Description:
There seems to be no end to clever plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop, the digital imaging program. Finally, there is a book to address these products succinctly yet thoroughly. The Photoshop Plug-Ins Book discusses products that can help you optimize your images for print, such as LaserSepsPro, which creates stochastic separations of process color images. The guide also suggests products to optimize images for the Web, such as Second Glance PhotoCell for creating GIF and QuickTime animations, HVS JPEG 2.0 for JPEG compression, and HVS ColorGIF for color reduction and GIF export. Then there are the plug-ins for "streamlining your workflow": Alaras Apertura 2.0 is for opening portions of large prepress files and for reading and writing Scitex files, Extensis Mask Pro lets you generate image masks, and Human Software's Medley is for building large composite images. Finally, there are plug-ins for creating special effects, such as Alien Skin Eye Candy, Andromeda Series Filters, Human Software's Squizz, Kai's PowerTools, Vertigo 3D Dizzy, TypeCaster, and QuickSpace 3D. You learn what each product does, who needs it, and how to use it, and the author provides plenty of tips and screen shots. You also get the developer's contact information and URL, as well as hardware and software requirements. Some of the plug-ins are for Macintosh, some are for Windows, and some are for both platforms. This is a useful guide for anyone who wants to simplify their work in Photoshop or in any other package that supports Photoshop plug-ins, such as Fractal Design Painter, Equilibrium's DeBabelizer, Live Picture, Corel Photo-Paint, and Micrografx Picture Publisher. A listing of other plug-ins is also featured. A hybrid CD-ROM includes demo versions of many of the plug-ins discussed in the book.
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