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Digital Photography

Hottest New Software Plug-Ins…And More by Jason Schneider These cool task-specific programs let you customize your main imaging platform so you can do more things easier, faster, and better than ever! Article rating: 7.91

When it comes to digital imaging—especially digital SLR photography—software is an essential creative and technical tool. It not only lets you correct mistakes and remove defects with a few clicks of a mouse, it also provides a convenient, effective and satisfying way to create unique images that express your personal vision. That’s why nearly every serious DSLR shooter and most point-and-shoot fans has a copy of Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or Apple Aperture on his or her computer.

While all these awesome imaging platforms put an incredible range of possibilities and image-enhancement controls in your hands, most shooters make use of only a small fraction of the features they can deliver. Even pros that have used Photoshop and Aperture for years freely admit that they only use perhaps 10% of what’s built into them, and rare indeed is the professional photographer who claims to have mastered every feature of Photoshop CS3. However, all of these comprehensive imaging platforms (including Photoshop Elements 6, aimed at enthusiasts) can host a delectable range of task-specific plug-in software, These programs make it easier, faster, and more intuitive to do everything from creating panoramas, to digital frames, to “lossless” giant enlargements, to wild or traditional filter effects. Not surprisingly the plug-in software category has exploded over the past two years with a rash of brilliant new programs unleashed by leading independent software providers. We’ve collected some of the best and brightest ones right here to give you a good handle on what’s out there and what it can do for you.

Nik Software

Nik Viveza
The new Nik Viveza plug-in lets you select any object in a photograph by simply placing a control point on it—no mask or lasso is needed. This makes precisely targeted image enhancement much more convenient and far less time consuming. For example, to intensify the color of a red boat in green water with a blue sky in the background, just click on the boat, use simple sliders to control the color, brightness, and contrast of the boat, click to implement and save the changes and you’re done. In other words, a process that might take, say, 20-30 clicks and take 5-10 minutes in Photoshop can be accomplished in a few clicks in under 30 sec. Or, as a Nik spokesman put it, “Viveza is a powerful and intuitive software tool designed to enable photographers of all skill levels to precisely select and control the light and color in photographic images with maximum efficiency while working in Photoshop CS3, Apple Aperture 2.1 or Photoshop Elements 6.” The suggested price of $249.95 (discounts are widely available) includes installers for Photoshop CS3, Photoshop Elements 6, and Aperture 2.1, for both Mac and PC. No, Viveza is not the least expensive plug-in out there, but in practical terms it does an awful lot. As the saying goes, it will pay for itself in time saved and enhanced user satisfaction. For more info and 3-minute Quick-Time demos, log onto to www.niksoftware.com and go to the “learn” page.

Nik Dfine 2.0
Dfine 2.0  (suggested price $99.95) provides unprecedented control over exactly how much and where to apply noise reduction. The amount or type of noise in a digital image typically depends on the quality and type of image sensor with which it was created.  Contrast (Luminance) Noise and Color (Chrominance) Noise can be individually present or both might be seen in the same image. Fast or high ISO speeds and low light levels can also add noise to images, while some images might exhibit high levels of JPEG artifacts. Nik Dfine 2.0 is an effective tool for mitigating or eliminating all these defects. It makes it very easy to eliminate noise in digital images while maintaining detail and sharpness, thus improving overall image quality. Dfine 2.0 is designed to prevent the loss of detail that other noise reduction tools often introduce.

Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 (Standard Edition, suggested price $99.95)
Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 digital filters are widely used by many of today's professional photographers around the world to save time and get professional level results. Available as the Complete Edition, Select Edition, or Standard Edition, all versions provide a range of traditional and stylized filter effects that offer virtually endless possibilities to enhance and transform images quickly and easily.  These filters are plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements and will soon be available for Apple’s Aperture 2.1. Color Efex Pro 3.0 Standard Edition includes 15 filters for a variety of photographic styles and enhancements.

For more specific product information go to www.niksoftware.com

Tiffen Dfx

The beauty of Tiffen Dfx is that it is a seamlessly integrated digital filter-effect system that dovetails with Tiffen’s well established range of traditional optical filters and provides nearly identical results across the board. The first-ever plug-in for Apple Aperture 2.1, the Tiffen Dfx suite provides well over 1,000 traditional and special effects filters and gels. It’s also available as an integrated plug-in for Windows or Mac versions of Photoshop (7.0 to CS3), or Photoshop Elements (3.0 or later) at a suggested price of $299.95. There’s also a more limited Select version, available as a plug-in for Photoshop or Photoshop Elements ($159.95). For video fans there are Dfx plug-ins for Apple Final Cut Pro 6.0 and Adobe After Effects 7.0, and Avid software.

The basic Dfx graphical interface consists of four main components: Viewer, Filters, Presets/Parameters, and Effect. The large Viewer screen in the center is where the images are viewed, edited, and manipulated. Along the bottom is a Filters window displaying filter-functions and clearly labeled thumbnails of the range of effects possible with each filter you select. The Presets window lets you select from existing filters that closely emulate Tiffen optical filters—a process much like mounting a glass filter over your lens—and there’s also a Custom setting that lets you select your own personalized filter effects, which you can then save as your own unique settings.

The primary advantage of the Dfx system is that it provides an easy, real-time visual reference of what you’re doing to an image in the Effects box, and you can clearly see the results of each effect before you apply it. What’s more you can layer any number of different effects and control each one very precisely without ever leaving the main dialog screen—a level of flexibility not possible with most other filter-effects software systems. Using the Presets is a quick and easy way to apply standard filters in the extensive Tiffen range, and the Parameters allow you to make a wide range of adjustments, and save the result as custom filters. For more information including tutorials, displays, and a free 15-day trial download, go to www.tiffen.com and click on Dfx software.

onOne Software products

onOne Software offers about a dozen useful, user-friendly software plug-ins for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, and more plug-ins for Aperture and Lightroom are on the way. Some of the most popular and interesting ones are:

Genuine Fractals 5 (suggested price $160), a plug-in that allows photographers to get high quality large enlargements even from relatively small files. Long popular with pros that need to make poster-sized prints from the 2-3MB files turned out by 5-6MP cameras Fractals 5 is also great for making big prints from cropped images. It’s an appealing product because it ties in nicely with the boom in larger format printers, which are becoming more affordable every day.

PhotoTools (suggested price $160) delivers the power of Photoshop with a simpler user interface aimed at photographers who may not be Photoshop geeks. It has over 150 effects ranging from portrait and landscape enhancement to special stylized effects that are popular among professional photographers.

Before PhotoTools © Kevin Kubota

Essentials 2.1 (suggested price $59.95) is claimed to be the most affordable way to get the most out of Photoshop Elements 5 or 6, It gives even novice users the ability to do color correction, remove unwanted backgrounds, add border and edge effects, and increase the file size of photos quickly and easily. It also adds controls for texture enhancement, sharpening and film grain options and is faster than the previous version. The four most important tools in Essentials 2.1 have self-explanatory titles to go with their intuitive operation Make It Better!, Cut It Out!, Enlarge It!, and Frame It!

Plug-in Suite 4 for Photoshop CS2 and CS3
Aimed at more advanced and experienced users, Plug-in Suite 4 (suggested price $499.95) includes full versions of six top-of-the-line onOne Software plug-ins: Genuine Fractals 5 Print Pro, Photo Tools 1.0 Professional Edition (a comprehensive image manipulation program with a library of special pro-designed effects), PhotoFrame 3.1 Professional Edition (it has a wealth of border and edge effects), Mask Pro 4.1, Photo Tune 2.2 (for professional caliber color correction), and FocalPoint 1.0, a plug-in that simulates the look of selective focus, tilt-shift lenses, and other selective blur effects.
For more information on onOne products, go to www.ononesoftware.com

Standalone niche software programs: An alternative to plug-ins

ArcSoft Software products
ArcSoft offers nearly three dozen use-specific and general use standalone software applications. They’re not plug-ins that work with larger platforms like Photoshop and Aperture, but they can provide similar benefits to end- users. Many are priced below $100. Two of the most popular ones are:

ArcSoft PhotoStudio Darkroom 1.5 (suggested price $99.99), a program that focuses on non-destructive image processing for RAW, JPEG, and TIFF image files. PhotoStudio Darkroom offers advanced shooters, professionals, and hobbyists a complete set of convenient enhancement tools and export options inside a thoughtfully designed professional user interface.

ArcSoft Panorama Maker 4 Pro (suggested price $79.95) delivers pro quality photo stitching, turning virtually any series of overlapping images into a convincing panoramic image quickly and easily. Panorama Maker 4 Pro also offers extensive RAW format support to work seamlessly with DSLR images, and provides fine-tuning options that professionals need to adjust and edit the final image. These include controls to alter the stitching points, stitching paths, brightness, contrast, and more.

To check out these and dozens of other ArcSoft niche standalone software programs, visit www.arcsoft.com.

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I have Photoshop Elements Ver 5 and have ordered Essentials 2.1 because of this article. Anything that would make photoshop eaiser to use is good. Posted by: Roland J Evans Jul 23, 2008 @ 4:56 PM EST

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