Canon 20D Adobe, Extensis Portfolio, $99.95 to upgrade, $199.95 for full version, $200 street

>GEAR GUIDE 2005 REALLY INTO IT!

✚If you’ve made a commitment to shooting with a digital SLR or if you scan your film and print from your desktop, without Adobe Photoshop CS, you probably aren’t using your technology to the fullest. It is, as everyone who uses the program’s name as a verb knows, the mother of all image- editing programs. With the host of other software to complement it, you can do almost anything. Of course, Photoshop’s the most expensive. Is it worth it? Absolutely. But with this caveat: if you don’t want to learn to make it sing, save your Benjamins.

▲SOFTWARE: ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE

Adobe	Photoshop has been and remains
	the image-editing standard. It is the

Photoshop CS rapher who is ready to take full
						finest precision tool for the photog-
						control and produce the best images
$		$169 (PHOTOSHOP
						possible. REVIEWED MARCH 2004
		UPGRADE ALONE)
		$1,229 (FULL PREMIUM				Extensis Portfolio 7
			CREATIVE SUITE)			$99.95 to upgrade
		www.adobe.com				$199.95 for full version
		800-833-6687				www.extensis.com
						800-796-9798
			Photoshop’s	super-		If you’re using Photoshop to edit your
			sophisticated system of			images, you won’t need an organizer
			layers, masks,		and	padded with features for fixing them.
			blending modes makes			Instead you’ll need one that’s dedi-
			it possible to do subtle			cated to cataloging. Extensis Portfolio
			(yet monumental)		cor-	7 is an excellent solution. Create
rections and detailed composite work						catalogs and search by your own
that’s impossible (or at least way too						keywords or organize it all using EXIF
tricky) to do in almost any other pro-						data. The program can even be
gram. Add to the mix features that are						trained to classify your pictures. Link
nonexistent in most other editors: total						a folder with a set of keywords and
color management (so you can work in						each picture you add to the folder will
all those color spaces your DSLR						be tagged accordingly. Portfolio does
shoots in), near-full functionality with 16-						most of the complicat-
bit images (so you don’t waste the infor-						ed work for you, free-
mation your film scanner provides), sup-						ing you up to do more
port for the RAW file formats of the						shooting and less
major camera manufacturers….We						searching. REVIEWED
could go on. But the fact is this: Adobe						OCTOBER 2004
tion device was prohibitive. These days						flexibility with more sophisticated
it’s more expensive not to calibrate,						software than the lower-cost Spyder,
since these tools quickly pay for them-						but uses the same basic device.
selves in saved paper and ink. The						And, for the more dedicated user,
major brands work pretty much the						there are two good options:
same way: a device, connected to your						X-Rite’s MonacoOPTIX and Gretag
computer, suction-cups itself to a CRT						Macbeth’s Eye-One Display.
monitor or dangles before an LCD,
while you run software that creates an						● SPYDER & SPYDERPRO:
ICC color profile for your screen.						$140 & $230; www.color-
	We tested Pantone ColorVision’s					vision.com, 800-554-8688
SpyderPRO and got a good result—						● OPTIX: $270; www.mona-
perfect for the desktop printer who						cosys.com, 800-248-9748
wants a marked improvement in color						● EYE-ONE: $250;
matching. The SpyderPRO offers more						www.i1color.com, 845-565-7660

PLUG-INS

nik Color Efex Pro 2.0

$100, Standard edition $100, Dfine www.nikmulti- media.com 888-289-4085

Mystical

Lighting

$180 street www.autofx.com 800-839-2008

Genuine

Fractals Pro

$50, LE edition $300, Print Pro www.lizardtech.com 206-652-5211

pxl SmartScale

$200 street
www.extensis.com
800-796-9798
Plug-ins are add-ons to
image editors. They	do
not, for the most part, exist to do
things that image editors can’t, but
instead to do specific things better
and faster than image-editors need to.
Whatever you want to do, if you’re
using Photoshop, there’s probably a
solution you could hammer out, but if
that takes a lot of time and know-how,
and you’re short on both, try a plug-in.
So, say, if you’ve been trying to
figure out how to mix channels to
convert color to black-and-white (a
process that can be both tedious and
boring), nik’s Color Efex Pro filter set
including the black-and-white con-		Software
in that can do it.
verter could be the answer. Or if you

need to make poster-sized images, you might try a superscaler like Genuine Fractals Pro or Extensis’ SmartScale. If you shoot a lot in low light, a noise-reducer like nik’s Dfine could be just the thing. Maybe you often have to simulate lighting effects or alter the mood of an image; Auto FX’s Mystical Lighting could come to the rescue. These are just a few that are out there. Because if you can imagine it, chances are there’s a plug-

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