Image doctor™ y Alien Skin - Product Review

PSA Journal, Jan, 2003 by Carole Kropscot

New Medicine for Common Complaints

The Image Doctor software consists of four filters which fix our photos rather than change them into fantasy images. Each filter is used on a selection you make in an image already opened in Adobe Photoshop[R], Corel Painter[R], Jasc Paint Shop Pro[R], and other programs. The "new medicine" of the Image Doctor is the new way the filters technically apply the fixes. Another good feature is that there is one big window to work in. You select the damaged area, open the desired filter, and fiddle with the various controls until you like what you see in the preview. If you often use the cloning tool, you'll be amazed at Smart Fill, Scratch Remover, and Spot Lifter. Traditional cloning results in repetitive pieces of pixels that you try hard to hide. These new filters mix up the pixels enough to fool the eye. The JPEG Repair filter is good medicine for getting rid of the "jaggies," which appear when a photo is compressed too much. I appreciated the good printed manual with tips and tricks and simple tutorials.

I liked the natural skin look when I quickly removed skin blemishes with the Spot Lifter filter which is similar to, but apparently better than a clone tool or healing brush. Since I do photo restoration, I was especially interested in the Scratch Remover filter which works on fairly straight defects, such as scratches and cracks. Instead of using the clone tool, I let the filter do the work (after I chose some settings). The Smart Fill filter works on much larger selections and does something not seen before in other programs: it replaces large items with an integrated version of the surrounding area.

I highly recommend that you further investigate these filters by viewing all the examples at www.alienskin.com. Then you can download the demo and decide for yourself if the Image Doctor has the medicine you need. The software is available for both Macintosh computers and Windows PCs. $129 ($99 for owners of other Alien Skin software.)