DreamSuite Series 1: Plug-in Filters for Photoshop® - Software Review - Evaluation

PSA Journal, Jan, 2002 by Stan Ashbrook

DreamSuite Series 1 Plug-in Filters for Photoshop[R] [c] 2001, Auto FX Software Price: $299

Available from select dealers/resellers (e.g., Mac Warehouse, PC Mall, Publisher's Toolbox and the Auto FX website, www.autofx.com/dreamsuite, as a download or on CD. Download a free demo and evaluation guide for a complete overview.

One of the features of Photoshop that has contributed to its becoming the standard in the image editing market is the concept of "plug-in" filters. Adobe provides the Photoshop interface to others who then are able to develop products to enhance Photoshop by allowing the user the ability to apply various effects to an image. These filters are installed in the Photoshop Plug-ins directory and most work totally inside Photoshop, while others can also work as a stand-alone application. Some are totally automated, but the ones I prefer are those that allow me to control the effect so that I can create the look I want. One of the companies that has been very active in producing excellent plug-in filters for Photoshop and other image-editing applications is Auto FX Software.

A new product recently introduced by Auto FX Software is DreamSuite. DreamSuite is a set of filters that works as both a Mac/Win stand-alone program and as a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop and other imaging programs that support the plug-in standard. The current product that has been released is DreamSuite Series One, which I would guess means that we can expect more filters in the future. It contains 18 visual effects filters, but it's not possible to describe each of the filters in detail in this article. So I picked a few that I thought would be of most interest for the creative look we in PSA are looking for. Each of the filters in the set has excellent controls that allow you select just the effect you desire while viewing the result in a preview window. There are a number of "presets" and you can select the effect that is close to what you want to achieve. It's also a good way to get started and learn the program. When you either modify a preset or create your own, the effect can be saved and applied to other images.

The image "Country Store" was created using three of the Dreamsuite filters on an image I took with my digital camera. First I used the Focus filter. This filter allows you to adjust the focus of a picture after it has already been taken. This effect is great for creating a soft focus, procedural focus, and an in-motion focus. You can also produce a fading focal depth effect to add a depth-of-field look. Next the PhotoTone filter was used for the "old" look. This filter allows you to import masked images and apply subtle mottles, blends, sepia tones, and halos around selected areas. And finally, Deckle, which can create torn paper or photo paper looks. Using Deckle allowed me to crop out the white road foreground that is in the original.

I've always thought it fun to take "Cliche" images and do something to make them look a little different. I was anxious to try the Cubism filter on the image of "Portland Head Light." I opened in Photoshop an image of the lighthouse that had been scanned onto a PhotoCD. I first added the sailboat to give the lighthouse some compositional balance. The filter has a lot of controls to create just what you envision. You can control the shape and size of the Cubism effect, and so, vary the amount of original detail. The shapes can be triangles, squares, pentagons and octagons.

There are other controls that allow you to apply the filter to only a selection rather than the whole image. When I first used Cubism filter I selected the square shape and a medium size and applied it to the image. As this wasn't exactly what I had wanted, I hit the `Undo' and then selected in turn the rocks, the sailboat, and the lighthouse. Each selection was feathered and copied to a separate layer. Then the filter was applied to each selection plus the background, using different shapes and sizes. For the sailboat, the octagon shape size was selected to be small in order to maintain some detail. On the lighthouse, I used a larger hexagon shape, and used the triangle and square shapes at a still larger size on the background and rocks. All of these controls can be viewed in a preview mode in the application before the filter is applied..

Finally to check out another filter, I used the Photo Border. This filter lets you add more creative borders to your images and modified a preset to what is shown. I'm not sure this added a lot to the image, but I think once I practice a little more, this could be a good effect.

Another use of the Focus filter was used on the image of a bicycle racer. When I took this I panned with the camera to get the feeling of motion, but he wasn't going fast enough to really get the effect I wanted, so the Motion Focus filter was used. I started with a preset and used the available controls in a preview mode to get just what I wanted.

I have a number of monochrome negatives left over from my darkroom days so I thought I would see what the PhotoTone filter would do on a stereo portrait image of Martin Bruce taken a few years ago. The image on the left is with Photo Tone filter for the old Sepia look, and the right-hand image has the addition of the Crackle filter with the Paint Cracks 1 preset. The balance of the filters in the set is: