Adobe Photoshop CS5 Hair Masking
Buy the book here: bit.ly Improve your layer mask control to mask hair from complex backgrounds. Martin Evening is author of Adobe Photoshop CS5 ...
Alien Skin plugins road-tested
I’m taking my first look at five Adobe-compatible artistic plug-ins from Alien Skin. They have varying system requirements (see table below) but basically you’ll need an Intel processor and at least OS 10.5. You’ll also need either Photoshop, Lightroom or Elements. I’m using CS5 for this test drive.
Some of the plug-ins such as BlowUp are relatively straightforward, others like Bokeh have so many possible settings that it’s hard to know where to begin. With advanced artistic tools the bottom line however is generally a subjective judgement so it’s up to users to make their own decisions. The Alien Skin web site fortunately has lots of examples, tutorial videos, trial versions and extensive help files.
Common features include non-destructive editing – the plug-in creates a new enhancement layer and leaves your original untouched. Custom settings can be saved for reuse. Given the range of possible adjustments you can make, this is a very useful feature.