PainShop Pro Graphics - PING Carrie

Author

PING Carrie - Alien Skin SnapArt

JoeB

2006-12-06, 8:09 pm

Carrie, you asked for a ping from anybody who might have tried
Alien Skin's new SnapArt plugin.

After checking out the SnapArt pages (thanks for the link) I
noticed what you also seemed to be referring to - i.e., that
Alien Skin claims it requires Photoshop CS or later, Photoshop
Elements 4 or later, or Paint Shop Pro XI or later. That made me
curious, and now I'm wondering if Alien Skin is in league with
Adobe and Corel to promote their latest products.

You see, I downloaded the demo, and on installation used the
button to find a different program to install it in other than
those the installer found (which was none in my case, as it
didn't find PSP9 or Photoshop 7 and I don't have the supposed
"required" programs). So I browsed to the Jasc Paint Shop Pro 9
program folder and my Alien Skin sub-folder under the PSP Plugins
sub-folder and selected that, and the installation completed.

Opening Paint Shop Pro 9, SnapArt appears correctly under my
Effects menu, and the filter works just fine. Also, it works
just fine in v.8.1 without having to install it again in that
program despite what the installation interface says about having
to install separately for each program.

Now why do you think they would advertise that it requires CS or
later, Elements 4 or later, or PSPXI or later when that
definitely is not the case, or that you have to install
seperately for each program when you don't? Suspicious minds
want to know :-)

(That was a rant, by the way. I dislike being deliberately
misled by software people - maybe the PSPX and XI promo hype
sensitized me :-)

In any event, I've just played a little with the Pen and Ink, Oil
Painting and Color Pencil filters. Each filter provides lots of
presets, and several tabs with sliders for various things like
color, canvas, lighting, etc (they vary a bit depending on the
filter you're using. You can select different brush/pencil
types, canvas textures, and adjust them to taste. I don't have a
very powerful system, and the large preview window (you can
maximize the filter interface to the screen) updates different
selections I make in around 5 to 7 seconds - for most of you it
would likely be faster.

The demo is fully functional for 30 days (no watermarks or
crippled filters) and as it works PSP versions at least back to
v.8 you can download the demo and give it a run.

In the images I tested it on (and even in their example images)
the filters (particularly the pencil ones) produce what I can
only call a snow effect. That is, run the filter at default on
an image and the result looks like it's snowing, with lots of
white flecks all over the place. Perhaps it is sketching the jpg
artifacts (both images were jpgs that were resized down and had
sharpening applied).

The download is about 10 meg. Upgrade prices for owners of
previous Alien Skin products is $99 US. I suspect only intensive
testing of the different filters and settings will determine
whether its flexibility is worth it given other similar effects
in other programs many people may have.

Anyway, hope that info is useful to you.

Regards,

JoeB

Lori Davis

2007-01-10, 8:46 pm

JoeB wrote:
> After checking out the SnapArt pages (thanks for the link) I
> noticed what you also seemed to be referring to - i.e., that
> Alien Skin claims it requires Photoshop CS or later, Photoshop
> Elements 4 or later, or Paint Shop Pro XI or later. That made me
> curious, and now I'm wondering if Alien Skin is in league with
> Adobe and Corel to promote their latest products.
>

I wouldn't be too cynical about that claim myself. The main reason could
very well be that they don't want to have to support legacy apps.

Lori

Catlady

2007-01-10, 8:46 pm

hmmm. I used it with my old Adobe Elements 2 . I haven't tried with PSP
yet.

"Lori Davis" <loriweb@pair.com> wrote in message news:4577738d$1_3@cnews...

JoeB wrote:
> After checking out the SnapArt pages (thanks for the link) I
> noticed what you also seemed to be referring to - i.e., that
> Alien Skin claims it requires Photoshop CS or later, Photoshop
> Elements 4 or later, or Paint Shop Pro XI or later. That made me
> curious, and now I'm wondering if Alien Skin is in league with
> Adobe and Corel to promote their latest products.
>

I wouldn't be too cynical about that claim myself. The main reason could
very well be that they don't want to have to support legacy apps.

Lori

Lori Davis

2007-01-10, 8:46 pm

Catlady wrote:
> hmmm. I used it with my old Adobe Elements 2 . I haven't tried with PSP
> yet.

I bet it works with various versions of PhotoImpact and PhotoPlus and
probably even defunct apps like Picture Publisher. :)

But the folks at Alien Skin probably don't want to have to field support
questions from users with those apps (not because they have some hidden
agenda but only because they don't want to have to test their plugins on
all the old apps/versions).

Lori

Carrie Osmo

2007-01-10, 8:46 pm

Ta JoeB

It is an expensive filter really when you compare it with VP05 and
freebies like Deep paint, Would have to be very good for me to pay
that money.. And what I could see of effects I could generally get
to manually or with a script - not so difficult - but I will wait.
Impact is a lot better plugin than their examples and literature
suggest it would be. I just saw that CS2 and did not consider it
much after that.. why download something you can't use.
Thanks for taking the time to sort it out for us all.

Good point you raise there Lori - I have only ever had had good
things to say about Alien Skin :o)) Till I stuffed something up
this week and then seeing the different versions. I wonder if
they know how bad the reports are on PSP XI? It would not be the
version I would hang my hat on - pin my hopes on - offer support
in - nor a basket to put all ones eggs in - though it does appear
to be a basket-case.

Thanks again for your effort JoeB much appreciated we should
have a banner for "pushing the limits of our PSP use and
slugging hard" LOL..

carrie

JoeB wrote:
snip
::
:: You see, I downloaded the demo, and on installation used the
:: button to find a different program to install it in other than
:: those the installer found (which was none in my case, as it
:: didn't find PSP9 or Photoshop 7 and I don't have the supposed
:: "required" programs). So I browsed to the Jasc Paint Shop Pro 9
:: program folder and my Alien Skin sub-folder under the PSP Plugins
:: sub-folder and selected that, and the installation completed.
::
:: Opening Paint Shop Pro 9, SnapArt appears correctly under my
:: Effects menu, and the filter works just fine. Also, it works
:: just fine in v.8.1 without having to install it again in that
:: program despite what the installation interface says about having
:: to install separately for each program.
::
snip
::
:: The demo is fully functional for 30 days (no watermarks or
:: crippled filters) and as it works PSP versions at least back to
:: v.8 you can download the demo and give it a run.
::
:: In the images I tested it on (and even in their example images)
:: the filters (particularly the pencil ones) produce what I can
:: only call a snow effect. That is, run the filter at default on
:: an image and the result looks like it's snowing, with lots of
:: white flecks all over the place. Perhaps it is sketching the jpg
:: artifacts (both images were jpgs that were resized down and had
:: sharpening applied).
::
snip
::
:: Anyway, hope that info is useful to you.
::
:: Regards,
::
:: JoeB

JoeB

2007-01-10, 8:48 pm

"Carrie Osmo" <c_osmo@NOspamcop.net> wrote in news:4577893f_1
@cnews:

>
> Ta JoeB
>
> It is an expensive filter really when you compare it with VP05
and
> freebies like Deep paint, Would have to be very good for me to
pay
> that money.. And what I could see of effects I could generally
get
> to manually or with a script - not so difficult - but I will
wait.
> Impact is a lot better plugin than their examples and
literature
> suggest it would be. I just saw that CS2 and did not consider
it
> much after that.. why download something you can't use.
> Thanks for taking the time to sort it out for us all.
>

No problem with that, as I wanted to take a break anyway and I
was curious why a plugin from an outfit like Alien Skin would
supposedly not work with previous graphic programs they
supported. It turns out they are either completely ignorant
about that or are deliberately lying (for whatever reason).

If you hit the More Info button on the SnapArt filter the
resultant page says "you MUST" have CS2, Elements 4 or PSPPXI
installed. I'm not impressed with this type of marketing, which
is patently false information.

Regards,

JoeB

JoeB

2007-01-10, 8:49 pm

JoeB <myemail@myserver.com> wrote in news:457d5665$1_1@cnews:

> "Carrie Osmo" <c_osmo@NOspamcop.net> wrote in news:4577893f_1
> @cnews:
>
> and
> pay
> get
> wait.
> literature
> it
>
> No problem with that, as I wanted to take a break anyway and I
> was curious why a plugin from an outfit like Alien Skin would
> supposedly not work with previous graphic programs they
> supported. It turns out they are either completely ignorant
> about that or are deliberately lying (for whatever reason).
>
> If you hit the More Info button on the SnapArt filter the
> resultant page says "you MUST" have CS2, Elements 4 or PSPPXI
> installed. I'm not impressed with this type of marketing,
which
> is patently false information.
>
> Regards,
>
> JoeB
>

Amazing! It took 5 days for this message to arrive. Must be a
backlog due to the Christmas season, kind of like the Postal
Service :-)

Regards,

JoeB