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*** From the Archives ***

This article is from August 6, 2003, and is no longer current.

Plug-Ins and XTensions: Adding Light and Color, Removing Noise, Tracing Logos, and Making XML Files

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.


Illustrator

  • Easier Logo Tracing
    ComNet’s LogoSpruce ($199) is a plug-in for Illustrator 8-10, on Mac OS 9 and X, that intelligently helps you straighten up artwork from scanned logos and diagrams. Specialized tools let you quickly make perfect corners and curves, and create guides from any angled line. It was designed specifically to speed the creation of logo outlines from scanned artwork.

ThePowerXChange

Photoshop

  • Mystical Lighting
    Auto FX’s Mystical Lighting ($179) is a stand-alone application or a Photoshop-compatible plug-in that has 16 professional photographic lighting effects with more than 400 presets. You can add radial light sources, “fairy dust,” flares, spotlights, mist, and studio-perfect mottled backdrops. Effects can be quickly previewed on your images, and can be combined and saved as new presets. Their website shows excellent examples of Mystical Lighting effects. It runs natively in Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X.

Auto FX Corp.

 

  • Mystical Color
    Auto FX’s Mystical Tint Tone and Color ($179) is a stand-alone application or a Photoshop-compatible plug-in with 38 coloring effects that can be brushed on, such as Antique Photo, Blue Sky, Color Bleach, Tonal Detail, Restore Details, Enriched Black, and Green Foliage. A new layer holds each effect, which can be combined in infinite ways. Its Web site shows excellent examples of these effects. The software runs natively in Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X.

 

Auto FX Corp.

 

  • Photoshop Plug-ins for Mac OS X
    Andromeda and Nik Multimedia have released Mac OS X upgrades for several of their Photoshop plug-ins:

    • Andromeda ScatterLight Lenses ($98) creates four kinds of professional digital lens effects for scattering light: DreamOptics for glows; SoftFocus for portraiture; SoftDiffuser for mist and fog; and StarLight for glints, sparks and flares.

 

  • Andromeda LensDoc ($98) corrects barreling and pincushion distortions caused by zoom lenses. LensDoc also fixes perspective distortion, where parallel lines converge at unrealistic angles. It’s great for straightening building edges, telephone poles, etc. LensDoc isn’t based on simple mathematical equations, but rather on testing of more than 100 real-world lens and focal length combinations. To use it, you line up markers along any line that should be straight and click “Correct.” You can even save unique lens correction settings for your camera’s lenses.
  • Andromeda VariFocus Filter ($47) is a Photoshop plug-in that lets you vary the depth of field in an image, to sharpen the focus on a foreground object, while defocusing the background. The package also includes Shadow Filter, which creates realistic 3D shadows with edges that blur and soften with distance. You can also create multiple shadows by moving multiple lights and color filters, using a virtual camera to pan around in 3D space.
  • Andromeda Perspective Filter ($44) lets you rotate a flat image in 3D space to create that “served on a platter” look. But this is no gimmick. It’s a professional tool with an advanced software engine behind it. You can “tilt”, “swing” and “zoom” the virtual camera to control depth-of-field on the image plane. The interface is intuitive, and the results are stunning.
  • Andromeda RedEyePro Filter ($39) gives professional control over redeye removal, replacing the red color with natural iris tones, and preserving glints and reflective details and transitions. In Expert mode, you can even choose the color to remove (for animals).Upgrades are $20-$30 each.Andromeda Software
  • nik Color Efex ($70–$300) lets you apply red, green and blue lens filters to create traditional color lens effects. The red filter can enhance skin tones, the blue filter enhances blue colors and brightens skies, and the green filter makes foliage much greener, all without damaging the rest of the photograph. But the most amazing feature is the Sunshine filter. The Sunshine filter transforms the dull colors in a picture taken on a cloudy day into the colors you would see on a bright summer day. In effect, it frees you to take photos on cloudy days, knowing you can “add sunshine” to them later. The package also includes more than a dozen other useful photographic effects, including Darken Center and Lighten Center, color washes, aging filters, and instant pastels.
  • nik Sharpener Pro ($80–$330) is a plug-in for Photoshop that takes the guesswork out of sharpening an image. Once you select your intended output (Color Laser, Inkjet, Internet or Offset), Sharpener Pro analyzes the image and adjusts the sharpness for the amount of actual detail in the image. It can sharpen the in-focus areas and not sharpen the out-of-focus areas, such as backgrounds. Unlike Photoshop’s sharpening tools, it protects the hues in an area being sharpened, to avoid color fringing.Upgrades are $20 for either or both.Nik Multimedia
  • Remove Noise in Digital Photos
    Nik Multimedia’s Dfine ($100) is a professional plug-in for Photoshop that intelligently removes noise and JPEG artifacts from digital photographs. It works very well on its own, but you may also purchase a camera-specific profile for many digital cameras ($25). Like all Nik products, the interface provides useful instant presets, but also gives you control over every aspect of its operation — with multiple previews for before-and-after work. It also lets you use your graphics tablet to brush on noise removal in varying intensities, styles, and areas. If you use a digital camera to create professional photographs, have a look at Nik’s website for a detailed description of Dfine’s features.
  •  Nik Multimedia QuarkXPress
    • Professional XML in QuarkXPress
      Easypress Technologies’ Atomik Roundtrip 1.5 ($4,495) is an XTension for QuarkXPress 4, 5 or 6 that adds powerful, bi-directional XML publishing features to XPress. Upgrades for existing users are available at no cost.

    Easypress Technologies

    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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