by
David Nagel
Executive
Producer
dnagel@digitalmedianet.com
If you're
anything like me, your Photoshop Plug-Ins folder looks like a
junk yard. It's full of old, decrepit filters that you haven't
used since you stopped designing your own custom Dungeons &
Dragons character sheets; demos of filters that expired before
computers were even invented; and shareware filters whose usefulness
you've never quite figured out, but somehow you can't bring yourself
to throw them away. Hey, I still have Gallery Effects loaded on
one of my Macs!
But amid all
that clutter, you have three or four packages you routinely use
when there's serious work to be done. I won't name all of them
here. They can send me review copies if they want publicity. But
one of these, surely, is Eye Candy from Alien Skin Software.
I was introduced
to this package of special effects for Photoshop when version
3 was released, and it quickly became one of my favorites, not
only for designing custom D&D character sheets, but also for
doing professional work in print and, later, on the Web. The latest
version is Eye Candy 4000, which Alien Skin released just a few
weeks ago. It's an update whose time has come.
New
features
Eye Candy 4000 adds five new filters to the set included in Eye
Candy 3—Marble, Melt, Drip, Corona and Wood—bringing
the total to 23 effects. It also brings with it a new interface
for all of the filters.
Where the
old interface seemed overburdened and slow, the new one is light
and speedy, although, as with version 3, previews can still take
as much render time as the final effect. But, on the whole, the
interface in Eye Candy 4000 is much more effective.
Eye
Candy 4000 gains several improvements in the interface
department over its predecessor, Eye Candy 3.
New interface
features include:
- Tabbed
pages within the main window for adjusting various controls.
Basic setting appear under the first tab, while lighting, color,
bevel and other setting appear under subsequent tabs.
- The new
version adds menus that take over the menu bar when a filter
is launched. The menus add several new features to Eye Candy,
including unlimited undo and redo; cut/copy/paste; the ability
to jump back and forth between filters without having to return
to the canvas; and the ability to save and manage settings,
which can be shared between filters in the collection, where
appropriate.
- The preview
window is larger than in version 3 and can show layers behind
the current layer you're working on. It also includes a small
navigation window so you can see which part of the image you're
looking at.
