Review of Alien Skin Eye Candy 5: Textures

© 2004 by Kurt von Behrmann. All Rights Reserved.

Since 1994 Alien Skin has been producing plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop. Those helpful little add-in programs that provide fast access to effects, filters and assorted digital manipulations have created a whole world of enhancements to the de facto standard in image editing, Adobe Photoshop. Thankfully, many other programs conform to the Adobe standard. Allowing other programs to benefit from the new functionality has given users greater freedom, and greater practicality, in purchasing them. As a time saver for professionals, they can make the difference between meeting a deadline and missing one.

Alien Skin's Eye Candy 5 Textures is, according to the software maker, part of a three part upgrade to Eye Candy 4000. Shipping with 23 effects, Eye Candy 4000 will remain available until the other two upgrades, Eye Candy 5 Impact and Eye Candy 5 Nature, hit the shelves. The concept here is to segment the 23 filters that make up the original into specialty filters designed to fit specific needs. Rather than bundle a whole slew of filters together, the new focus for the program is now specialization. As part of the first upgrade, Eye Candy 5 introduces a new interface.

By now the look of Eye Candy looks rather old fashioned. In contrast to Adobe Photoshop CS, it looked almost out of place with the sheen and polish of the new GUI Adobe has given its flagship application. While the program may have looked a shade 1985, performance and function wise, there was little to take issue. The program worked, and worked rather well.

Textures is an update on the venerable plug-in, or more accurately the textures segment of Eye Candy 4000, with the emphasis on more customization and a much more contemporary look and feel. In contrast to the older application, the update affords many more levels of alteration with a texture than before. With Animal Fur option there are tabs for Hairs, Lighting, Patterns and a slew of more customizations than in the previous version.

The new focus with Textures is now detail. Options that were not possible before are now here offering a more customizable experience.

Summation

For novice users, the this filter set offers ease of use and expanded function. On a more practical level, filters like these are really for the designer or those needing special effects and do not wish to spend hours twirling knobs and filters. While you probably can obtain these effects using Photoshop and Painter 8, it will definitely take much longer and your results may not be the same. The lure of plug-ins is that they save time, offer ease of use and promise great looking results.

The actual usefulness of this filter set depends on how much you need textures. Considering the quality and ease of use, those who love being creative in Photoshop, or other comparable image editors, will find much to enjoy here.

Requirements

• Mac and Windows compatible
• Mac hosts: Abobe Photoshop 7 or later, Adobe Photoshop Elements 2 or later. Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004 and later
• Windows hosts: same as above with the addition of Paint Shop Pro 8 or later from Jasc Software and Corel PHOTO-PAINT 9 and higher
• Mac System Requirements: G3 Processor 500 Mhz, 256 MB Ram and OS 10.2 or later
• Windows: 1 GHz Pentium III, 256 MB Ram, Windows 2000 or Windows XP
• US Price: $99 Upgrade Price $49

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