>> Filter Forge Freepack 3 - Free Photoshop Plugins

+ Filter Forge, Inc. today released Filter Forge Freepack 3 - Frames, and announced a 20% discount for its flagship product, Filter Forge. The theme of the third Filter Forge freepack is frames -- the plugin comprises seven effect filters, each capable of framing any photo in a creative way. For example, Painting Frame generates realistic wooden frames with paint flaking off; Halftone Frame will frame an image with a pattern of dots of varying size; Simple Frame gives photos a classic elegant feel; Grunge Frame makes a photo look ragged and edgy; and Film Frame produces a black film-like vignette. Over the course of the year 2008, Filter Forge, Inc. plans to release four more Filter Forge freepacks, each centered around a different theme. The freepacks are based on the technology used in the company's flagship product, Filter Forge, an innovative Photoshop plugin allowing users to create their own filters in a visual editor. All Filter Forge freepacks are available for download at the company website: www.filterforge.com/download/.

XDepth for Adobe Photoshop

+ XDepth plugins for Adobe Photoshop CS2 and CS3 are now available free of charge for Windows and MacOS. XDepth Beta 1 for Adobe Photoshop allows High Dynamic Range image compression that is compatible with the widely-spread Jpeg format. XDepth is fully compatible with Jpeg files.In fact you will be able to open .xdp files in any application that supports Jpeg.You can also rename your .xdp files as .jpg and they will still open as HDR in Photoshop. With some synthetic HDR images the XDepth compressed file is 12 times smaller than its HD Photo counterpart and 173 times smaller than the uncompressed HDR image. HDR images are very difficult to compress. Other technologies drop much of the details in darker areas proportionally to the increased contrast.XDepth maintains the same perceived quality throughout the whole image, regardless of the contrast.XDepth offers a variable bit-depth throughout each HDR image thus providing extra precision only where it's required.
>> Download XDepth for photoshop

DAZ Studio 3D Bridge for Photoshop

+ DAZ Productions Inc., a leading developer of professional-quality 3D software and models, announced today the free public beta version of the DAZ Studio™ 3D Bridge for Photoshop© plug-in. Compatible with Photoshop 7, CS, CS2 and CS3, this new plug-in allows DAZ Studio users to automatically apply 3D imagery and artwork to any Photoshop project. To help users build their 3D Photoshop library, DAZ is additionally offering a free 3D Bridge Starter Bundle, valued at over $230. The 3D Bridge Starter Bundle contains DAZ’s best-selling Aiko 3 Base with several textures, hairstyles and poses; a Millennium dragon, cat and dog; a futuristic car, and the ever popular EmotiGuy. The DAZ Studio 3D Bridge for Photoshop makes it easy for users to do the following:

- View 3D scenes as Photoshop layers

- Change objects and figures simultaneously

- Render directly into Photoshop

- Import, export and modify image maps and textures onto 3D models in Photoshop

- Composite 2D and 3D content seamlessly

- Access DAZ’s full library of quality 3D content

Easily pose characters and objects three-dimensionally in DAZ Studio, and see the results immediately in Photoshop. See how you can harness the power of 3D in your next Photoshop project. You don't even need a U3D export. The limited-time public beta version of the DAZ Studio 3D Bridge for Photoshop is now available for free download at www.daz3d.com/3dbridge.

Topaz Vivacity V1.3.1 For Photoshop

+ Topaz Labs LLC, a software company specializing in image and video enhancement technology, releases Topaz Vivacity V1.3.1, a set of Photoshop plug-ins for image enhancement. The breakthrough super-resolution algorithms used in Topaz Vivacity affect a distinct improvement in imperfect images. Avid photographers and graphics professionals will find Topaz Vivacity invaluable in rescuing otherwise unusable images and to enhance images in all aspects. Graphics designers also can create unique special effects with Vivacity filters.Features include:
(1) enlarge images while still maintaining visual clarity
(2) eliminate ISO noise, film grain and other noise with little loss of details
(3) eliminate JPEG and JPEG2000 compression artifacts
(4) sharpen and enhance edges without overshooting or noise amplification
(5) remove color bleeding and recover color edges, and
(6) create special effects.
The major changes in this update are:- support for multi-cpu systems, such as those with Core 2 Duo or Xeon processors. For example, it can provide a 2.5~3.5 times speed increase on computers with a quad-core CPU.- better compatibility with Windows Vista and Photoshop CS3, and- a new convenient installation that automatically installs the plug-ins properly to Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.Pricing Topaz Vivacity retails at $49.99 USD. It is available on the Topaz Labs web site at www.topazlabs.com, and many software download sites.

Filter Forge Announces Free Photoshop Plugins

+ Filter Forge, Inc. announced series of free Photoshop plugins and the availability of the first plugin in the series, "Filter Forge Freepack 1 - Metals", which generates photorealistic metal textures and effects.Over the course of the coming year, Filter Forge, Inc. plans to release seven free Photoshop plugins named Filter Forge Freepacks, with each plugin centered around a different theme. The freepacks are based on the technology used in the company's flagship product, Filter Forge, an innovative Photoshop plugin allowing users to create their own filters in a visual editor. Each freepack will be capable of generating seamlessly-tiled textures with professional-grade anti-aliasing, and will take full advantage of modern dual-core processors.
The theme of the first Filter Forge freepack is metals -- the plugin comprises seven filters that produce realistic metal textures and effects. Alien Metal produces a sci-fi texture of an alien-looking metallic surface; Brushed Metal generates a texture of brushed aluminum; Foil produces a texture of crumpled aluminum foil; Diamond Plate creates a texture of an industrial diamond plate floor; Metal Panels generates a metal plating texture; Metalizer produces a smooth metallic surface based on the brightness of the source image; and Rust renders patches of corrosion over the darker areas of the source image. All textures generated by the plugin are seamlessly tiled and can be immediately used as a web background or a game texture.
The free plugin is available for download at the company website: www.filterforge.com/download. Registration is not required. The plugin currently works under Windows only, the OS X version for both Intel and PowerPC processors is in development.

Microsoft HD Photo Plug-in for Adobe Photoshop

+ A file format plug-in to add HD Photo open/save support to Adobe® Photoshop® software. HD Photo offers compression with up to twice the efficiency of JPEG, with fewer damaging artifacts, resulting in higher-quality images that are one-half the file size. In addition, HD Photo offers increased image fidelity, preserving the entire original image content and enabling higher-quality exposure and color adjustments in the image. This new format offers the ability to decode only the information needed for any resolution or region, or the option to manipulate the image as compressed data.
This is the Windows BETA release of the HD Photo file format plug-in forAdobe® Photoshop® software with an updated EXPIRATION Date. It supports a wide range of pixel formats (including high dynamic range, wide gamut formats) and numerous advanced HD Photo features.This BETA plug-in is designed for use with the CS2 or CS3 versions of Adobe Photoshop software running under Microsoft Windows XP or Microsoft Windows Vista. Any other use is not supported. Because this is a Beta release, we recommend you use careful judgment before using this version of the plug-in for any production work. This Beta version will expire after August 30, 2007.
>> Download HD Photo Plugin

Power Retouche Photoshop plugins

+ Their are hundreds of Photoshop Plugins pack available and many claims to be very professional, but very few are quite up to their claimed standards and one of them is "Power Retouche", a real comprehensive set of photoshop Plugins for graphic artists, photographers and image editing professionals. The Power Retouche Plugins bundle offers a set of 25 very easy to use and quite flexible filters for your usual bread butter photo-editing jobs on daily basis, to quite tedious image enhancement functions. Equalizer, Lens Corrector, Sharpness Editor, Black definition Contrast and saturation Editor are the most note-worthy among the long list of Photoshop filters, which really extends the functionality of Photoshop to another level. Power Retouche V.7.1 is fully compatible with Photoshop CS3 as well as prior Photoshop’s and full support for 16 BIT, 48 BIT, 64 BIT modes.
Download Power Retouche Trial - (Win) (Mac)
Read more about - Power Retouche

PixelGenius Release Candidates for CS3 and CS3 Extended

+ PixelGenius has announced the release "RC" versions of their best-selling photoshop plugins; PhotoKit, PhotoKit Sharpener and PhotoKit Color 2.0. for Photoshop CS3. These RC versions are considered "not yet complete" in that while we have tested them and find them to work in the final release version of Photoshop CS3, there are still certain issues that will need to be addressed for both Mac and Windows- see the download page for details.

Download RC's of PixelGenius Plugins

Photoshop Plug-In for Google 3D Warehouse Now Available for Download

Software Add-On Delivers Direct Access to Google’s Free 3D Content
+ Press Release: SAN JOSE, Calif. — May 31, 2007 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) and Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) today announced the Photoshop® CS3 Extended plugin for the Google 3D Warehouse, enabling Adobe® Photoshop CS3 Extended users to take further advantage of the software’s powerful compositing, painting and image-editing toolset for editing 3D content. With the plug-in, users will be able to query and download free 3D content from the Google 3D Warehouse, Google’s free online repository for 3D models and content, directly within Photoshop CS3 Extended. 3D Content then can be placed, manipulated and used in composites with the new 3D tools in Photoshop CS3 Extended.
The Google 3D Warehouse is a free Google service which allows anyone to search for and download 3D models and content via a standard Web browser and now, with this plug-in, Photoshop CS3 Extended. Users can also submit their own models to share within the community by uploading them from Google SketchUp into the 3D Warehouse. Models include everything needed for a 3D world, including: buildings, houses, bridges, statues, sculptures, couches, cars, people, pets and more. If the model has a location on earth, such as a building in New York city, you can also download and view it in Google Earth.
The plug-in is available for free download from the Adobe Labs Web site at http://labs.adobe.com.

Photomatix Tone Mapping Plugin For Photoshop CS3

+ Photomatrix is a stand-alone application to create HDR image by Increasing the dynamic range of your photographs. Photomatrix offers two methods for fixing blown out exposure and flat shadows; Exposure Blending and Tone Mapping. Now you can use Tone Mapping function of Photomatrix pro with-in Photoshop only. HDRsoft Tone Mapping plugin for adobe Photoshop CS2 and Photoshop CS3 is available for Window / Mac both and works on 16-32bit images. This plugin is quite useful for photographers and images editing professionals for not only creating HDR images but to improve underexposed and dull images. The trial version of plugin is fully functional and never expires, but applies a watermark to the final image.

Download Plugin now

Fluid Mask 3 Public Beta Download

Vertus Quotes: "Quick to pick up and intuitive to use, Fluid Mask 3 gets professional results fast".

+ Vertus Fluid Mask 3 Public beta has been released and available for download. Fluid Mask by Vertus has been the first choice of most image editing professionals round the globe, and now with launch of version 3.0 Vertus extend and add more functionality to Fluid Mask, while taking image masking to the another level. Fluid Mask now comes as stand-alone as well as a plugin, for popular image editing and graphic software Adobe Photoshop (CS2/CS3).
The Key new features in Fluid Mask 3.0 includes:
- Faster initial image processing: 10% (single core) - up to 40% (dual core)
- Localized edge detection and blending: for faster workflow
- Better blending: especially for hair and problem edges
- Great new tools for fine mask selections
- workflow enhancement
.............and many more performance enhancing features. Currently Fluid Mask 3.0 is released for windows XP / Vista and their website suggest they will be launching a Mac version soon!

Download Fluid Mask 3.0

Artizen HDR Plugins for Photoshop

+ Supporting Computers Inc. has released Artizen HDR Plugins for Photoshop and a demo version is now available for download. This package now has all 10 tone mapping operators included in Artizen HDR as well as the Orton Filter. text from Artizen website; "Supporting Computers Inc. has now taken all of it's Tone Mapping Operators from Artizen HDR stand-alone and put them together into a Photoshop HDR Plugin Package. Now the world's most popular image editor is merged with the world most powerful HDR plugin package. In addition to this the Orton method has found a lot of popularity when in conjunction with HDR, so Supporting Computers Inc. has also included Artizen's Orton method. This ensures that whether you want a realistic or stylistic result this package will meet all of your requirements." The Artizen Photoshop HDR Plugins is compatible with Photoshop 7/CS/CS2 / CS3 and supports 8,16, and 32bit Mode.

Artizen Photoshop Plugins Demo

about Artizen HDR stand-alone