." A few seconds later I had my newly drawn artwork in front of me and I was totally impressed. The fine detail and the balance of light and shadow were superb. I was also very happy with the "vibe" of the piece. It had a truly natural feeling that's hard to achieve with some of the other art effect plugins that are on the market.

Alien Skin Snap Art - Photoshop Plugin - REVIEWNext I went for a filter called Impasto, an oil painting style that features a thick, textured application of paint that actually highlights the marks made by the painting brush or knife. I clicked on the default set listed as "assorted - more detail" and again, I was completely impressed with the results.

I found the effect subtle, not at all overdone, but the best part for me was that I could actually make out the original source file, which is the real challenge and what makes or breaks these type of effect filters. I want to maintain the original look as much as possible, and layer the effect over it, instead of having the piece transformed beyond recognition.

Alien Skin Snap Art - Photoshop Plugin - REVIEWOf course many of the effects offered in Snap Art can be achieved through a series of manual steps in Photoshop, but they need to be followed exactly, and they often take quite a bit of time. Also, doing it step by step leaves you retracing your steps when you're not quite satisfied with your results, whereas with this plugin and the incredible variety of options, you can really go wild trying literally thousands of variations. That's the beauty of well-programmed, well thought-out plugins, and Snap Art definitely falls into that category.

The rendering time in the preview pane was not as fast as I would have liked, but of course as you become more familiar with the plugin, you'll find getting the look you're after will become much more intuitive — with much less time spent twiddling with the slider settings.

Again, the beauty of this plugin is in the quality output, the simple interface, and the whole concept of a "one-step" push button solution, which makes a designer's life a real pleasure. Of course part of that pleasure might be in keeping the plugin a secret. Need to mimic a Van Gogh painting, you say? What was that - by this afternoon? That's not going to be a problem with this plugin set.

The only thing missing is a mouse pad shaped like a palette and a beret — to celebrate my newly acquired artistic skills that this plugin delivers.

Snap Art is selling for $149, but we have a special discount link from Alien Skin, so you can get Snap Art at a special discounted price of $129. Now I leave you with some more resources, which include a quick overview of the 10 filters included in the Snap Art set, a list of key features, an overview of the Snap Art interface, and Snap Art host requirements.
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Topaz Adjust
Deliver stunning and dynamic images with this uniquely powerful plug-in that features HDR-like abilities and enhances exposure, color and detail.
Exclusive 15% Discount On All Topaz PluginsTopaz Detail
A three-level detail adjustment plug-in that specializes in micro-contrast enhancements and sharpening with no artifacts.
Topaz ReMask
The fastest and most effective masking and extraction program with one-click mask refining.
Topaz DeNoise
Highest-quality noise reduction plug-in that removes the most noise and color noise while preserving the most image detail.
Topaz Simplify
Provides creative simplification, art effects, and line accentuation for easy one-of-a-kind art.
Topaz Clean
Take control of the detail depth of your images with extensive smoothing, texture control and edge enhancement tools.
Topaz DeJPEG
Drastically improves the quality of web images and other compressed photos.

Learn more about the Topaz Photoshop Plugins Bundle. Download a free trial version.
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Nik Software Color Efex Pro 3.0 filters52 photographic filters with over 250 effects for professional quality images. Completely Original. Completely Indispensable.

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Viveza - The most powerful tool to selectively control color and light in photographic images without the need for complicated selections or layer masksThe most powerful tool to selectively control color and light in photographic images without the need for complicated selections or layer masks.

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Silver Efex Pro from Nik SoftwareComplete power and control to create professional quality black and white images in one convenient tool.


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Did You Know You Could Create An Entire Website In Photoshop?
SiteGrinder Photoshop Plugin - Create Websites Instantly


SiteGrinder Photoshop Plugin - Create Websites InstantlyThere 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.

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SiteGrinder seeks to bridge this gap between design and development. Basically, SiteGrinder 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, SiteGrinder is an amazingly powerful tool that would make a fantastic addition to any web designer's bag of tricks. Mac OS X and Windows versions of the SiteGrinder unlockable demo are available now via download.
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Photoshop CS4 Essential Skills - By Mark Galer And Philip Andrews


Photoshop CS4 Essential Skills - Adobe Photoshop CS4 BookBrimming with beautiful pictures, Photoshop CS4 Essential Skills guides you through a project-based, progressive curriculum so that you can build all the essential skills to enhance photographs creatively and professionally with Photoshop CS4. If you are an aspiring professional or a student learning photography, digital imaging, or design graphics, you'll be amazed at the stunning results you can achieve. A DVD is included free.

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Skin Retouching Tips In Photoshop CS4
Transforming Smart Objects In Photoshop CS4
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Adjusting Exposure in Adobe Camera Raw CS3
Photoshop CS3 Tutorial High Dynamic Range

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Find all the latest bestselling Photoshop books at discount prices at Amazon.com.


PHOTO CREDIT: Product logo plus blur on color pools.
© 2006 Eric Martin of Futura Studios


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