Filter Forge review
Filter Forge is – by quite a margin – the most powerful plug-in we’ve looked at here. That’s because it’s a tool for creating plug-ins, both generative texture-creation tools and effects filters.
Reviews
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OnOne Genuine Fractals 6 review
Genuine Fractals 6 is available in two versions. Both feature the same scaling engine, but the Standard Edition supports RGB images only.
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Luxology ImageSynth 2 review
ImageSynth 2 generates seamless textures from lower-resolution images, ao it allows the user take one or more small images of grass and ferns and turn it into a much larger texture.
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Auto FX Photo/Graphic Edges 7.0 Platinum Edition review
The clumsily named Photo/Graphic Edges 7.0 Platinum Edition (PGE 7.0) – is a powerful but heavily flawed plug-in for adding borders and frames to images.
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Imagenomic Portraiture 2 review
Portraiture is a plug-in that automates skin smoothing and blemish removal – and it’s one that most digital artists will want to get their hands on.
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Nik Silver Efex Pro review
Silver Efex Pro efficiently produces great black-and-white effects that are fiddly to create in Photoshop alone. It ships with a set of presets to use as a starting point.
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Akvis Sketch 8.5 review
Akvis’ Sketch is the only plug-in we’ve seen that produces decent pencil drawing from images, though it’s let down by a wonky workflow and some bad bugs.
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Digital Anarchy ToonIt Photo review
ToonIt Photo replicates a hand-drawn style well that almost all plug-ins do very badly indeed: comics – covering techniques from outlined to full graphic novel-style art.
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Topaz Adjust review
Topaz Adjust offers a quick way to make images more dynamic, by manipulating their exposure, contrast and saturation using its swift workflow and more complete preset system.
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Imagine WS114 review
Our review model of CAD2’s Imagine WS114 workstation sees the debut of nVidia’s Quadro FX 4800 graphics card, which boasts a whopping 1.5GB of graphics RAM.
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Manga Studio 4 review
Manga Studio 4 is the best drawing software for professional comic artists, and offers illustrators some top notch tools for creating character-driven artwork.
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Adobe Fireworks CS4 review
For years something of a poor man’s Photoshop aimed at web designers, Fireworks finally came of age 18 months ago. With Fireworks CS4, Adobe has taken things further.
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Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 review
Dreamweaver has become associated with website creation in the same way that Photoshop is identified with image editing. However, despite some tantalizing treats, there are few reasons to upgrade.
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Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 review
Beyond being available for the Mac once more, the last version of Premiere Pro was low on new features – so more than any other CS4 product, it’s due an upgrade.
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Nikon Coolpix P6000 review
The 13.5 million-pixel Nikon Coolpix P6000 is pitched unashamedly at the high end, but it’s a market that has been dominated by arch-rival Canon's G9 and forthcoming G10.
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Dell Precision M2400 review
Small and light are often relative terms with laptops aimed at creative pros, but Dell’s new Precision M2400 can be described as both in all seriousness.
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Adobe Photoshop CS4 review
Adobe runs a predictable product development life cycle – every 18 months or so we can expect to hear about new versions of its primary products. Photoshop CS4 has arrived right on schedule.
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Seagate FreeAgent Pro for Mac review
The FreeAgent Go for Mac promises fast FireWire 800 transfer speeds, spacious storage, a bundled dock, and a stylish (if bulky) white and aluminium design.
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Adobe Illustrator CS4 review
The latest version of Illustrator adds a feature that users have wanted for years: multiple artboards. This isn’t the only trick up Adobe’s sleeve, but in many ways it’s the most profound.
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After Effects CS4 review
AE CS4 is still the best overall compositing application, and the upgrade adds some useful tools – but it would have been great if Adobe had given it a more fundamental overhaul.