Photoshop plug-in puts artists on notice

(Credit: Alien Skin)

Whether it's rescuing a photo mucked up by a camera's image processing or boosting interest in an otherwise stale photo, Alien Skin's Snap Art 2 plug-in for Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements aims to let users quickly turn mouse clicks into brush strokes.

The software announced and made available Monday gives users 10 natural media, hundreds of styles (oil paint, watercolor, pencil , pastels, etc.), and several canvas textures. The example above was done using the Impasto selection, giving it the look of thick paint, which would be great for hiding photo flaws. There are more than 700 presets that can be tweaked, and this version allows for greater control over detail retention than the last did.

Plus, this update leverages computers with multicore processors as well as multiprocessor systems, cutting down on rendering times and making work on larger prints possible.

The plug-in is available now for $199 or a $99 upgrade for users of the first version. (The upgrade is free if you bought version 1 after the end of March 2009.)

Lastly, I'm in the process of writing reviews for the latest versions of Alien Skin's plug-ins, including Snap Art 2. Look for them soon here on Crave.

[7aji88]

I think you can do most (if not all) of these effects using Corel's Painter Essentials for 99$ and it will give you much more options. Also, you can get to some of these results using some of PS filters.

[happyslappy13]

pirate bay?

[umbrae]

Photoshop already has art tools which do this. Not sure what benefit you get for $200, but it better be significant.

[HomerJayRI]

Hey now!

[nate.reeves]

Or, since you're already in Photoshop - you could just correct the flaws (??) as opposed to muck up the image with some cliché'd looking filter. Save your money and learn how to use the built-in tool set.

[sotovkin]

Or even better is to learn how to paint! :)

If a human were to do the above, I would consider them more of a craftsman than an artist. An artist is there to show us something different; a new take on something or at least a distillation of what is there. It will be some time (though this time WILL come) before machines will be able to interpret life rather than mimicking it and make a statement.

[shinelikeitdoes]

these things are "fun" tools for your average user that thinks its "neat" to turn a photo into something resembling a painting, but alien skin should just create a website like piknik dedicated to playing around with photos for the average user to share on the internet. with only "fun" and passable results these filters are not serious tools for the arsenal of designers etc.

[dctech08]

forget that lame filter. check out the girl! nice....:)