*** From the Archives ***
This article is from April 2, 2003, and is no longer current.
Plug-Ins and XTensions: Photoshop Image Correctors, QuarkXPress Blend Extenders, InDesign Crop Markers, Illustrator CAD Exporter
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Each month Design Tools Monthly reviews some of the best plug-ins and XTensions on the market. Most of the mentioned products can be purchased through The PowerXChange.
- Use Illustrator for CAD
CValley’s BluePrintTools-Pro is a plug-in for Adobe Illustrator that adds 13 tools that let you draw simple blueprints with dimension lines, as well as measure curved lines. With these additional tools, Illustrator becomes a professional, accurate, efficient CAD program.
CValley’s EXDXF-Pro is a plug-in for Adobe Illustrator that imports and exports CAD-standard DXF files. Price is $90 each, or $140 for both.
CValley, Inc.
- Crop Marks in InDesign
Cacidi Systems’ Cropmarks 2.0 ($20) is a plug-in for InDesign that automatically creates crop marks around selected item(s).
Cacidi Systems
- Easily Adjust Color & Enhance Photos
Vivid Details’ Test Strip 3.1 ($199) is a plug-in for Photoshop that helps you color-correct your images with amazing ease and quality. Its interface is similar to Photoshop’s Variations feature, but with many more options, and much more power.
The easiest way to fix an image’s color in Test Strip is to use its Metamorphosis feature, which presents a series of side-by-side images, and you click on the one you think looks best. After a few clicks, Vivid Details applies the minimum number of adjustments to make your image look like your final choice.
The more-advanced method is to select the aspect of an image you want to fix (midtone, highlight, shadow, or color component), and then choose strips of that image that add or subtract increasing amounts to your image. The strips can either show the same portion of an image, or sequential slices of an image. For proofing purposes, you can also print the strips, with labels, to any printer.
Test Strip also includes 72 filters that accurately simulate the effect of colored glass and gelatin filters used with camera lenses, and 115 special-effects filters, including ghosting, tints, sepia tones and posterization. (Test Strip is also available for $49.95 to owners of Extensis Intellihance.)
- Raw Digital Camera Images & JPEG2000 in Photoshop
Adobe’s Photoshop Camera Raw ($99) is a plug-in for Photoshop 7 in Mac OS 9 or X that lets you import pictures in the “raw” image format from digital cameras by Canon, Fujifilm, Minolta, Nikon and Olympus. You can preview raw files in Photoshop’s File Browser, import directly in 16-bit-per-channel mode, and adjust the white balance, color temperature, tint, exposure, shadows, contrast, saturation, sharpness and smoothness in the original uncompressed file. It also includes another plug-in that lets you open and save images in the JPEG2000 format. Note: Adobe mentions that these abilities will be included in a future version of Photoshop, so you can buy these plug-ins now, or wait for (probably) Photoshop 8. (For a free JPEG2000 plug-in for Photoshop 5.5 to 7 in Mac OS 9, see www.fnordware.com.)
- Much Easier Color in QuarkXPress
Badia Software’s FullColor XT ($60) is an XTension for QuarkXPress 4 or 5 that lets you manipulate colors and blends in ways never before possible. You can save blends as color swatches and then drag and drop them onto objects. You can limit the color list to show only spot colors, CMYK colors, solid colors, or colors used in the document. You can instantly convert a color or multiple colors to Spot or Process. You can mix new colors and automatically name them by the percentage of their component colors. You can limit new colors to Web-safe only. You can automatically paint new objects using the same settings as the most-recently created object. You can apply colors to groups of objects, and find where you used colors and blends in the document or only in certain types of objects. See movies of FullColor XT in action, or download a fully-functional demo version at www.badiaxt.com/fullcolor.html.
Also available from ThePowerXChange
- Super-Reports from QuarkXPress
Badia OfficialReport XT 1.0 ($50) is an XTension for QuarkXPress 4 or 5 that creates professional-looking reports detailing all the characteristics of one or more documents. It lists fonts, colors, style sheets, H&Js, picture fonts, picture colors, document preferences, basic or detailed picture usage, and any defined Print styles. Its batch report feature can generate a report for up to 100 documents, without having to open them.
Gluon Reporter 1.21 ($59) is a similar XTension for QuarkXPress 4 or 5. Its report can include style sheets, colors, pictures (with thumbnails), fonts, and stories, optionally limited to whether they are actually used in the document. Its unique story analysis feature can list each story by its first few words, and its length in characters, words, sentences, and paragraphs, as well as average word, sentence and paragraph lengths and whether the story includes non-ASCII characters, which is useful when converting to HTML.
This article courtesy of and copyrighted by Design Tools Monthly. For a free sample of the printed newsletter, email [email protected].
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