DFT Announce Power Stroke 1.0

DFT have announced the release of Power Stroke version 1.0, a stroke based color correction, colorization and special effects plug-in. Designed with the digital photographers, graphic designers and artists in mind, Power Stroke uses a simple, interactive stroke-based interface to quickly and intuitively perform targeted adjustments. Instead of meticulously selecting regions or hand- painting masks, regions of interest are isolated by drawing a few simple brush strokes with adjustments then made only in those areas. Strokes can be assigned multiple corrections and effects such as color correction, recoloring or desaturation, colorization of black and white images, blur, fill light for dimly lit image areas and diffusion/glow. "Based on the concepts of luminance-weighted chrominance blending and fast intrinsic distance computations, Power Stroke produces high quality results at a fraction of the complexity and computational cost of previous techniques." From what I can see DFT have created yet another easy to use and useful tool for imageers and photographers. Power Stroke is based on research and technology by Liron Yatziv and Guillermo Sapiro from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota, and is exclusively licensed by Digital Film Tools. For more information visit Digital Film Tools.

AKVIS Retoucher v.2.5

AKVIS LLC have announced the release of their AKVIS Retoucher plug-in v.2.5 for Windows and Macintosh. version 2.5 includes compatibility with Windows Vista, a new installation and activation method on Macintosh. The upgrade is free for registered users. For more information on Retoucher and all their products, visit Akvis.

Portraiture 1.0.1

Reviewed by: Mario Georgiou Published by: Imagenomic Requires: Photoshop CS/CS2/CS3 or Elements 3/4/5 or a recent edition of a plug-in compliant program; Windows 2000, XP or Vista; Mac OS X 10.3.x/10.4.x; 256MB RAM, 10MB available hard disk spaceMSRP: US$169.95 The Portraiture plug-in is designed is to simplify the process and shorten the time it takes to carry out digital photo portrait retouching. With features like intelligent smoothing and blemish removal, an auto-mask feature that recognizes optimal skin tones and controls for fine-tuning the effect, you really can't go too far wrong. Portraiture is available separately or as part of the Imagenomic Professional Plug-in Suite which also includes Noiseware Professional and RealGrain. The presets that come with this powerful plug-in, are more than enough to retouch most digital images. However for the user who requires finer control over the look and feel of retouched images there are a wide array of fine control sliders which will allow exacting Retouchers to adjust things to their hearts content. The plug-in is really easy to use. In fact, I very quickly began asking myself if that was all there was to it. Obviously, there has been a lot of effort put into this tool and it's pretty evident when you see just how simple it is. My only complaint is that although I can see the benefit in time saving alone, I can't understand why Portraiture v1.0.1 is a full $100 more than the Noiseware Plug-in which is also part of the Imagenomic Professional Plug-in Suite along with Portraiture. Version 1.0.1 is the latest release of Portraiture and fully supports native Intel Mac systems, as well as Microsoft's Vista operating system. Portraiture v1.0.1 is also optimized to support Photoshop CS3 in both its release and public beta versions. Although there is no built in spot removal or blemish removal tool, the absence is forgivable mainly because those sorts of photo repair tools are almost invariably already part of most photo editors. I did find the Skin Tones Mask capability very impressive. By using a selection tool I was able to restrict the application of the filter to a narrower range of tones making the effect all that more effective. Cons: The absence of an integrated blemish and spot repair tool is a minor gripe, but the high price is a bit of a concern. Pros: Fast and easy to use. Highly configurable. Skin Tones Mask feature is very well implemented. The Portraiture v1.0.1 plug-in is the ideal tool for photo studios that deal with portraiture, glamour and fashion imagery. Portraiture is available by itself or as part of the Imagenomic Professional Plug-in Suite. Highly Recommended.

Noiseware Professional 4.1.1

Reviewed by: Mario Georgiou Published by: Imagenomic Requires: Photoshop CS/CS2/CS3 or Elements 3/4 or a recent edition of a plug-in compliant program; Windows 2000, XP or Vista; Mac OS X 10.3.x/10.4.x; 256MB RAM, 10MB available hard disk space MSRP: US$69.95 Imagenomic creates tools and Photoshop plug-ins for imageers, designers and photographers. The Noiseware Professional plug-in consists of a standalone program and a couple of plug-ins which are designed to remove noise and grain, while also preserving most fine details. Noiseware Professional is available separately or as part of the Imagenomic Professional Plug-in Suite along with Real Grain and Portraiture. Noiseware Professional supports 16-bit images, a necessity for any professional photographer who is shooting RAW images. Users can apply a number of presets — up to 14 in all — which cover pretty much any situation. You can create and save your own presets and recall them at any time for use on specific projects. Noiseware Professional is extremely useful for the photo editor, production artist or photographer who is shooting high ISO images or who has very little time to adjust scanned images which contain excessive noise. The effects of this filter can be quite subtle in some situations, but the beneficial effects are useful and noticeable nonetheless. Noiseware Professional is also designed to deal with some of the problems caused by JPEG compression artifacts, a real bonus in my mind. The feature is well conceived and I think Imagenomic should definitely put some additional development effort into the next version. Noiseware does a lot of the work up front by calculating the noise levels in your chosen image. The presets will usually allow you deal with most issues immediately. If you are not happy with a preset, you can then make use of the control slider arrays. Even the most tweak-happy editors will be pleased with the controls too. With four tabs for Detail, Frequency, Tonal Range and Color Range, and over 35 control sliders, you can play for hours. One of Noiseware Professional's more thoughtful functions allows you to apply different processing levels by auto bracketing the setting to same image. You can view the effects in a tabbed view from which you can then select the desired result. This would work better without the tabs and in the form of a display matrix. Like the JPEG compression artifact component, auto bracketing is clearly area that Imagenomic can expand in future plug-in releases. Cons: The tabbed interface for the auto bracketing feature would be better served by a matrix type preview. My only real concern is that some detail can be lost, but well exposed and well focused images aren't really affected. Pros: Intuitive and fast. Highly configurable. The auto bracketing feature is really nice. Great value for the money. Noiseware is aimed at all users who need a tool for controlling noise in their images. Working with Noiseware you can appreciate the work that's been put into this excellent and easy to use plug-in. If you don't have the luxury of time then you owe it to yourself to try Noiseware Professional. You won't regret it. This release is also optimized to support Photoshop CS3 in both the release and public beta versions. Highly Recommended.