Multimedia
Blogs
Forum
Affordable HD
Whitepapers
Newsletters
Events
Advertisers
DCP Directory
MillimeterBeyond Photoshop
Nov 1, 2003 12:00 PM, By Frank McMahon
Sidebars
Color Theory, Training, and Design
Photoshop CS
A look at some of the powerful plug-ins for an indispensable tool.
 All of the Auto FX plug-ins have great stylish interfaces and focus on user controls with lots of presets. |
Adobe Photoshop has proven to be an indispensable tool for media artists around the globe, and it's in so many toolboxes of video producers that it is easy to take its power for granted. A lot of this power is unleashed through plug-ins, and while you may be familiar with plug-ins for desktop compositing programs such as Adobe After Effects and Discreet Combustion, you may not have tapped into the pool of plug-ins available for Photoshop. Let me tell you, the pool is deep and extensive, and the water is just great.
There are so many plug-ins available it would be impossible to cover them all, so we'll go over the heavy hitters, the ones that producers and artists are using the most, as well as some lesser known ones that are worth checking out. In addition we'll take a look at the brand new Adobe Photoshop CS, touch on the importance of color theory, look at some Photoshop training options, and go over why Photoshop and plug-ins are important to video producers.
Let's start with the last question: Why is Photoshop so important to video producers? If you think about the amount of imagery that is used in video, both broadcast and DVD, it should come as no surprise that you most likely already have a copy of the program. For everything from title screens to info graphics to DVD menus to DVD stills, the program is an indispensable tool.
I remember my early days in television, both cable and broadcast, I had a lecture that I would often go over with my staff (they had to politely listen since I was the boss). To break it down to a sound bite, I would tell them that the only thing that separates public access from network television is the graphics. And it's true. As long as you have a nicely lit, talking head shot, you really can't tell where it is coming from. If you have a clunky old DVE with block fonts below, yep, that's access. If you have glorious colored gradients with sexy drop shadows and perhaps a shimmering logo or a band of an animated backdrop slowly panning past, well then you are probably talking network.
Aside from the on-camera talent's star power and confidence (or lack thereof), the graphics can often set the benchmark of how your production will be judged. So it is important to make the most of what you have to work with by making them as dynamic as possible. If you lack some of the design skills, Adobe Photoshop plug-ins are there to pull up the slack, with snazzy effects and one-click drama.
Where do you begin? Well there are some key players in this industry and let's look at them first.
Auto FX software has become a major player in the Photoshop industry, mainly because of a widely diverse product line and constant updates and improvements to existing software. Their newest release is Photo/Graphic Edges version 6.0, and it includes 14 new effects such as Acid Edge, Montage, Ambient Brush, and Vignette. The program also does the traditional edge effects and even includes a library of more than 10,000 in the package to choose from. Photo/Graphic Edges also includes a lot of features that are offered on most of the Auto FX plug-in packages: Mac and PC versions on the same CD, plug-in and standalone versions, Memory Dots for saving presets, Fast Preview Updates, and an Auto Update that checks to see if a newer version is available online for downloading.
I would recommended some of their products specifically to video producers, including Mystical Lighting, DreamSuite, Gel Series, and Mystical Tint, Tone, and Color. Mystical Lighting does some amazing photorealistic lighting effects, really changing the ambient feel with 16 specific effects and 400 presets. Mystical, Tint, Tone, and Color also allows the creation of specific moods, which we video pros are all about. Finally, the Gel Series creates all those reflective and refractive gel effects (think Apple website) for yummy buttons and gummy bear DVD interfaces. Two warnings for Auto FX plugs: Make sure you have a fast processor and plenty of time. The effects are amazing and fairly computer intensive, so a speedy machine is important. And you'll need time because there are so many options and features packed in that you'll get lost in experimentation. My pick of the litter is Mystical Tint, Tone, and Color, not as sexy as some of the other packages but real-world useful to a tee, with some kickin' color effects.
Corel currently offers KnockOut 2 and the Corel KPT Collection. KPT formally stood for Kai's Power Tools, and if that sounds familiar, well you'll be happy to know the package is still around. Like a retro version of Auto FX, KPT has simpler interfaces that are more organic but lots of fun. The best part of the package is the dreamy patterns it makes using fractals. Believe me, if you want to make esoteric backgrounds for titles or DVD screens, KPT cannot be beat. You'll dive into a world of color and textures for a price that won't set you back too much.
I've had a love/hate relationship with KnockOut 2. It essentially knocks out backdrops from images and does a really sweet job of it; however, I wish the program were more automated and required fewer steps. You really have to jump through a hoop or two to get professional results. So if you have the time it's worth it, and again, it's priced right and a worthy purchase against real high-end masking programs. Photoshop actually has some great masking features itself (play around and learn the Extract command under the Filter menu), but for professional results, give KnockOut a spin. Just be ready to take some time to master the interface.
 Extensis Intellihance Pro offers contrast, brightness, sharpness, and other options for tweaking manually or automatically. |
Another option is Mask Pro from Extensis. Extensis has been around for years and offers many plug-ins for Photoshop including PhotoFrame for borders, Intellihance Pro for image enhancement, PhotoTools for tweaking and effects, pxl SmartScale for scaling small bitmaps up, and Mask Pro for cutting out unwanted backgrounds. Mask Pro is a bit more user-friendly as far as interfaces go, and it sports new features such as Color Decontamination that makes edge transparency effects (like a model's hair) work beautifully.
For video work also check out PhotoTools for a good basic toolset and Intellihance Pro for quick methods to fix images, especially those that have been scanned or photographed digitally at incorrect exposures.
Nik Multimedia is another software house where I imagine people have little shrines set up in their cubes devoted to Photoshop — you can tell they love the software, and the company's extensive product line shows it. One of their flagship products is called Dfine, which does the important job of removing noise from digital photos. If you have a Ken Burns-like project with lots of stills coming up, Dfine will allow controlled processing over all elements such as luminance and chroma noise, color cast, and contrast adjustments.
But the most professional part is that it does it via camera presets. So you actually use a preset specifically designed for your digital camera that gives the software a heads up to the strengths and weaknesses of the images from a specific brand/model and then goes from there. The downside is these profiles must be purchased separately at up to $60 a pop (ouch) but really, how many cameras do you have? Most users can probably get by with one profile.
Nik has many other plug-in packages available, including several suites of sharpener plug-ins. I think the company has gone sharpen-crazy because I've yet to see so many plugs from one company on one specific task. Needless to say, if you need sharpen tools, you know where to go.
Much more fun are Nik's Color Efex suites. These tools do all kinds of color effects and can easily change the tone and mood of any photograph or graphic. Nik's plug-ins really play around with color in amazing ways, so if color is your thing, they are worth checking out. The best part of Nik's effect lineup, both the color and the sharpening tools, is that they are really fast. Some of the other packages discussed can take some processing to forge ahead with, but Nik's are downright zippy. And they all sport a preview image of the effect that pops up in less than a second. Very nice.
Flaming Pear is another company that is just crazy from the Photoshop heat. Their lineup is amazingly diverse and includes SuperBladePro for beveled text (with options such as glare, gloss, rain, dust, grit, smoothness, etc), Flood for water effects, LunarCell for creating planets, Hue and Cry for mind-bending color abstracts, Melancholytron for making images sad (!), Flexify for bending spherical panoramas into vertiginous shapes (I know, you've been wanting to do that for so long), Glitterato for star fields, Tesselation for seamless textures, and Knot for 3D abstracts. Seriously, if you want to go off the deep end with your onscreen video images, Flaming Pear's simply lineup cannot be beat. All of its plug-ins have easy-to-use interfaces that invite much experimentation, and, like Nik's plug-ins, Flaming Pear's are very quick when applied. Also, they are nice and small. I'm not a big fan of huge plug-in interfaces, and these are compact.
Those are some of the major plug-ins, but there are many, many more. Here are a few lesser known that are well worth investigating: Echo Fire from Synthetic Aperture is a Photoshop plug-in that does one very cool thing — it outputs your Photoshop images to a video monitor via Firewire. As you know, NTSC creates specific challenges when creating video images (don't forget the NTSC filter built into Photoshop), and Echo Fire makes it easy to constantly check your video output to see if the colors you're using are legal and stand up on a display. The plug-in also can be set up to automatically use legal NTSC colors via an included “Video Color Picker.”
Digital Element's Aurora is a plug-in that does nature effects including water, sky, and outdoor lighting. This package is perfect if you want to work a little more organically or if you want to represent different nature elements in your images. The program does a pretty amazing job of recreating clouds, stars, moons, water, waves, and light beams.
One workhorse plug-in I bought earlier this year and can say I have used more than any other is Applied Science Fiction's Digital SHO, which automatically optimizes and corrects contrast, shadow, and detail in an image file. I am not sure what kind of mojo this plug is workin' — I think it was developed by tech-y propeller-heads judging from its website, but thank goodness for the development team because it does the best job of one-click correction I have seen, especially for underexposed images.
If this has whetted your appetite, there are many more plug-ins out there. Just check out pluginsworld.com or freephotoshop.com or any of the many websites devoted to plug-ins. And here is the best part: Many are absolutely free. Many sites house Photoshop plug-ins that are freeware (including Adobe at share.studio.adobe.com), and just about every product mentioned in this article has a trial version that can be downloaded from its website so you can take it for a test spin. Plug-ins really unlock the magic of Photoshop and can take your creations to amazing new levels. Start anywhere for a very creative graphic journey.
Sidebar
Color Theory, Training, and Design
GETTING THE MOST OUT OF THESE PHOTOSHOP PLUG-INS takes a few extra steps: color theory and training. I have yet to find a good color plug-in for Windows Photoshop, so I will recommend an amazing and inexpensive standalone program from QSX Software called Color Wheel Pro, which you can download from color-wheel-pro.com.
For Macs, a good choice for a plug-in is Digital Anarchy's Color Theory Pro, which you can purchase from digitalanarchy.com. Creating harmonious color schemes in your Photoshop interfaces and title screens is hugely important and separates the pros from the amateurs. These tools will allow you to see which colors are complimentary, leading to much more pleasing visuals. It's all scientific actually, and your new plug-ins will be nicely complimented by these two packages.
The only thing more important than color theory is actually knowing Photoshop! The plug-ins discussed in the article offer much handholding, but the real power is in mastering the actual Photoshop interface. I would not recommend pluggin' away without at least a basic knowledge of how Photoshop's many features, such as type and layers, actually work. Fortunately, there is help out there.
Two of the top picks would be KW Computer Training (photoshopvideos.com) and Software Cinema (software-cinema.com). Both companies offer dynamic training by the top Photoshop experts in the county, but in slightly different ways. KW offers training via videotapes and DVD, and recently announced a new line focusing on Photoshop CS. Software Cinema offers CD-ROM training, which sounds a little old-school, but I actually prefer it because it's more interactive (you can jump around the QuickTime training movie), and you can work with the image from the lesson in Photoshop as you go along. Both companies offer a large product line covering many different genres such as retouching, masking, effects, digital lighting, selections, layers, type, and color correction. I recommend starting with a beginner series, which both companies have.
Finally, a design book is a good investment, something that will teach things such as typography, invisible grids, colors, and contrast. While there are few books devoted to video-based, on-air design, an excellent book on basic design is Using Design Basics to Get Creative Results by Bryan Peterson. Available used on Amazon for $10, this book will move you a long way toward visually pleasing design for DVD screen and titles. It's made for print designers, but good design is universal and can be applied anywhere.
Sidebar
Photoshop CS
ADOBE'S LATEST VERSION OF Photoshop is called Photoshop CS (Creative Suite), and this version 8.0 has some very sweet new features. First off, the file browser is much speedier — Photoshop 7.0 had to create a thumbnail for each new file it scanned, but now the program is smart enough to grab the thumbnail already in most image files, which makes directories of image thumbs pop up in a snap. More powerful search commands are in the browser using metadata and keywords, and there is now a permanent icon on the top of the interface because you will be using the browser a lot more. Match Color is a command that allows you to take the color hue and temperature from one image and apply it to another — one of those commands you didn't know you needed and now won't be able to live without.
A new Histogram palette allows you to see and make adjustments to your images' black and white points. Shadow/Highlight correction compensates for underexposed images (and does a beautiful job, I might add), and the new Text on a Path creates, well, you can figure that one out. The digital RAW plug-in that was available separate for Photoshop 7.0 is now built into Photoshop CS. This allows you to shoot a digital RAW file (which is considered a master, unaltered image file, unlike JPEG) and easily load it into Photoshop. Before this plug-in, loading RAW files was a mish-mash of camera company plug-ins and different hoops to jump through, but now it's smooth sailing for professionals who shoot in this mode.
Other new features include Macro-media Flash export, improved 16-bit support, new Layer Comps, and hundreds of smaller fixes and features. Photoshop is a program that keeps getting better and deeper with features, and this upgrade is another fine effort from Adobe.
feedback
To comment on this article, email the Video Systems editorial staff at vsfeedback@primediabusiness.com.
