Akvis Artwork V8 1 Crack
Nelson Suggs
Hardly a week goes buy without someone writing in for a quick, easy way of converting digital photos or Photoshop images into art. Most frequently they ask about pencil or pen and ink sketches. We've spent hours writing tutorials and describing the hundreds of processes available in Adobe Photoshop, or Adobe Photoshop Elements in order to accomplish those goals. This year however, two companies took on the challenge to create a plug-in that would accomplish wonderful natural media conversions of photos with a click or two. BEST IMAGE EDITING SOFTWARE OF 2006When time came to decide who would sit on the coveted DTG BEST roster for 2006, we came up with a stone-sober draw. We could not choose between Akvis Sketch and Alien Skin Snap Art. Both plug-ins are superb -- both accomplish a host of variations and effects, and both are rich with user-friendly interfaces.
Akvis conjured a revolutionary algorithm that allows you to convert a photo into a pencil sketch in a few mouse clicks. The batch mode conversion (Photoshop and Corel Paint Shop Pro) allows you to automatically convert a series of images, thus even creating comics from videos!
You can make any photo look like B&W or color drawing, imitate the technique of graphite or color pencil, charcoal or watercolor painting -- and here's the good news: Sketch runs on Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/NT and on Macintosh Mac OS X 10.4, PowerPC G3 and above
Sketch is also FAST. We have to say, it tops Snap Art by a wide margin. Once you set up the parameters, the sample image is shown almost immediately. With Snap Art it takes as much as a minute to render the effect -- the ONLY down side. And, in contrast to the similar standard filters built-in to Photoshop or PSP that offer an approximate sketch -- AKVIS Sketch provides a convincing result that comes very close to hand-drawn works of a human artist. As shown in our illustration above.
For a free trial, AKVIS offers 10 days of fully functional use -- it's compatible with Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, Corel Painter, Corel Photo-Paint, and Paint Shop Pro, ACD FotoCanvas, and Ulead PhotoImpact. AKVIS Sketch sells for $72 USD, downloadble from akvis.com
Add Snap Art to your arsenal and you'll never want for an artistic effect -- ever again. We've bragged about Alien Skin products many, many times -- since the dawn of Photoshop! It works equally well for both Windows and Mac users!
This an all new plug-in for Adobe Photoshop and other image editors creates convincing, one-click natural media with no laborious hand editing. Artists, photographers, and designers can now give a hand-crafted look to any digital image.
Snap Art introduces several effects never seen before in a plug-in -- most notably it can recreate an image with a comics look, complete with shading and half-toning. Popular painting techniques are quick and easy in Snap Art. Digital artists can render a still life with pointillism as a Neo-impressionist might. Craft a rough and rocky landscape in dry brushed watercolor or thickly textured impasto. In addition, Snap Art emulates a number of traditional drawing effects such as colored pencils, charcoal for softer shading, and hard, soft and oil pastels.
Snap Art also features a variety of brushes, pencils, pastels, and pens, as well as an assortment of canvas and paper types. Snap Art works with 16-bit images and is scriptable with Photoshop actions. Context-sensitive help and an online manual keep things easy to understand.
Check out this easy to use interface!
See: a ton of other examples!
Snap Art sells for an estimated street price of $149. Registered users of other Alien Skin products can purchase Snap Art for $99 when ordering direct. Snap Art is a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop CS or later, Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 or later, or Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI or later. Snap Art requires 512 MB RAM and 1024x768 or greater monitor resolution. Windows users must have a Pentium 4 or later processor and Windows XP or later. Macintosh users must have a G4 or G5 PowerPC processor and Mac OS X 10.3.9. Get all the info at www.alienskin.com
As we said earlier, both these programs will take an honored spot in your image editing tool box. Both have strong points which compliment and contrast from each other. Both are stable and robust -- offering fluent operations on any image. You can take our endorsement that both will serve you well. Just tell them that Fred sent'ya!
Previously a separate product, Impression has just been merged with Topaz Studio 2, a powerful full-featured photo editor. It is a very powerful and highly customizable tool for transforming photos and other images into a wide variety of digital artworks, such as drawings and paintings. Topaz Studio 2 can be run as a stand-alone product or as a Photoshop plug-in. Topaz Studio 2 is resource intensive and it has minimum hardware and OpenGL requirements. Topaz Studio 2 is frequently updated, and the below description may not reflect the state of the product when you read this. It is important to download and test this program prior to purchase.
Impression has a number of presets (called looks), including chalk, charcoal, colored pencil, da Vinci drawing, Degas, Edward Hooper, Impressionist, palette knife, Pointillism, Renoir, pencil, sketch, van Gough, watercolor, and other effects. Studio 2 uses layers, and the selected Impression look name appears in the upper right. Below the name is the Impression layer where the look controls are.
Impression has a cornucopia of controls, and each control can be customized by applying the look, selecting the Impression layer, and then clicking on the down arrow. The real power of impression is not evident until you start using these controls. Here are some key adjustments:
Snap Art is a full-featured Windows/Mac plug-in/standalone program that allows you to easily create charcoal drawings, color pencil drawings, comics, crayon drawings. impasto paintings, oil paintings, pastel drawings (including hard, oil, and soft pastel), pen and ink drawings, pencil sketches, Pointillism paintings, stylized illustrations, and watercolor paintings.
There are a variety of presets for each effect, and slider controls for background (e.g,, for oil paint: brush size, photorealism, coverage, stroke length, and color variation), detail masking (similar controls as background), colors (e.g., brightness, contrast, and saturation), lighting (e.g., angle, direction, and highlight characteristics as well as vignette effect), and canvas effects (e.g, pastel paper). You can create your own presets. The ability to close side-panel controls permits a large preview space.
FotoSketcher is a versatile standalone Windows program that allows you to create drawings, paintings, and a few other effects. It can transform photos into cartoons, oil paintings, oil pastel drawings, pen and ink drawings, pencil drawings, watercolor paintings. and other types of artworks. It is freeware.
Sliders and other controls for each effect allow you modify image rendition. For example, for the oil pastel sketch effect you can control minimum stroke size, maximum stroke size, number of iterations, edge intensity, and filter precision. You can also soften edges, add a frame, add texture, add text, and use a retouch brush. There is a small preview window in the floating control panel.
AKVIS Sketch is a Windows/Mac plug-in/standalone program that allows you to create drawings and watercolors. It offers a very wide variety of effects, such as charcoal, color pencil, lead pencil, pastel, and watercolor. The effects are organized into two groups: classic and artistic.
Sliders allow you to fine-tune these effects. For example, using the detailed sketch effect and the strokes panel, you can adjust pencil color and background color; alter stroke angle, thickness, and length; and control midtones hatching and intensity. Using the edges panel, you can alter sensitivity, edge width, and zone of influence. With the effects panel, you can adjust panel, shadows, noise, and contrast.
AKVIS OilPaint is a Windows/Mac plug-in/standalone program that allows you to create oil paintings and oil pastel drawings You can alter simplicity, saturation, maximum stroke length, stroke thickness, stroke intensity, stroke curvature, wide background strokes, and random strokes. It offers a number of presets, including some unique ones (e.g., palette knife), and a number of different stroke types (e.g., flat and rounded). Additional controls allow you to control canvas, frame, and text effects.
Dynamic Auto-Painter, a Windows/Mac stand-alone program, allows you to paint in the style of famous painters, such as Paul Czanne, Claude Monet, and Vincent van Gogh. It allows you to create a wide variety of types of artworks.
There are a variety of controls for each preset, such as brush strokes, canvas, detail brushes, faithfulness, realism, palette, and quality. It supports advanced (e.g, color shift), retouch, outline, canvas, material, color, and layer adjustments. Artwork rendering occurs in stages, with further user fine-tuning possible during some stages. It is possible to change the color palate of the original image by having the program use a second image as a color source. Some presets significantly change image coloration.
While the presets can be used to easily create artworks, the real power of this program is not revealed until you start using the advanced controls and directing brush strokes during the creation process.
JixiPix offers a wide variety of low-cost Windows/Mac plug-in/standalone programs. They are categorized as professional software or hobbyists and enthusiasts apps. The professional software programs provide greater control over effects and can be used as Photoshop plug-ins. They can be purchased individually or as part of a bundle.
It is highly recommended that you download and test digital art software demos prior to purchase. Try all the presets. A software company's idea of what a good art effect is may not match your own, so experiment with changing the settings of unsatisfactory effects before concluding that the program cannot do what you want.
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