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Flood
at a Glance
Maker:
Flaming Pear
Price: $20
Platforms: Macintosh and Windows
Demo Available: Yes
URL: http://www.flamingpear
.com
Overall
Impression: Flaming Pear's plugins are top-notch,
and Flood is no different. The water effects are versatile
and impressive, and the filter works pretty quickly, even
on high-resolution images. (On a low-end G4, you won't
even see a progress bar until your image passes about
1,024 x 768.) This is a solid piece of software.
Key
Benefits: Like most of Flaming Pear's plugins, Flood
provides a decent number of controls for customizing the
look of the effect. This is a pretty specialized filter,
but you'll still see a goodly range of effects. You can
use the presets that ship with the filter, create your
own or even generate random settings.
Disappointments:
I like this filter a lot, but I'd like to see more control
over the shape of the bodies of water that are generated,
maybe some special edge effects (breaking waves, mist,
etc.) and the ability to insert more than one ripple.
Recommendation:
Strong Buy
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Flaming
Pear Flood
[Page 3 of 3]
The bottom
line
Flood is certainly a worthy addition to your plugin collection,
assuming you have the need to submerge objects in water. It's
performance is great, and it provides the user with lots of
options for customizing the look of the effect. Certainly the
price is right ($20). But there are some enhancements I'd like
to see go into this filter. First, I'd like to be able to create
more than one ripple. Second, I'd like to be able to create
breakers or add a little whitewater. And third, I'd like to
be able to add effects to the edges, such as mist or contours.
I'm still
going to give this a strong buy recommendation though because
I know some of you out there are flipping through the stock
catalogs looking for a perfect body of water to composite over
an image. Flaming Pear Flood is a much better solution with
its high quality, customizability and performance, not to mention
its modest price.
Flaming
Pear Flood is available for Macintosh and Windows for $20 or
in a bundle with two other filters (Melancholytron and Hue &
Cry) for $40. For more information or to download a demo, visit
http://www.flamingpear.com.
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