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Review: Photoshop Filters
- Eye Candy 4000
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Installation was very simple —
just insert the CD and select your Photoshop plug-ins
folder. The Eye Candy filters will appear in the filters
menu. Select and down falls all the filters.
Click the Apple to see Eye Candy in
action.
The great thing about Eye Candy 4000
is the visual diversity these 23 filters can bring
to your imagery. As usual, the down side is that just
applying a filter to an image rarely improves it.
In general, the Eye Candy filters are for specific
effects. However, with a little imagination and patience
- you can really get some mileage from these filters
without "overdoing" an image. The trick
is to control the effect to enhance the image without
letting the filter dominate the final composition.
As an educator, I can't tell students enough how unimpressed
I am with a heavily filtered image.
Eye Candy's strength comes from its
flexibility in many of the effects. For instance -
I will rarely have a need to use the Fur filter to,
well, make my work a wee bit hairier. However, the
smoke filter can generate gorgeous atmospheric effects
that can be used to create depth in a scene. Some
of the best components of the Eye Candy set are the
more subtle effects. Squint is an interesting alternative
to using a Gaussian Blur, and toying around with the
settings can really result in some trippy effects.
Being radically nearsighted, I think the squint effect
is a pretty decent method to simulate low depth of
field in a scene. The HSB Noise filter can take a
pretty generic monochromatic layer image of a wall,
and really create a great texture that can be used
as a low opacity overlay for an image.
Every
filter has a nicely executed interface that allows for
custom effects. The HSB Noise filter, shown in action
on the right, let me really tweak settings to achieve
the desired effect.
I was particularly impressed with the
3D lighting effects of many of these filters. You
can chose the angle, brightness and color of light
in many filters - the Bevel Boss, Chrome, Cutout,
Drip and Glass, to name a few.
Summary
If you are simply looking to take a
picture of the neighborhood bully that still haunts
your dreams, and use the Fire filter to exact a rather
disturbing Farrah Fawcett "Burning Bed"
virtual revenge, then you'll love Eye Candy. If you
are a graphics professional that needs a little kick
start to find a cool way to modify a layer in an illustration
and have the patience to experiment a bit - you'll
also love Eye Candy. It's flexible and customizable
enough to be able to kick out very unique effects
and avoid filteritis - a horrible condition in which
images are irrepairably damaged by egregious use of
obvious filtering. If you work with Photoshop building
custom graphics or digital artwork, you'll make excellent
use of Eye Candy.
We want to add this: We are glad that
AlienSkin has brought some sanity to the filter world
by giving us the standard Photoshop interface with
their filters. Since Kai's PowerTools introduced wild
and wacky interfaces, developers have tried to out-cool
each other and the result has been disturbing and
confusing interfaces when using filters. Finally,
with Eye Candy, when you use a filter you don't feel
like you're transported to a different world! Keep
it simple, people.
The Verdict
Speed - 4.5
Most of the filters, with the exceptions
of HSB Noise and Swirl rendered very quickly. Be prepared
for the render times to increase significantly as
you increase resolution. (Tested on a 400mHz PowerBook
- with 200MB Ram assigned to Photoshop)
Complexity/Usability - 5
All of the filters have an easy to use
interface with a fast-drawing preview window. It takes
only a minute for the greenest user to start fiddling
with the controls to get the desired effect.
Stabililty - 5
No crashes, hang -ups, or RAM errors,
even at very high resolutions.
Flexibility/Originality - 4.5
Some of the filters are a bit cheesy
out of the box, but can be customized for real-world
applications. The effects themselves are highly flexible
and can result in a wide variety of final renderings
if you are willing to spend some time tinkering with
settings.
Value - 4.5
169.00 for 23 filters might seem a bit
steep - but the flexibility of the effects will make
the money worthwhile. If you consider extra Photoshop
filters a means to an end, you won't regret the price.
Rating: 4.7 Bites from the Apple.
joel@applelust.com
