Photoshop CS5
Illustrator CS5
Dreamweaver CS5
Flash CS5
InDesign CS5
After Effects CS5
Premiere Pro CS5
Perfect Portrait 1 is a huge timesaver for portrait photographers. It automatically identifies faces and features, and with a press of a button, eyes become whiter and clearer, teeth become whiter, lips have greater definition, wrinkles are softened, and shine and blemishes are reduced.
Stopping a lens down to its smallest aperture extends DOF but introduces diffraction. Enter Helicon Focus software. It produces an edge-to-edge focused image by combining partially focused areas from multiple files of a scene.
FontAgent Pro Enterprise Server is one of the fastest font servers I’ve used. This latest version uses the J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) architecture and is multithreaded to take advantage of multicore Macs.
There are several solutions for enlarging an image, and given how far these technologies have come, it’s more about selecting the most appropriate solution for your specific situation. Alien Skin has a strong update to their Blow Up plug-in for Photoshop and Lightroom that you may wish to size up for yourself.
Smooth Skins from Digital Heavens offers a lot of options, with a lot of support. It teaches all levels of Photoshop users a better way to clean up even dramatic skin imperfections but also gives the pros the natural results they want.
NoiseControl 1 is a plug-in for Photoshop and compatible programs (both Mac and Windows) that’s remarkably effective at reducing image noise while keeping edge details and natural grain. It can also sharpen a noisy image without increasing noise, and even add simulated film grain to an image to make it appear more natural.
Snap Art 3 is Alien Skin’s latest version of their painting and drawing effects plug-in software for Photoshop, Lightroom, and Elements. And it’s exactly what the name implies—software for quickly transforming photographic images into stylized art.
The i1Display Pro instrument is faster and with better quality than the i1Display 2 or any other colorimeter in the same price range. It has a lens sitting in front of the sensor (like X-Rite’s multi-thousand dollar Hubble system) and a moveable arm that holds the ambient diffuser.
The Nikon COOLPIX P300 is a compact point-and-shoot that fits nicely in any pocket—but it’s not so small that it’s hard to use. It has a nice solid feel, and all the dials are intuitive and easy to operate.
