PERFECT EFFECTS 8 Free (May 12th)

[GM1968]

Hello,

"Through Monday, May 12th, you can get a fully licensed version of the all-new Perfect Effects 8 Premium Edition (Reg $99.95), and it's yours to keep forever! Perfect Effects is just 1 of 8 powerful apps included in Perfect Photo Suite 8 (sold separately). With hundreds of powerful, one-click, fully customizable effects, Perfect Effects 8 makes it easy to bring out the best in your photos."

http://www.ononesoftware.com/landing/pe8offer

It works perfectly for external application with Photoline!

Gabriel

[Lundberg02]

Perfect Photo Suite 8 is pretty cheap for the whole thing right now. I bought it a few weeks ago with a pretty good discount.

[Sus]

I just had a look at the free filter.
No wonder they want to get rid of it at 263 MEGA-byte
( that is more than 10x PL32's size ! ).

[OldRadioGuy]

I just had a look at the free filter.
No wonder they want to get rid of it at 263 MEGA-byte
( that is more than 10x PL32's size ! ).

But did you try it?

Bob

[Sus]

No bloatware on my PCs, thanks !

[evren]

+1 to sus
Any plugin more than 5 MB is big, more than 20 MB is absolute bloatware. Small software means coded by experienced coder with principles. I suggest anyone to not bloat their OS. Performance is golden in design.

[photoken]

I was too late to get the Premium Edition for free, but I took a chance and installed the Perfect Effects 8 Free Edition. My impressions:

• Unfortunately, it will only install on your C: drive.
• It usually attempts to access the onOne server when started. Fortunately, the Win7 firewall blocks the attempt, but it's a pain to have to dismiss the Win7 warning message.
• It doesn't work as a plugin in PL. The standalone program, however, works fine as an External Program.
• The installed directory is 85Mb in size.
• It's got a lot of useful effects. Most of them could probably be achieved in PL, but at the cost of a lot of time and effort.

I was primarily interested in achieving an ersatz extreme HDR effect from single JPG images, and it does the job. Here's a quick example:

The original:

Brigette Bardot original.jpg

The modified image:

Brigette Bardot modified.jpg

What can I say? It's one of those free programs that have some nice effects. Even though I won't use it much, the cost is right....

[greenmorpher]

And I am sorry to say, Ken, that the example you give is awful! Her lovely legs look worse than mine -- and I am a 72 year old male with varicose veins!

Cheers, geoff

[Herbert123]

I can recommend FilterForge - thousands of effects (more than 10.000), and the plugin works like a charm in PL (both 32 and 64bit). And it allows you to build your own filters and customize existing ones. Yes, it is a tad expensive, but they often have special deals going on. And being able to develop your own custom filters with a nodal editor is pretty awesome.

Effects work in 8, 16, and 32bpc. Since I got a license two years ago I got 95% of my filter needs covered.

Cheers!

[photoken]

Well, since I'm looking at filters and effects that I'll rarely use, "free" is the operative word.

After some more experimenting with Perfect Effects, I tried going in the opposite direction -- not looking for an extreme effect. Turns out that it's got a very useful control in the HDR section: a micro-contrast adjustment that I think will come in handy even with more "naturalistic" looking images.

Here's what I mean. (All examples are low quality JPGs reduced to about 18% from the original size, but the differences still show.)

This is the original RW2 image from the LF1 as opened in PL:

LF1 wall original.jpg

This is the modification to the RW2 image using PL's RAW adjustments:

LF1 wall modified preset.jpg

That modified image was merged as new layer and the layer sent as a TIF to Perfect Effects and returned:

LF1 wall perfectly clear.jpg

The detail enhancements are especially apparent in the wall.

I'm thinking it will become a useful tool....