Human
Software Classic Frames 1
Frame
creation plugin for Photoshop, PhotoPaint and PaintShop
by
David Nagel
Executive
Producer
dnagel@digitalmedianet.com
This is
the first plugin I've reviewed for this site that borders a
bit on the consumer level. Human Software, maker of a number
of higher-end image editing and effects plugins, publishes a
filter called Classic Frames 1, which is designed exclusively
to add frame edges to images. This is, of course, a one-trick
filter, but it has several variations and a few pretty decent
professional applications as well.
One
of the 60 frame styles that ships with
Classic Frames 1 from Human Software.
For magazine
layout, the possibility of adding frames to images can have
a certain appeal, depending on the theme of a particular story.
You know, if it's a story about elderly people going in for
higher education, you can composite a fancy-looking frame over
a fake diploma. Or for another story you could do one of those
endless variations on American Gothic. Whatever.
Web designers
can also use it for adding a little variation to pages containing
thumbnails or, in the case of gallery pages, to beef up the
metaphor a bit by adding actual frames to images.
But for
me, the appeal actually lies somewhere else, where the impact
can be a bit more significant, namely in the area of bump, texture
and displacement maps for 3D animation.
The Load Effect window in Classic Frames 1 allows you to select
frame styles, which can then be tweaked in the effects editor
(seen below).
We've discussed
before that 3D is becoming an essential tool for designers who
work in Flash or need to create animations for the Web. And
what goes hand in hand with 3D design? A hunger for texture
maps.
