Genuine Fractals 5 Print Pro

Genuine Fractals 5 Print Pro is a must for any photographer who makes large format and poster sized prints. Its also great for journalists, sports and wildlife photographers who may need to take a cropped section of an image and make a high-quality print from it. Genuine Fractals 5 can even work its magic with digital video still frames "up-rezzing" from standard-definition to high-definition video quality.

With the new Genuine Fractals 5 Print Pro, you not only get a better scaling algorithm, but you also get access to the key variables of the algorithm so you can fine tune your results for your specific image. The new Texture Control section within Genuine Fractals 5 Print Pro allows you to adjust the strength of the Genuine Fractals resizing algorithm on continuous tone areas and to edges independently of one another.

Graphic designers can end the everyday problem of receiving low resolution images from clients for high resolution print work such as magazine publications or tradeshow and billboard graphics.

The Industry Standard for Image Enlargement
Genuine Fractals 5 Print Pro is the industry standard for image resizing. As a Photoshop plug-in, it is renowned across the photographic and printing industries for its ability to increase image size well over 1000% without the loss of sharpness or detail that you would normally expect. Its patented, fractal based interpolation algorithms work like nothing else and the results speak for themselves.

Better than Bicubic--or any other resizing method
The patented, fractal-based scaling algorithm found only in Genuine Fractals is superior to any resizing algorithm found within Photoshop (bicubic variations) or in any other third-party plug-in or stand-alone application. There is some serious heavy-hitting math going on behind the scenes but basically Genuine Fractals examines your image for naturally repeating patterns and once it finds them, uses them to increase your image to any size you desire. The result is an enlarged file that maintains the edges and the color values from your original file without introducing any artifacts, blurring or halos around edges. Click the image to the left/right to see for yourself.

This example compares a 400 percent increase with Genuine Fractals to a 400 percent increase with Bicubic Smoother (click to enlarge).

Why Should I Use Genuine Fractals 5 Print Pro?
When you resize an image larger than the original requires new pixels to be created. This process is called interpolation and is also referred to as up-rezzing. There are several different methods, called algorithms, to calculate these new pixels. The most common method used by most pixel editing applications is called Bicubic Interpolation.

Bicubic, along with its newer variants, Bicubic Smoother and Bicubic Sharper, work by averaging a small group of neighboring pixels together to determine the color value of the new pixels to be added. While this method is fast, it does not distinguish edges so there is a uniform loss of sharpness and detail across the entire image.

If you find yourself working in a strict, CMYK color-managed workflow you will want to use Genuine Fractals 5 Print Pro. If not, you can consider using the standard edition of Genuine Fractals.

Genuine Fractals in your Workflow
For most, using Genuine Fractals 5 Print Pro should be the second to the last step in your digital workflow. After you have made all of your other adjustments including color correction, compositing, adjustment layers and retouching is when you should resize your file using Genuine Fractals. The final step would be to apply your preferred method of sharpening. Be sure to try the sharpening offered within Genuine Fractals 5 Print Pro. The controls are similar to Photoshop's Unsharp Mask but the Genuine Fractals sharpening is only applied to Luminosity

Batch Processing with Genuine Fractals
By default Genuine Fractals 5 Print Pro remembers its last used settings. This includes the scaling size. If you have several images that all need to be resized to the same time you can use a Photoshop action and the batch command to automate the process.

Unlike with traditional Actions in Photoshop, with PhotoTools Professional Edition, you get a large preview of the effect before you apply it. You can combine multiple effects together and adjust the strength of each effect. You can even save combinations of effects as a preset for easier use in the future.

PhotoTools 1.0 Professional Edition

The key to PhotoTools 1.0 Professional Edition is its unique ability to provide full-screen previews of an effect on your image before you choose to apply it. But it isn't just a single effect, you can stack multiple effects on top of each other just like you would camera filters. You can control the order of each effect and how they blend together for a truly unique look. You can even save your effect stacks so you can repeat them easily and even share them with your friends you have PhotoTools.

Extensive Range of Versatile Effects
Whether you are new to photography and have never experienced the darkroom or you are an experienced pro who has mastered photography you will appreciate the range of authentic camera, filter and darkroom techniques reproduced with PhotoTools 1.0 Professional Edition. PhotoTools 1.0 Professional Edition contains 250 effects by Jack Davis, Kevin Kubota and onOne Software that faithfully reproduce camera filters like neutral density, color correction and polarization as well as darkroom techniques and alternative processes like solarization, cyanotype and more. You can even simulate the look of different films with the a wide range of grain and contrast effects.

PhotoTools Professional Edition allows you to stack and combine multiple effects together so you can create your very own custom look.

Powerful Action Previews
The key to PhotoTools 1.0 Professional Edition is its unique ability to provide full-screen previews of an effect on your image before you choose to apply it. But it isn't just a single effect, you can stack multiple effects on top of each other just like you would camera filters. You can control the order of each effect and how they blend together for a truly unique look. You can even save your effect stacks so you can repeat them easily and even share them with your friends you have PhotoTools.

Stack Multiple Effects Together
PhotoTools 1.0 Professional Edition allows you to combine and "stack" effects very similar to how you would stack layers in Photoshop. This gives you a tremendous amount of creative control and flexibility while you create your own signature look. You even have control over the strength of each individual effect within a stack so if you don't like the default settings of an effect on your image, you can dial it down to better suit your individual photo.

Batch Processing
Once you have created your signature look you can use PhotoTools 1.0 Professional Edition's powerful batch processing engine to apply your look to an entire folder of images. Vastly speed up your production with the ability to batch process files with multiple output formats (such as TIFF and JPEG) of differing sizes (for print or web), color spaces (again for print or web), names and even add watermarks. Now its easy to prepare small jpgs from your raw files for the web or presentations with your custom look added.

Mask Pro 4.1

(L to R: Mask Pro Results on Solid Background, Mask Pro Results on New Background, Orignal Image.) With Mask Pro, masking hair is easy. Just pick a few colors in the hair to keep and a few colors in the background to drop and paint over the hair with the Magic Brush. You can maintain transparency and an amazing amount of detail.

Complete Collection of Masking Tools
In any given image, you may need more than one tool to get the job done. That's why Mask Pro 4.1 provides a complete collection of tools that help you take on the toughest masking project. Included are tools such as the Magic Brush which will remove colors while maintaining transparency as well as touch up tools like the Chisel which will help you get the edges of your image perfect without any edge halos at all. Each tool includes a palette where you can quickly and easily adjust the tool settings.

Masking Hair and Transparent Objects
Masking images that contain hair can be tricky and often frustrating. This is often because hair is thin, semi-transparent in some parts and rarely has a sharp edge. It is difficult to use a tool that relies on edge detection to mask something like hair or other thin or transparent subjects.

The award-winning Photoshop plug-in Mask Pro 4.1 works differently by using color instead of edges. This allows it to easily create a mask that preserves the details you want and even removes unwanted ambient color contamination caused by reflections and transparency. Mask Pro 4.1 actually paints away the colors that you do not want in your image, leaving a natural transition between the subject and background.

With Mask Pro, masking fine details like these leaves is easy and more importantly the results are amazingly accurate. There are no edge halos from the original blue sky around the edges of the leaves or branches. The edges stay transparent for the correct depth of field for a realistic composite.

No Edge Halos
If you have ever spent time creating masks or cutting a subject out of a background you know that the background color is picked up in the edge of the foreground subject as a reflection or halo. This halo effect will prevent your subject from blending with a new background in a realistic looking way. With Mask Pro 4.1's color decontamination technology and touch up tools, you can say goodbye to these halos forever.

With the color decontamination enabled, background colors are removed from the edges the of the foreground subject. The edges of the foreground subject are maintained but are now semi-transparent because only the background colors have been removed from those edge pixels.

Two Photoshop Plug-Ins in One
With Mask Pro 4.1 you get standard Photoshop plug-in as well a Photoshop selection plug-in. For images where you need to mask a transparent item, use the standard Mask Pro 4 .1mode and you can mask any image using the simple method of choosing colors to keep and colors to drop. Unlike other methods where you make a selection and then hope for the best, Mask Pro 4.1 provides you with real-time previews, so there is never any doubt as to the results.

For the times when you just want to make a selection, you can use the advanced selection tools in Mask Pro 4.1 Select to give you a high-quality selection that can be used to create an alpha channel or super-accurate clipping path.

Preview Masking Results in Real-Time Eliminates Guess Work
The problem with other Photoshop plug-in masking tools is that many operate in the "click and pray" mode. You draw a couple of lines or paint the edge of your subject and then click apply and pray that it works right. If things don't work out the way you expected there is not much you can do to fix it other than start over again. It's different with Mask Pro 4.1 as you can see the results in real-time as you work. You can see your image on a new solid color background, against the underlying layer or even view the mask itself.

This way you can see your results and the quality of your mask as you create it. If you make a mistake it is as easy to undo entire brush strokes or portions of a brush stroke or you can just paint portions of the original image back in. You can even see multiple views in real-time so you can see what your composite looks like as well as the mask at the same time..

Now it's easy to add realistic film and darkroom edge effects to your images. You can also add artistic edges like torn paper, brush strokes or even realistic frames and mats you would hang on the wall.

PhotoFrame 3.1 Professional Edition

Combine & Customize Frames for Endless Creativity
With PhotoFrame 3.1 Professional Edition you can combine up to 32 different frames to create a truly unique frame. Take Jim DiVitale for example, that's one of his images to the right. He combined several frames together and then alternated the background color of each to create the illusion that he developed the picture using traditional darkroom techniques.

You can control each frame like an independent layer. You can move, scale and rotate it. You can also control it's color, opacity and blending mode. Each frame can also have a colored border, glow and shadow. You can even apply textures to frames to make them appear to be made of rusty metal, canvas, rock or any of many included textures.

By Photographers for Photographers
By popular demand, we have collaborated with some of the top Photoshop instructors and photographers of our time and have included the same frames or frame presets that they use in their everyday work. For the first time, you can use the same frames that they use!

Layer Masks
PhotoFrame 3.1 understands transparency. You can set your background color to transparent to let PhotoFrame 3.1 paint away the regions outside of your frame so it reveals the layer below. You can also use PhotoFrame Pro 3 to create a layer mask, which lets you control how layers blend together in Photoshop. The best part is that the layer mask can be adjusted at anytime without harming any information in your image

Flush-Mount Albums
PhotoFrame 3.1 is great for wedding photographers and scrapbookers who create album pages with multiple images on a single canvas. Now you can create great-looking layouts by framing each image.

The difference is clear. PhotoTune 2.2 corrected the color in this flat digital capture in six easy steps.

PhotoTune 2.2

Patented Six Step Process
PhotoTune is a Photoshop plug-in that features a patented six step process to correct the color in your digital photos. This simple process takes about 15 seconds and is easy as taking an eye exam. PhotoTune examines your image and then presents two color corrected options side-by-side. You then pick the one that looks best to you. This simple and straight-forward "Color Wizard" walks you through the correction process until you end up with a final, color corrected image.

Take Snapshots to Compare Corrections
During the "Color Wizard" correction process you can record a Wizard Snapshot that you can save to preview in the final Fine Tune panel. So if you see a correction that you like in the wizard process, you can save it for later comparison.

The Fine Tune panel also allows you to take up to four snapshots to allow you to compare various fine tune adjustments if you wish.

Like everything in PhotoTune, Snapshot is designed to speed up the correction process. Snapshot is a safety net that lets you continue to experiment with different combinations. Take a Snapshot whenever you want to preserve a set of correction parameters, so you can continue experimenting with without fear of losing a previous correction you liked. Here is a typical workflow:

1. After the Wizard, a Snapshot is automatically taken (Wizard Snapshot).
2. Fine-Tune the results obtained by the Wizard.
3. Take a Snapshot to record your adjustments.
4. Then experiment some more, and make another Snapshot.
5. Use the pop-up menus to compare different Snapshots.
6. Click OK to process the changes and exit PhotoTune.

Professional 16-bit Compatibility
PhotoTune supports 8-bit and 16-bit photos allowing you to open your RAW camera images in Photoshop and color correct them using either the ColorTune or the SkinTune modules within PhotoTune.

It Works Like An Eye Exam
The ColorTune module of PhotoTune works just like an eye exam to figure out precisely what is wrong with your photo and how to fix it. During each step of the Color Wizard process, you are presented with two side-by-side preview images that have been altered in different ways. All you do is pick the better image from each pair. The entire six step process takes about 15 seconds. Of course, you can fine-tune the results any way you like at the end.

Fine Tune Panel
The Fine Tune panel is typically accessed as the final step in the patented 6 step Color Wizard process - but can also be accessed at any time you wish. The Fine Tune panel displays your original photo next to the corrected image and affords you the opportunity to make some final adjustments such as adjusting the dynamic range, brightness, contrast, saturation as well as shadows and highlights.

PhotoTune 2.2 includes SkinTune for color correcting skin. The result of over 2 years of skin color research, SkinTune will make your Photoshop retouching a snap.

Professional Saturation Control
PhotoTune uses an exclusive algorithm that adjusts saturation based on each individual pixel's saturation level, so it knows how much saturation to add, and more importantly, when to stop.

Not all Photoshop plugins are created equal, and not all functions, like saturation adjustment, work the same way. PhotoTune has achieved a digital imaging breakthrough by providing unmatched saturation control and precision in a simple to use, yet powerful plug-in for Adobe Photoshop.

PhotoTune uses an exclusive algorithm that adjusts saturation based on each individual pixel's saturation level, so it knows how much saturation to add, and when to stop. Unlike other programs, PhotoTune doesn't convert your image to a color space like HSB to work on saturation, and then convert back to RGB when it is finished. As you know, these extra conversions can cause data loss which will effect your image's quality.

Photoshop's underlying problem is that it doesn't distinguish between highly saturated , moderately saturated, and under-saturated areas. It makes a global change that treats these areas exactly the same. So, Photoshop doesn't stop when 100% saturation has been achieved.

Easily Correct Skin Color
PhotoTune 2.0 includes SkinTune technology which is the culmination of more than two years of skin color research to properly correct skin color for accurate skin tone color variations. This research included collecting thousands of skin tone image samples from around the world.

Precise spectrophotometer measurements were compiled and complete reference databases of acceptable colors for each race were completed. During this process, it was discovered that skin color represents less than 1% of all available colors. Combine this with the fact that each race has slightly different color characteristics, it is no wonder that acceptable skin color correction is such a difficult process especially when traditional tools were never designed to handle such a small range of colors.

FocalPoint 1.0

With FocalPoint, you get the added flexibility to creatively direct the attention of the viewer's eye exactly where you want.

Selective Focus
The use of selective focus is used to remove distracting backgrounds and to focus the viewers view on the subject. It also has artistic applications as well. This is a popular look in both portrait and wedding work but also commercial and editorial photography, especially food. All of the above mentioned techniques are used at the time the photograph is taken and require addition hardware and knowledge of how to use them. Many of these tools have not transferred to digital or behave differently with digital photography.

A New Tool for the Digital Darkroom
FocalPoint gives photographers a way to create realistic depth of field control, plane of focus control and selective focus to any image after it is photographed allowing for more control and precision. The focus bug control in FocalPoint has a tangible, hardware feel much like using a lens. It makes it fast for a photographer to define the "sweet spot" either in a round shape or a plane and then control how much and of what kind of blur they would like to add. This has a huge benefit over hardware tools like auxiliary lenses and filters because it allows the photographer to control the focus after the image is taken, giving them more control and requiring fewer shots in camera.

Easily Add Vignettes
Vignetting refers to the lightening or darkening of the edges of an image. This is a common technique in photography. Vignetting goes hand-in-hand with selective focus. Vignetting is created either in camera using vignetting hoods or in darkroom by burning or dodging the edges of the image. It is used for the same reasons as selective focus, to minimize distractions in the background and focus the viewers eye on the subject. Today vignetting is principally applied in Photoshop through various methods but all of which require multiple manual steps for a controlled and properly shaped sweet spot. FocalPoint uses the same focus bug controls to allow the photographer to simultaneously selectively blur as well as lighten or darken the areas outside of the sweet spot.

A Virtual Lens
The FocusBug is a unique control that allows you to adjust the sweet-spot (the area in focus) and the most commonly used controls in a single, intuitive control. Simply click and drag to position the sweet-spot. Then use the Bug's legs to set the size and shape of the sweet-spot. Next, adjust the antennae to control the type and amount of blur and the hardness of the blur edge. Using the FocusBug is fluid and in real-time, just like using a lens, but in Photoshop.

Save Settings & Create Presets
Once you have an effect you like, you can save it as a preset so you can easily recall it. FocalPoint remembers all your settings including the relative size and position of the FocusBug so you can apply it to similar images without having to make any adjustments. You can use Photoshop actions to call a FocalPoint preset for batch processing an entire folder of images.

Product Description
Why do you need plug-ins? Can't Photoshop do anything and everything already? Well, yes and no. The answer is yes if you know how to use Photoshop to it's full potential - or at least the part that you need. That's where this Plug-In Suite is extremely beneficial.

Plug-In Suite 4 includes 6 Photoshop "plug-ins" that help you maximize the power of Adobe Photoshop software. You get Genuine Fractals 5 Print Pro for high-quality enlargements, PhotoTools 1 Professional Edition, Mask Pro 4 for removing backgrounds, PhotoFrame 3.1 Professional Edition for the perfect finishing touch to your photos, PhotoTune 2 for professional quality color correction and FocalPoint 1 for adding selective blur and vignettes to your photos. FocalPoint 1 is a new plug-in that simulates selective focus or tilt-shift lenses, helping photographers selectively blur and/or vignette an image to focus the viewer's attention For Windows XP and Vista / Mac OS 10.4.8 or later