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NOTE: Unfortunately Alien Skin has discontinued their discount offer. But we found a great Actions set for you to consider. Read all about it...
Photoshop Actions & Brushes Create Realistic Painter Effects
Gavin Philips has released a new set of creative Photoshop actions and art history brushes that create painterly effects. Here's an interview with Gavin that explains his new ‘Paint like Monet’ program. (There is a free action available at Gavin's site. Try the free 'Pastel' creative Photoshop 'action' for PC or the free 'Pastel' creative Photoshop 'action' for MAC.)
What does your 'Paint like Monet' program do for photographers and graphic artists?
It shows them how to quickly create authentic painted portraits using only Photoshop and our custom art history brushes. Also included are several creative Photoshop 'actions'.
How do the creative 'actions' work?
Many photographers and graphic artists use Photoshop ‘actions’ for doing repetitive tasks, such as converting to black & white, or converting from RAW to JPG.
Our creative ‘actions’ combine many complex steps and produce stylish imagery at the click of a button. We also include text messages to give the artist suggestions about how to customize their photo during the ‘action’, or after it has finished playing.
Don't you need a program like 'Painter' to paint digitally?
Our painted examples prove that you do not. Photographers and graphic artists want a streamlined workflow where they do not have to keep switching programs.
There is also the issue of the large amount of time needed to learn ‘Painter’ in order to produce high-quality paintings with it.
I tried using Photoshop's art history brush and all I created was a mess. How are you using it to create these painted photos?
The way to make Photoshop’s art history brush a great tool is the design of our custom art history brushes. We invested considerable time creating the custom brushes in Photoshop that are all included in the set.
The settings of the brush, and when to change the settings is also crucial. Through hundreds of hours of testing, we came up with the best techniques. This is what we teach in our movies.
Are you creating Watercolor type paintings, or other styles as well?
There are many different painting types to experiment with. Some of these styles are dictated by the brush design, such as watercolor, Picasso, modern art, acrylic, spatter etc.
Other styles like our Ink and Charcoal paintings are different techniques that are fully explained in the movies.
Can you paint any type of photograph?
Absolutely. Our tutorial movies show you how to paint people. It is much easier to paint landscapes, animals or buildings. You use exactly the same techniques that we show you how to paint portraits.
Is this program for Photoshop novices, or only advanced users?
Novices can use our program because our movies show them exactly what to do. If they have any questions, we answer e-mails within 2-18 hours.
How long are the tutorial movies? How easy are they to follow?
Our movies average 3-5 minutes long. They are extremely easy to follow and are broken down into an easily digestible length. You see exactly what I’m doing in Photoshop as I do it. They are fully narrated as well.
I’ve been making these movies for over 5 years and take care in creating concise, professionally edited movies that move at a comfortable pace. Our clients have repeatedly told us that the movies are a far better way to learn than books or manuals which often-times miss important steps.
Do I need any other software besides Photoshop? Do I need a tablet?
You only need Photoshop and a mouse. All the examples on our website were made with a regular mouse.
Can I use these art history brushes & creative ‘actions’ in Photoshop Elements or other software?
Photoshop Elements does not have the art history brush, and it does not natively run ‘actions’. So it is not compatible with Elements. Our program only works with the full version of Photoshop. The art history brush goes back to at least Photoshop 7, maybe earlier. So you can use and learn our hand-painting techniques in Photoshop 7 through CS3. However, our ‘actions’ are only guaranteed to work in Photoshop CS2 and CS3.
How do you print the painted photographs?
You have several printing options. I’ve printed on photo paper from a good inkjet and they look great. We include a custom texture that you can apply to your finished painting in Photoshop for recreating a canvas ‘look’ for printing on photo paper.
I’ve also printed Giclee on art paper and canvas. They look even better, and people are convinced they are traditional paintings.
What's a good way to market this to clients?
A good way is to create a ‘Digital Innovations’ photo book showing your before and after photographs. This makes a big impression on clients and is a great way to distinguish yourself from the competition. People are always looking for something different.
How does your price compare to Photoshop plugins like ‘Snap Art’ or other programs like Corel’s ‘Painter’?
Our price of only $84.95 (download version) is less than ‘Snap Art’, and I think our results are better as well.
Corel’s ‘Painter’ costs over $350 dollars and a graphic tablet is considered essential to getting the most out of it. This is another cost factor.
Where can people obtain more information about your ‘Paint like Monet’ program?
You can go to my website and get the free sample actions and find all the ordering instructions as well.
Thanks you for your time Gavin.
Thank you.
3 Free Photoshop Actions - Plus Photo FX Actions Discount
Our specialized program has been published by the 'Professional Photographers of America' (PPA) twice as well as in other publications. Try my 3 Photoshop Actions for free. They produce the effects above (from left to right — Infrared, Toned and Softly). We offer 4 sets of Photoshop Actions and Flash movies and we are offering a special discount for a limited time. Purchase one set of Photoshop Actions and get a second set for free. Visit the special Actions discount page for details."
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. 
I 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.
Next 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.
Of 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.
Snap Art Filters, User Interface & System Requirements
1 - Pastel Effect
The Pastel filter simulates pastel painting with regions of soft tone and color. Pastel includes options for soft, hard, and oil pastels, as well as controls for paper type and lighting.
2 - Impasto Effect
Impasto is an oil painting style that employs a thick, textured application of paint where the marks made by the brush or painting knife remain visible. The Impasto filter emulates this technique with a variety of brushes, strokes and canvas types.
3 - Oil Paint Effect
The Oil Paint filter models the thickness of stiff oils or the lightness of lean (thinned) paint. With controls for brush size, paint thickness, and stroke length, this filter captures the richness of painting with oils. In addition to brushes, users have control over canvas and lighting to portray unparalleled realism.
4 - Color Pencil Effect
Color Pencil uses hatching and shading techniques, as well as control over pencil width, pressure, and color to recreate an image as a sketch artist would. Additional options include a variety of paper stocks and lighting controls.
5 - Comics Effect
The Comics filter gives a photo the look of a comic strip with posterized colors, shading, and halftoning. Control over the number of colors and halftone size can create a unique look or mimic Roy Lichtenstein Pop Art.
6 - Pencil Sketch Effect
Pencil Sketch creates detailed sketches that emulate either graphite pencil or charcoal. This filter makes extensive use of hatching, cross hatching, and shading.
7 - Pointillism Effect
Created by the French Neo-Impressionist painter George Seurat, pointillism is a distinctive painting technique that uses dots of solid color that blend together when viewed from a distance. Snap Art’s Pointillism filter does exactly that, offering control over dot size and color palette.
8 - Stylize Effect
Stylize converts images into smooth regions of color. This filter can create a posterized Pop Art look or flowing line art and logos. Additional controls are available to add texture and determine the direction and intensity of the lighting.
9 - Watercolor Effect
Watercolor simulates the soft color washes created by watercolor paint and paper. Controls for brush size and style – including wet and dry brush – provide control to preserve the fidelity of the original image. Paper choices include various textures for Hot press, Cold press, and Rough paper types.
10 - Pen and Ink Effect
Pen and Ink represents an image as monochrome dots, lines, and fills. Realistic images are created by stippling, cross hatching and shading with additional options for pen tip size, coverage, and stroke length.
Snap Art Key Features
• Realistic natural media effects create uniquely styled artwork.
• Canvas, paper and other media textures further enhance realism.
• Lighting controls simulate the direction, intensity, and color of a light source.
• Hundreds of one-click settings offer instant results.
• Detailed controls allow unlimited customization.
• Superior edge detection preserves detail from the original image.
User Interface
Below is a quick review of the main features of the Snap Art user interface.
Menus (A) – Command menus are accessible within any filter. Macintosh users will see the menus in place of their usual menu bar. Windows users will see the menus at the top of the filter preview window.
Tabs (B) – Tabs with sliders, color swatches, check boxes, and radio buttons appear along the left side of the window. These controls perform most filter functions.
Render in New Layer (not shown) – This checkbox, introduced in Eye Candy 5, renders the filter image in a new, selected layer above the previous working layer. This makes non-destructive editing easier and faster.
Show Original Button (C) – Introduced in 2002, but with a facelift for Snap Art, this button toggles the preview window between filtered and unfiltered versions of the image. Click and hold this button to display the original image.
Split Screen Preview (D) – New in Snap Art, this menu gives the option to divide the preview in half, showing the filtered image in one half and the original image in the other.
Settings (E) – Settings are collections of slider values that can be recalled with a single click. Snap Art ships with hundreds of factory settings, which allow for one click effects. Users can also create settings to define their signature look.
Mouseover Help Text (F) – The bottom of the preview window offers instant help by listing a short comment or two that will pop up to the left of the progress bar and magnification indicator.
Host Requirements
Snap Art is a plug-in; it must be used with one of the following compatible host programs.
• Adobe Photoshop CS or later
• Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 or later
• Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI or later
System Requirements
• Macintosh Systems: G4 or G5 processor, 512 MB RAM, Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later
• Windows Systems: 2 GHz Pentium 4 processor, 512 MB RAM, Windows XP or later
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 CS2: Essential Skills (Amazon.com - save 34%)
