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Particle Plugin |
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Yep ! this one is a great, pure special FX plugin, enabling you to simulate various particle effects such as rain, fireflies, snow, bubbles, clouds, stars, and fire. Maybe not something you will use for every work, but it is user-friendly and adjustable enough for everyone to add such an effect in seconds, and there are enough effects for you to find them useful in lots of cases... even if there may be some problems with resolution : this plugin does not handle well when applying to a large image (you get a pixellised look). |
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 The Type plugin is the equivalent of the above plugin, but with effects specially designed for text, including various embosses, snow, fire, lighting, neons... Once again, if you need cool effects for a text (or small motifs), it is the plugin you need, but in most other cases, well... |
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A set of plugins specially designed for web images (as the name says). The Image Map Tag, enabling you to create image maps for your web pages, is far from being as easy to use as external programs specifically designed for the purpose or your internal HTML editor's tool. The Frame and Shadow is much more interesting, making it a good choice for impressive frame effects in seconds ; the Drop Shadow is extremely classic, and already provided with all sorts of helpers of the same kind. There is also a Background Designer working as an import module to create one-second seamless textures for your web pages. Finally, there are a set of 4 Buttonizers that prove quite efficient but also limited...
Version 2 has added an enhanced Texture Generator and better bevel functions, plus a library of predefined bevels.
In the end, this pack is a good tool for easy and cool effects, and works very efficiently. It is delivered with a set of presets to get you immediately started. |
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Smartsaver Pro |
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 Another compression utility for the aficionados of Gif and JPEG, this one offers good quality and compressions, with batch options for both formats, useful settings (especially for Gif) enabling you to perform color optimizations in a breeze, real-time preview... It also works as an independent program which you can call directly from the Win 95 Explorer.
This Pro version adds a number of interesting features such as the possibility to have different previews of the image at the same time, and the access from the single interface to GIF, JPG and PNG formats.
When you add to these features the fact that the interface is completely user-friendly, this new release of Smartsaver makes it the best choice for most uses (if you except
Boxtop´s PhotoGif and
Cyberview´s Image, which have lots of more professional features, but also require a lot more work). |
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Fantasy Warp |
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This plugin (included as Particle, Type and Art Texture in Ulead's PhotoImpact 4) enables you to apply all sorts of warps, twists, tilings... to your selection, both with the standard effects included in the package and those you create yourself...
I found it a bit disappointing in that the effects it creates can easily be obtained with some of the
Filter Factory filters ; its one advantage being that it regroups all effects under the same interface. |
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 This one enables you to create instant fractal textures, and works a lot like a mix of
KPT3's Texture Explorer and Gradient Designer, with a set of ready-made textures that you can mix until you get what you want.
Same as above : interesting, but quite comparable to
Filter Factory filters. |
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This plugin enables you to apply 12 customizable effects more commonly seen on video, with the possibility to adjust them over time, and targeted for Gif animations. The overall results are impressive, since these effects were quite hard to achieve with standard Gif animators before ; and it is also a good thing that they work from within Photoshop.
As usual with Ulead, the interface is very dull but also very easy to use and understand ; my one regret wit this is that you have to apply the effect frame-by-frame (for example, by having one frame in each layer) in Photoshop, then open with an external Gif animator (such as Ulead´s or Extensis´, for which it is an excellent companion) ; it would have been simpler to make only one product.... |
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