Corel KPT Collection for Win/Mac review:5 stars (Plugins to die for!) - This is a wonderful collection of 24 plugins for graphics programs such as Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro. My favourites are KPT Fibre Optix and KPT Hyper Tiling, but they are all fun to play with.
The interface is quite complex, beautifully designed and very different from other computer programs to look at. Each function comes in a floating window which you can move to anywhere within the dialogue box that suits you, and the functions are accessed via drop down menus in the floating windows. Each window can save presets and there is in addition a preset button which allows you to access the overall presets for the relevant plugin. A full PDF file manual is included on the disk and it's a good idea to read it.
Each plugin is a computer program in itself and can be used to create many different effects. I love the spray brush in the Gel plugin which creates a bubble effect when dragged across the image!
I had wanted this set of plugins for some time before I took the plunge and purchased, and I have not been disappointed. It's well worth the money.5 stars (Filter Mania) - Great plug-in for PhotoShop. There are 24 filters to work with.The effects ranged from very outlandish like the Goo filter to the world of Frax 4D. There were many subtleties in some of the filters that took a little while to figure out. Some of the effects distorted the original photo to the point that you could not honestly say what it was which in some cases was pretty spectacular. You could take simple objects like a colored circle and make some very awesome designs. You could create a whole world of effects just using the filters and something simple or you could subtly or greatly alter a picture. The sliders weren't quite as responsive for minute tweaks so I would just click on the numbers in the white control panel and type in what I wanted. Each filter came with a set of presets that you could expand upon. You could create your own preset then save simply by telling it to Save Preset. You could export and import presets into this program also. Some of the filters had a bit of a learning curve to figure them out. There was a question mark in the upper right hand corner of the workspace that would take you to the Acrobat file of that specific filter and it would give you some great information on how it works. I found this very valuable for the filters that were not as straight forward. Some of the filters like "Fluid", "Goo" & "Projector" you could make short animations with them and export them out as a Quick Time Movie Or Pict Sequence. So you could make a modification record it in one of the film strips make another modification and so on to make a mini movie. I loved this feature a lot. (I only wished that Frax 4D had this feature my absolute favorite filter followed closely by Frax Flame II.)While the program might be a little pricey for some for a plug-in it is well worth it. I loved these filters. I spent so many hours playing with them that my mouse finger developed a callous.4 stars (An expensive, fascinating niche product, which) - helps to empower siginificantly your digital art work. Like many niche products it is significantly more expensive then the basic products with broad functionality, in this case the consumer imaging programs à la Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0, Photo Impact, Corel Photo Paint or others. Appropiatley used the filters of this collection give your digital art work the special, distintive "touch".This version works flawless with Irfan View (!), Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 as well as Corel Photo Paint 9 and 11 and is part of my standard tool box. The user interface was like all other KPT tools a brilliant star in the past, in the early nineties, but isn't approbiate anymore, considering actual ergonomic and usability requirements and practices.Decisive for me was ONE filter in the collection, Pyramid Paint; Pyramid Paint gives the pictures the touch and look of late 19th century paintings.Summary: the filters of the KPT collection are a real empowering "differentiator" for your digital images with a significant price tag. You should really consider to buy them, if you are seriously interested in digital image enhancements. |
