Tilt shift effects are all the rage right now, either as tools within image-editing programs or built directly into the camera. They deliberately defocus parts of the image to create the look of old-fashioned lenses, highly-controllable studio or architectural lenses or, in the case of this Focal Point 2 tilt shift technique, they make a real-world scene look like a miniature … [Read more...] about Create a miniature effect with this Focal Point 2 tilt shift technique
ON1
How to adjust curves with the Perfect Effects Tone Enhancer
OnOne Software Perfect Effects isn't just for image effects – you can also carry out everyday image-editing adjustments, thanks to the Perfect Effects Tone Enhancer. This is used for some of the effects in the presets panel on the left of the window, but if you want to access it directly it's best to go straight to the tools panel on the right. I'm going to show how it … [Read more...] about How to adjust curves with the Perfect Effects Tone Enhancer
Create new effects with Perfect Effects blending modes
OnOne Software's Perfect Effects plug-in adds effects to your images as new layers, and these work just like the layers in Photoshop. And, like Photoshop, Perfect Effects offers a variety of blend modes to control how these effects interact with the original image. If leave the blend mode set to Normal, the image effect layer simply covers up the original image below, but if … [Read more...] about Create new effects with Perfect Effects blending modes
How to get started with OnOne Perfect Portrait
To be honest, I don't use portrait enhancement plug-ins that much. It's too easy to end up with something that looks like a porcelain doll rather than a real person. However, I do like shooting portraits, and I do realise that sometimes the lighting or your own technique doesn't do your subject any favours – so I thought it would be a good idea to take a proper look at OnOne … [Read more...] about How to get started with OnOne Perfect Portrait
Create a beautiful gum bichromate effect in Perfect B&W
OnOne Software's B&W tool doesn't just create black and white pictures! You can use it to recreate a whole range of delicately-coloured vintage effects too, like this digital version of the gum bichromate process. To be honest, digital versions of old chemical processes do take some liberties with the look and feel of the original technique, and this one is no exception. … [Read more...] about Create a beautiful gum bichromate effect in Perfect B&W
Mask your effects with the Perfect Effects Masking Bug
OnOne Software's Perfect Effects plug-in offers a huge selection of special effects which you can also combine and stack as layers. What's more, each layer comes with its own layer mask which you can use to control the areas of the image affected. You can 'paint in' a mask using regular brush tools, but Perfect Effects also has a clever gadget called the Masking Bug for … [Read more...] about Mask your effects with the Perfect Effects Masking Bug
How to get perfect cutouts with Perfect Photo Suite!
OnOne Software doesn't just provide one plug-in in Perfect Photo Suite, but several. Perfect Mask is the main tool for this tutorial, but the Perfect Effects plug-in finishes it off beautifully! I've got two confessions to make. One is that I wasn't a huge fan of Perfect Photo Suite initially because I found it quite clunky and confusing. I'm changing my mind. There are … [Read more...] about How to get perfect cutouts with Perfect Photo Suite!
Create a dirty Kodachrome with Perfect Photo Suite!
Photographers are never happy. We couldn't stop complaining about our dirty, faded colour transparencies when they were all we had, and we couldn't wait to swap to nice, clean, everlasting digital images... only now they're the norm, we miss our grubby old transparencies. So I'm going to use Perfect Effects to try to recreate that old transparency look, complete with the … [Read more...] about Create a dirty Kodachrome with Perfect Photo Suite!
How to apply graduated filters in Perfect Photo Suite
OnOne's Perfect Photo Suite has a number of different modules, rather like the Nik/Google Collection. In Perfect Photo Suite, though, you can access them all from a single, central interface, rather than loading them as separate plug-ins. For this walkthrough, I'm just going to use the Perfect Effects module. Like Nik/Google Color Efex Pro 4, this lets you 'stack' effects … [Read more...] about How to apply graduated filters in Perfect Photo Suite
How to create depth of field effects with Focal Point 2
Focal Point 2 is available both on its own and as part of OnOne's Perfect Photo Suite, a collection of image effects and tools which can be used as a Photoshop/Lightroom/Aperture plug-in, but also works as a standalone application. You can achieve very sophisticated depth of field effects with this program, but it does take some learning – that's the only thing I've got … [Read more...] about How to create depth of field effects with Focal Point 2
