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Software Reviews - Auto F/X Photo/Graphic Edges

Photo/Graphic Edges from Auto F/X

This review covers Photo/Graphic Edges from Auto F/X.

Auto F/X makes plug-ins for Adobe's Photoshop. There are a number of their filters available. One of the packages, Photo/Graphic Edges is meant to help the artist enhance photographs.

The Photo/Graphic Edges, available in a number of volumes, comes with a large variety of different edges on CD and a catalog that helps you choose the edges you'd like to use. I find browsing the catalog is something I like to do when I'm taking a break (which isn't often these days). I can sometimes come across an edge that I'd like to use and mark it for future reference.

Photo/Graphic Edges installs easily, leaving the actual edges behind on the CD. This means having to pop the CD in when you want to use the filter, but this is somewhat necessary as the actual files that comprise the edge effects weigh in at about 125 megabytes (just for Volume III).

When you run the filter via Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Corel Photo Paint and, I presume, any other Photoshop add-on compatible pain program, you're presented with a dialog box (see figure 6.1). From this dialog box you have access to all of the plug-in's features. You can select an outer offset, an inner offset, edge color and blur, and the edge scale.

Figure 6.1

I especially like Volume III "Artistic Edge Effects" which contains 430 separate edges. An example of this filter in use is demonstrated in figure 6.2.

Figure 6.2

I scanned in this very old photo which had some damage, as well as being slightly off-center. I used Photoshop to repair some of the smaller defects and crop the image to fix the improper centering. I then chose to apply the Photo/Graphic Edges filter. I did so with the idea in mind of adding to the old-fashioned look of this particular photo.

I chose one of the many edge effects and blurred it slightly which I thought would help keep the aged look of the photo intact.

Although it's true that you can, through much hard work, some extra time, and a good knowledge of Photoshop, re-create some of these effects yourself the AUTO F/X Photo/Graphic Edges can be a real time-saver. I used several of these filters a while back on a web site I was building. Having done so saved me some time and the client some money.

You might want to keep in mind that these edge effects are created by professional artists. As such, you can get the needed results without the time and hassle of doing the work your self. In fact, I would highly recommend this collection of filters to anyone who has to work with photographs and needs to get quick, professional results.

Visit Auto F/X and see how you can save time and get professional results.

That's it for now... Be sure to check out some of our other Rave-views!

When we recently redesigned GrafX-Design.com we needed to get our hands on the best information we could regarding the latest technologies involved in putting together a working, dynamic web site. Here's a list of some of the more helpful books (available at Amazon.com) that we used during this project and that we highly recommend.

If you own a digital camera and you're anything like me, you have thousands of digital photographs. It's great having all of your photos at hand, but how do you catalog them? What if you're looking for a specific image? No problem... Help yourself, and GrafX-Design by downloading Google's photo software.

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