| Marianne Krnc makes digital art that I would describe as abstract, alien, and simply cool. She uses various filters from the Eye Candy products in her work. I’m sure I see Chrome, Perspective Shadow, and Super Star from Eye Candy Impact. There is some Marble and Weave from Eye Candy Textures, but there are certainly more of our effects in there too. It’s fun to see how far Eye Candy can stray from traditional design tasks. Bokeh has taken off faster than any product we’ve ever released. Most of the big magazines are still writing their reviews, but here are more grass roots discussions of Bokeh. On Flickr, James Evins posted a beautiful car shot that he subtly enhanced with Bokeh. He said, “While I've never been a fan of faking bokeh, this filter really impressed me,“ and, “Alien Skin plug-ins are top notch. I use quite a few of them.” The comments below the picture are worth a read. Julian Kilsby from the UK shows off some selective focus with Bokeh on his blog. He says, “It gives fantastic results with minimum effort.” Michael Shaw of the Macintosh Users East (MaUsE) user group in Ontario, Canada wrote a glowing review of Bokeh in the January 2009 DoubleClick newsletter. He starts, “This is something from Alien Skin so new that nobody else has anything like it.” Michael urges his readers to try the demo of Bokeh because, “I’m afraid that my one or two page article about this plug-in will not do Bokeh justice.” Keep in mind that it’s an 8MB download, but here is the PDF of the newsletter. The review is on pages 3 and 4. The team at The Photo Student web site shows off a good example use of Bokeh. Mouse over the picture to see before/after. The article ends with, “Our first conclusion of the software, more than your money’s worth.” Yes, I know you’re not going to use Google Translator to wade through a Dutch review, but I always like showing off our international fame. The Pixelmania magazine team confirmed that these quotes are correct. “Bokeh offers a high degree of control over the blur in the digital image. This control is better than you could get with even the most expensive lens…We have never seen such a beautiful blur!” and the review ends with “Recommended!” Blow Up 2 reviews are appearing pretty rapidly now. You can see all of the Blow Up reviews here, but below are a few of my recent favorites. Jake Van Ness wrote a thorough review in Designer Today. He shows off multiple examples and really goes into detail. Jake describes a real world example where Blow Up let him use 72 dpi artwork rather than delaying the project by asking the client for a better original. He concludes, “I think Blow Up 2 is a great plug-in and recommend it for photographers and designers alike.” Jim Hoerricks is a book author and blogger who writes about using Photoshop for law enforcement work. In his Forensic Photoshop Blog, Jim says, “Meet my new best friend. Blow Up 2 is now an integral part of my workflow. I have not seen a third-party plug-in handle the interpolation of dodgy CCTV images as well as Blow Up 2. Blow Up 2 is now firmly ensconced on my ‘must have’ list.” Pow, take that criminals! The Dutch magazine Pixelmania has a great review of Blow Up 2 with quotes like, “The interface is much improved and the program works faster than before,” and, “Blow Up 2 receives (again) a Pixelmania Award,” and ending with, “Recommended!” Rick Sammon (photographer, author, and pal of Alien Skin) created a Bokeh case study and was heard to say “Bokeh is way cool!” Rick just launched a web site devoted to Photoshop plug-ins called the Plug-in Experience. It’s small right now, but he’s fleshing it out pretty quickly. If you’d like to get your 15 minutes of fame, Rick is looking for cool example uses of plug-ins to show off on the site in the Artists sections. The Jump In page tells how to submit your work. He has plenty of other cool stuff at ricksammon.com. We have an improved support page that gives advice on the best ways to seek technical help with our products. The first thing to check is our new Support FAQ. The vast majority of tech support issues are addressed in there. Don’t worry, we still have humans ready to help you. We just want to show you the self service options which are generally the fastest way to find a solution. If you are looking for advice on using our products creatively, then leave the support area and head over to the tutorials or product pages. Macintosh users can ignore the following. Windows Photoshop CS4 contains a bug that grays out the Arrange Documents Menu and makes the Preferences Transparency Settings not display correctly when Exposure 2 or Bokeh are installed. If you are experiencing this behavior, you can replace a file to fix it. It’s all explained in our knowledgebase article. |
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This is from a talk I gave at our local Capital City Camera Club. I’m showing off how hand-made our Snap Art result looks when you print it on canvas.
– Jeff Butterworth
Queen Bee |
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