“Effortless” skin retouching often ends in even more effort—and is usually more apparent—but 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.

Launching the tutorial first demystified every aspect of the installation and use of Smooth Skins. Like other actions, the set is loaded from within the Actions panel in Photoshop, or by double-clicking on the action file, but Digital Heavens also includes an action that explains what will happen and why. Smooth Skins is clearly for larger image files, supporting both 8- and 16-bit images, but in spite of adding steps to editing your image, the results occur much more quickly.

Once the action splits your image into both high- and low-pass layers (texture and luminosity, respectively), you can select from a variety of smoothing types. Each of the actions produces its own style of correction with as much or as little as you need based on your desired look. Unlike traditional plug-ins, after the actions run, the user applies the results to specific areas by painting on a layer mask. If you don’t love the change, undo is also much faster than with other retouching plug-ins.

When all is said and done, Smooth Skin’s output is natural and the process becomes fun as you play with the limitless possibilities. With a bit of use to become more fluid, this nondestructive skin-correction software can be stacked, blended, adjusted, and corrected with just your eyes as a guide, allowing for quite a retouching feeding frenzy.

Company: Digital Heavens
Price: £24.95
Web: www.digitalheavens.co.uk
Rating: 5
Hot: Effective solution; natural-looking output; thorough tutorials
Not:

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.

While discerning photographers may use NoiseControl’s advanced controls, its two-button Easy mode works well on most images. The Auto Sample button finds a flat area in the image and samples the noise there to remove the noise from all areas. The Auto Preset button uses the EXIF camera and ISO data built into your photo to take a guess at what to remove. I found both to be remarkably effective.

You can even create custom presets for your camera by shooting a series of photos at various ISO settings, adjusting them in NoiseControl, and then saving the result. (Investing a little time in this process will save tons of time later.) To batch process images, include NoiseControl in a Photoshop action; to apply NoiseControl nondestructively, just convert your image to a smart object first.

NoiseControl is very fast, both in previewing and in applying the result. You can zoom into the preview and resize the preview window as large as you need it. Helpfully, you can even preview just the noise to be removed. Unfortunately, in testing on my Mac, I ran into two interface problems: the Split View feature—helpful for seeing a before and after view—wouldn’t turn off, and I couldn’t resize the Preview Limit rectangle as described. The Plugin Site is working on these issues and may have fixed these problems by the time you read this.

Company: The Plugin Site
Price: $49.95
Web: http://thepluginsite.com
Rating: 4
Hot: Fast, effective, and automatic; advanced controls
Not: Interface glitches reduce efficiency

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. There’s a comprehensive collection of preset styles to get you started such as crayon, oil paint, pencil, comics, and watercolor that are further broken down into subgroups for landscapes, portraits, abstracts, etc. You can globally adjust the preset style using sliders to modify brushstroke, surface texture, color, light, etc., or locally use a layer mask to modify your image.

At any point in your exploration you can save and name your modifications. Snap Art processes large files relatively quickly and renders your image in a large preview window. The tools and controls are easy to use and the process is intuitive, but just in case, the interface has mouseover tooltips and there’s a collection of video tutorials on Alien Skin’s website.
For some, Snap Art’s quick results might be a legitimacy issue. Making art is supposed to be a difficult, time-consuming process. However, within minutes of opening one of my pictures in Snap Art 3, I was struck with the effects and couldn’t deny that I liked what I saw: complex brushstrokes, clean edges, delicate pointillism, and more. I made several prints on canvas paper that appeared natural without a manufactured look.

Snap Art is made to order for busy wedding photographers who need to deliver that special moment in a unique artistic manner. Snap Art lets us explore our images and expand our vision. It’s well worth trying out.

Company: Alien Skin Software, LLC
Price: $199
Web: www.alienskin.com
Rating: 4.5
Hot: Quality artistic effects
Not: No written manual

PhotoCopy is an interesting, one-trick wonder plug-in that is easy to use. Essentially, it adjusts an image’s brightness, color, tone, detail, grain, and texture to match either a built-in preset or another loaded image. Perhaps the most fun thing about the plug-in is the built-in presets: there are 94 based on famous movies, 72 based on famous painters, 40 based on famous photographers, and 30 based on historic photographic processes. (I found the last setting the most interesting to experiment with.) Of course, you can create custom settings and save them as presets, too. Regardless, if you’re using a built-in or custom preset, all the settings can be adjusted on the fly.

I have a couple of gripes, one minor, and one so-so. The minor issue is that the Help file should have more info on the photographers (such as their full names) and photographic processes. The movie titles and painter names are pretty self-explanatory, but more info would have been nice. The other issue is more important. When applying a preset, one opens the image (the target) in Photoshop and selects a preset (the source settings). Simple enough. However, when creating a custom preset, one must remember to open the source image first,
and then load the target. Although this is mentioned in the Help file and manual, it seems backward. It should match the rest of the workflow: open a target, and then load the desired source. Also, some of the built-in presets are close to one another—more range would be nice.

I think that more experienced Photoshop users will look at PhotoCopy and think, “I can mimic most of these effects myself,” while less-experienced users wouldn’t mind spending the cash for the quick results. Of course, most experienced users must take into account the amount of time it takes to re-create an effect. This plug-in makes it all very easy.

Company: Digital Film Tools

Price: $95

Web: www.digitalfilmtools.com

Rating: 3.5

Hot: Mimics photographic processes with click of mouse

Not: Some presets are too similar to each other

Topaz Labs recently released Lens Effects, a plug-in that offers the ability to add a wide variety of lens-type effects to your photos. This includes bokeh effects (shallow depth of field, blurry backgrounds); tilt-shift or creative blur (think Lensbaby); toy camera-like color and focus deficiencies; graduated neutral-density filters; or modifications like fixing geometric distortion, adding grain, or simple vignettes.

Lens Effects is available as a plug-in for Photoshop, as well as Lightroom and Aperture. The interface is very Lightroom-esque with effects and presets on the left, a center preview area, and specific controls for each effect on the right. There are several presets for many of the effects, or you can create you own presets.

For the Bokeh – SLR Lens and Bokeh – Selective effects, you can make a depth map to define what areas should be in focus. Overall, it does a good job at defining these areas and creating a mask of gray values from foreground (black) to background (white), though there are occasional inaccurate edges. The interface and procedure for creating and editing these masks is very promising, but on some images I found myself wishing that I could make fully manual edits to the depth map to address errors in the automated process (the edits you do make are user-directed, but the program computes the change, so the tools aren’t totally manual).

Lens Effects is a useful plug-in for those who want a wide variety of lens effects easily accessible in one place. It provides very good results for many of its offerings (the weakest in my opinion are the pinhole and toy camera effects). The focus and blur effects that don’t require a complex depth map all produce very good results. Creating selective blurring on images with more complex foreground to background relationships that do require precise depth maps is likely to still be a challenge.

Company: Topaz Labs, LLC

Price: $79.99

Web: www.topazlabs.com

Rating: 3.5

Hot: Multiple lens effects in one place

Not: Can’t access alpha channels

Getting images to look their best and brightest, appropriately, can be challenging. Add to that the plethora of products available to produce pleasing pictures and it can become a bit dizzying. The area where more and more developers are focusing their attention seems to be performance to make the dream of one-click corrections more of a reality, eliminating the need for more tweaking after the fact. Enter Athentech Imaging that, to some degree, splits the difference between total correction and an easy-to-use interface for a quick fix to photos.

Where Perfectly Clear really shines is with outdoor images, such as automotive, landscapes, or portraits that either have caused the camera’s sensor to over- or undercompensate for lighting, or where a polarizing filter may have helped. The controls are divided into tone and tint removal; exposure and white balance; color vibrancy and fidelity; sharpening controls with noise reduction; and portrait enhancement that includes red-eye reduction, skin tone, and light diffusion. Preview modes are simple with 50/50 horizontal or vertical modes, and full view.

Like many correction tools, it’s easy to overuse the correction capabilities, so it’s important to have a properly calibrated display for best results. Once the desired correction is achieved, it’s applied to your original image.

Perfectly Clear is not only an effective color-correction tool, but a well-rounded one in that Athentech Software also offers iOS versions for iPhones and iPads that also do a fine job of correcting images if you’re on the go. The bottom line is this is a good choice and an effective product that can save you time while producing good results.

Company: Athentech Imaging Inc.
Price:$199
Web: www.athentech.com
Rating: 4
Hot: Fast; 32- and 64-bit support; 8- and 16-bit images
Not: Pricey; no correction on new layer option

onOne Software has rebranded Genuine Fractals, the industry standard for image resizing, as Perfect Resize. The new version has quite a few improvements to make enlarging your images easier and faster, but most importantly, look substantially better than what you can do with Photoshop alone. Many features on users’ wish lists were addressed by onOne to create a real creative tool versus what was considered a utility plug-in.

The output quality is better than ever, and given the improvement in quality of poster printers for small studios, professional photographers will get excellent results from nearly any DSLR with less time and money spent on reprinting test prints. In addition to the new name, some great features were added. One, in particular, is Tiling so that nearly any printer (that supports full-bleed output) can be used to assemble large posters. Cropping, Texture Control, Film Grain, and Gallery Wrap are all features that are easy to employ from within the workspace after launching the plug-in from the File>Automate menu. Getting the sharpest, most accurate output is easier in this new update with the addition of a Loupe viewer and Smoothness control that help to dramatically reduce visual artifacts. The onscreen viewing may be deceiving, depending on magnification, but the prints are very good and lose the stand-way-back-to-look-good effect often required with increasing image resolution.

Perfect Resize 7 is available individually or as part of the Perfect Photo Suite bundle and is an excellent value—either way. onOne Software offers free support, as well as online tutorials, so it’s very intuitive for all levels of users. The Professional Edition is extremely useful, but if you don’t need CMYK support, gallery wrapping, or support for Lightroom and Aperture, a Standard Edition ($159.95) is also available. The industry standard not only maintains its title but also raises the bar for creative professionals.

Company: onOne Software
Price: $299.95 (Upgrade: $99.95)
Web: www.ononesoftware.com
Rating: 5
Hot: 64-bit compatible; tiling output; clean print output; less artifacts and noise
Not:

The idea is simple: a plug-in that compensates and adjusts for motion and blur that causes some images to appear out of focus. To some degree, InFocus does that, but in spite of quick previewing, it’s easy to overuse the deblur and the sharpening tools. With a little practice, the deblur aspect of InFocus is its strongest suit. Holding the Spacebar activates toggling between the preview and the original image. Even the best original may show some improvement with the deblur adjustment. The generic type seems to show the best improvement on clear test images, but it’s a judgment call for the user to determine how much is enough adjustment.

If the image is definitely out of focus, select that type of correction and start from the base settings for best results. With each adjustment, it’s a visual cue as to how much is just enough, and how much is too much. Underexposed images, where the issue is more one of noise, fare better with a different type of plug-in.

With proper use and a good eye, InFocus can be extremely effective. It’s great for large-sensor cameras and can make great improvements to images that may already seem sharp. Even with the simple interface, this isn’t a tool for novice users. This is a product that requires users to “feel their way” through how much effect is enough through trial and error, but with a little patience, InFocus can be far more effective than the sharpening tools in Photoshop.

Company: Topaz Labs, LLC
Price: $69.99
Web: www.topazlabs.com
Rating: 3.5
Hot: Effective deblurring; Estimate Blur function; interface
Not: No presets; easily overused

Do you have a tough time with folded product designs? It requires a lot of trial-and-error to line up graphics across folds, making sure that something doesn’t get out of line when the cuts are made. Well, hold onto your hats! Strata has come up with Enfold 3D CX to solve these problems. This product’s tools make the creation of packaging extremely intuitive, allowing designers of all levels to create folded 3D designs directly in Adobe Illustrator.

The obvious important feature is the ability to do 3D modeling in Adobe Illustrator, which allows you to see your folded designs in 3D (real time), make changes to the design, and view them on the fly. This makes the design process much easier—not to mention faster. Another great feature is that you can bring in existing designs from which to create your packaging—no matter what it is, you can bring it in and create some great product designs. Probably the most useful tool is the Distribute feature, which lets you match up art across folds. If you’ve done this before, you know that this is one of the toughest tasks to accomplish when mocking up a design. Enfold 3D CX automates this process, making life easier all around. Finish this up by being able to generate print-ready files and you’re good to go.

This is one awesome program: It moves a cumbersome process to a more streamlined creative process that allows the designer to see results quickly. Strata Enfold 3D CX saves you time and its feature set is a must-have for designers who want to increase their productivity when it comes to creating folded designs.—Bruce Bicknell

Company: Strata 3D
Price: $695
Web: www.strata.com
Rating: 5

Hot: 3D mockups on the fly; import existing designs; intuitive
Not:

Everywhere you turn, you’ll spot the “look”: video footage transformed to look like a cartoon. In a traditional workflow, the process involves rotoscoping. An artist literally traces animation frame by frame over the original source. The technique was invented by Max Fleischer around 1915, and has been used by animators on classic films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Cinderella, as well as modern movies such as Titan A.E. and Waking Life.

The process is very tedious, however, so many video pros and motion graphics artists have been on a quest for an easier solution. These days you’ll find several products on the market to transform your video footage to look like it’s a cartoon. Early options such as Studio Artist ($379; www.synthetik.com) and market leaders like ToonIt ($399; www.redgiantsoftware.com) have all seen heavy use.

While they’re not new to the plug-in market, Boris FX has released their own take on cartoon filters. The Boris Continuum Unit: Cartoon Look breaks out four filters from the larger plug-in package Continuum Complete. The set is only $199 (significantly less than competitors) and runs in several host applications including Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro, as well as Apple Final Cut Pro and Motion. The four filters for stylizing your footage include:

• BCC Cartoon Look: This filter attempts to simulate the look of rotoscoped animation. The original colors are preserved and the edges thickened.
• BCC Pencil Sketch: The filter does a reasonable job of emulating the look of a hand-drawn, pencil-sketched image. Edges are enhanced, but most color is reduced or removed.
• BCC Charcoal Sketch: This filter quickly simulates the thick strokes of a charcoal sketch. The resulting animation is drawn with thick black-and-white lines.
• BCC Watercolor: Watercolor paint-style animation is created with this filter. These are typified by soft edges and intensified color.

For our testing, the effects were run under After Effects CS4. So the question is simple: Is it worth it? The answer is it truly depends.

First off, you’ll either love or hate the cartoon filter look as a whole. The look is very trendy and your clients may be asking for it. On the other hand, none of the filters on the market match the quality of hand-drawn animation.
The filter offers precise controls with numerous options. What’s nice is the ability to blend the stylized image with the original, as well as control the thickness of lines.

While the effects offer presets, they don’t load with the standard Adobe preset picker. The quality of presets also varies.

The filter does render relatively quickly on modern computers. It also does a nice job of preserving edge details so the “drawn” lines don’t jitter or suddenly disappear.

After Effects CS4 already includes a very versatile Cartoon filter. While its controls don’t match the Boris filter, the price to upgrade to CS4 is only a little more and offers many more advantages.

ToonIt from Red Giant Software seems to offer solid results and is worth a head-to-head comparison for the serious buyer. Be sure to download the trials for each package and see which you find more intuitive and eye-pleasing.—Richard Harrington

Company: Boris FX
Price: $199
Web: www.borisfx.com
Rating: 2.5

Hot: Popular look with easy-to-use controls
Not: Results don’t match quality of competing products