[Alien Skin Image Doctor 2.0 16
Eliora Shopbell
I was very disappointed with Image Doctor 2 because much of its functionality is better handled in native Photoshop CS3 or greater. I just couldn't see any value in this program, and definitely think that onOne's ColorTune or SkinTune are going to be more helpful for things like restoring old photos and fixing skin than what this product offers. Here's a quick rundown of its filters and what they do:
By now I was started to get annoyed with this product because try as I might, I couldn't find a single image where this feature made a difference. I'd love to show you a sample of how great it is, but if you want to fix your JPEG's use their brilliant Blow Up application - not this!
Either set Clarity to a negative value (up to -100) in Adobe Camera Raw 5.x or Lightroom 2.x or use the Gaussian Blur filter in Photoshop to accomplish the same thing. All this seems to do is ruin your image by putting a Guassian Blur on it without an overlay mode or a mask. What's the point?
The good folks at Alien Skin Software make some good stuff, but this isn't it. Unless you are using Photoshop CS2, I can't see why you'd want this software. If you are itching to spend money though, consider Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 Complete or onOne Software Plug-in Suite instead.
It's a question about photo editing : What would be a trick to reduce the visibility of the white stains of the skin due to "vitiligo" (Vitiligo is a strange illness(?) that make the skin been totally white @ some places).
I guess this may be a bit of a naive suggestion, however I'll offer it anyway. Why not just use makeup? You can try to fix such a photo with post processing, however it will either take a lot of time to produce an ideal result, or it will never be quite ideal, and may look a bit odd in those spots. If you have your subject use makeup before taking the shot, you should be able to produce a natural matching skin tone in the necessary locations, and simply take a "natural" shot without the need for extensive and complicated retouching after the fact.
Depending on the extent of the bleached areas, you may find that something like Alien Skin's Image Doctor can do the trick without spending a huge amount of time on the cleanup. You can test-drive a limited-time trial of the software to make up your mind (click on "Demo" in the menu) before committing to any expense. My experience is that good plug-ins tend to be better at this sort of thing than the built-in tools, if only because they handle a lot of the details (feathering selections, matching surrounding reference areas, etc.) for you, and they usually have presets to handle your specific problem rather than making you work from the general case every time. I'm not a huge fan of spending money, but when balanced against the time it takes to do things with native tools in image editors like Photoshop, the GIMP, Pixelmator or Paint Shop Pro, it's often the lesser of two evils.
I'm not an expert at all, but I wonder if shooting in black and white might help to mitigate the problem. On the other hand it might just make it worse, but it would be interesting to experiment with different lighting.
Lighting an obvious flaw on a person (scars, skin problems, etc.) will de-emphasize that flaw and make it fade into the picture. On the other hand, pushing it into shadow will deepen and emphasize the flaw. It seems counter-intuitive (at least it did to me), but I've seen it work time and time-again in my own portrait work.
'Back in the day' photographers mostly had to get it right in-camera... Maybe what you're really looking for isn't a post-production tool at all, but a technique for photographing your wife such that you don't have to spend a lot of time after the fact correcting things. Just a thought...
The top photo editing computer programs provide professional photographers and amateur snapshooters alike with powerful tools for improving their images. Starting with a digital camera or using a scanner with a conventional film-based camera, you can correct and enhance your images and create impressive artistic effects without exposing yourself to smelly darkroom chemicals.
Eye Candy 5 includes three packages: Impact, Nature, and Textures. Eye Candy 5: Impact lets you alter a photo to simulate the look of chrome, brushed metal, glass, bevels, shadows, and reflections. Eye Candy 5: Nature creates such natural effects as fire, smoke, rust, snow, and ice. Eye Candy 5: Textures produces such texture effects as lizard skin, fur, brick, stone, and wood. These three packages can be purchased separately or bundled together in Eye Candy 5: Bundle.
Though they can be very useful, some of these plug-ins (both the bundles and the individual packages) can be pricey. Fortunately, plug-in sets from both Alien Skin and onOne can be downloaded for free for a 30-day trial.
If you want to try out other free photo plug-ins, FreePhotoshop.com ( ) is an interesting site. The person behind it, who prefers to remain anonymous, has put a lot of effort into it, though some parts of the site are becoming dated.
You can download freeware plug-ins that offer additional brushes, shapes, gradients, textures, frames, patterns, and other tools at the site or through links provided at the site. FreePhotoshop.com also offers reviews of commercial plug-ins from companies such as Alien Skin and onOne.
Reid Goldsborough is a syndicated columnist and author of the book Straight Talk About the Information Superhighway. He can be reached at reidgold...@gmail.com or reidgold.com.
Ten Years Ago, we reviewed Alien Skin's filters back in 1995 with their "Black Box" product including an interview with from Michael Pilmer, one of the developers of Alien Skin. Later, XenoFex was a DTG "BEST" winner in 1998. Then along came "Eye Candy 4000" which was also a true blockbuster, and the basis of this new incarnation. Next we told you that the "Image Doctor will see you now" ... and still later we brought you the all new Eye Candy 5 "Nature" and "Texture" .... well here goes...
Alien Skin's new Eye Candy 5: Impact is a way-cool set of 10 plug-in filters for Adobe Photoshop and other compatible host programs. Impact creates chrome, bevels, glass buttons, extruded objects, Zoomed & Backlit objects, perspective shadows and more. (Click these links to see pictures in a pop-up!
The third of three upgrades to Eye Candy 4000, Impact features three all-new filters and seven rewritten Eye Candy classics. Graphic designers, digital photographers, and Web content creators will appreciate Impact's versatile and beautifully rendered effects.
Brushed Metal simulates textured metal surfaces such as brushed aluminum and polished brass. Extrude gives 2D objects a classic 3-D look, adding thickness and perspective. Impact will be the third Eye Candy 5 plug-in collection.
The first, Eye Candy 5: Textures, was released in 2004 and produces a variety of seamless textures such as snake and lizard skin, fur, brick, stone and wood. Eye Candy 5: Nature followed in 2004 and creates fire, smoke, rust, ice, snow and more.
Estimated street price for Impact is $99. Registered users of other Alien Skin Software products will receive discount pricing when ordering direct. Online delivery will be available at the Alien Skin Web site. Impact will also be available worldwide through stores, catalogs and resellers.
Impact is a plug-in and will require one of the following: Adobe Photoshop 7 or later (including CS 2), Adobe Photoshop Elements 2 or later, Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004 or later, Corel Paint Shop Pro 8 or later, or CADlink SignLab 7.5.
Windows users must have at least a 1 GHz Pentium III processor, 256 MB RAM and Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Macintosh users must have at least a 500 MHz PowerPC G3 processor, 256 MB RAM and Mac OS X 10.2.6 or later (including Tiger). Makers of award-winning plug-ins since 1994, Alien Skin Software writes and sells filters that users love.
Alien Skin has made award-winning plug-ins since 1994, Alien Skin Software writes and sells filters that users love. Alien Skin says: "We will never wear suits." For more information: call 919/832-4124, or go to www.alienskin.com Exit to the Photoshop Department, or the Design Center Main Index Participate in your Design CenterLots of fun and information for all... don't forget, any community is only as good as the participation of its members. We invite your tips, tricks, comments, suggestions and camaraderie.
File compression for digital images follows one of two schemes. The method is either lossy or lossless. With a lossless format, there is no damage to the file on compression, and all digital information remains intact. Lossy format, on the other hand, will allow for greater levels of compression, which results in smaller files on your hard drive. But you pay a higher price for the extra compression.
Lossy formats introduce artifacts that irreversibly damage the image. The greater the level of compression, the more artifacts that are introduced. Worse yet is the fact that this can be a progressive degradation, meaning that the more often you open and resave an image file in a format that employs lossy compression, the more damage you do to the image. When this process is repeated enough, the damage becomes so great that you can no longer use the file as the basis for printing.
The most commonly used lossy file format is JPEG. It is the default file-compression format for almost all digital cameras today. You might ask why companies like Nikon, Epson, or Olympus would use a file format that damages the image irreversibly. It has to do with economy and the average level of image-quality acceptance on the part of the consumer. It may also have to do with the fact that most images captured on digital cameras are not used for commercial print reproduction. If they are used for anything commercial, it is usually for posting on the Web, where image quality is not a big issue and economical file size generally takes precedence.
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