 ALIEN
SKIN SOFTWARE
Alien
Skin Software was founded in 1993 with a mission to
create easy-to-use, time-saving plug-ins for both novice
and professional graphic artists.
In April 1994, Alien Skin released the Black Box for Macintosh,
a set of six Photoshop filters designed to save time on common
tasks like shadows, glows and bevels. Three of the Black Box
filters were included in Corel's PhotoPaint Plus.
In January 1995, a natural texture generator called Alien
Skin Textureshop was released. Textureshop used core technology
from Alien Skin Software and was published and sold by Virtus,
Corp.
Black Box 2.0 was released in July 1995. It contained ten
filters, including Drop Shadow, Motion Trail, Carve and Cutout,
and supported previews and Photoshop 3.0 layers. Alien Skin's
reputation for practical software and friendly tech support
spread quickly as users around the world fell in love with
the Black Box.
Stylist, Alien Skin's second product, was released in the
first quarter of 1996. Stylist was a plug-in for Adobe Illustrator
6.0 that added style sheets and live effects while giving
the user a unique floating palette interface.
Eye Candy 3, a new version of The Black Box, was released
on January 1997 at Macworld San Francisco. This upgrade, which
worked with Photoshop 3.04 or later, featured a slew of brand
new filters, including Fire, Smoke, Chrome and Perspective
Shadow, a zoomable preview and many other features. Eye Candy
3 quickly became an industry-standard filter set and remains
one of the most popular graphics plug-ins on the market today.
Eye Candy for After Effects was released in October 1997.
This set of filters for Adobe's After Effects motion graphics
tool was based on our popular Eye Candy 3 set. Eye Candy For
After Effects was awarded Best of Show at MacWorld Boston
1997.
Xenofex was released in November of
1998. This set of sixteen special effects filters, including
Lightning, Television, Flag and Little Fluffy Clouds, received
rave reviews. Xenofex earned an Editors' Choice award from
Mac Today and, like Eye Candy, remains one of the top-selling
plug-ins in the world of graphics.
Eye Candy 4000, the much-anticipated
major upgrade to Eye Candy 3, was released in October of 2000.
The set added five new filters for a total of twenty-three,
along with a host of powerful improvements including new Bevel
Profile and Color Gradient Editors, seamless tiling, unlimited "undo
and "redo" and much more. The public beta version
of the upgrade won a Best of Show award at Macworld in September,
and rave reviews have already begun to appear.
While other graphics plug-in companies have come and gone,
or focused their energies elsewhere, Alien Skin Software has
continued doing what it has done successfully since 1993:
write and sell practical, easy-to-use software that makes
life easier for graphic designers.
Alien
Skin Eye Candy 4000
Eye Candy 4000 is a collection of 23 time-saving filters
that will fortify any user's creativity. Eye Candy is the
only filter set on the market that combines practical effects
like shadows, bevels and glows with stunning effects like
Chrome, Fire, Smoke and Wood. This easy-to-use set is consistently
ranked one of the top-selling graphics plug-ins in the world.
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The Antimatter filter
inverts a selection's brightness without affecting hue
and saturation values. This is useful for creating a contrast
effect while retaining the current colors. Antimatter
is a quick and easy way to invert a graphic for a JavaScript
mouseover image, for example. |
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The Bevel Boss filter
creates an enormous variety of bevel and carve shapes.
Users can add an embossed look to any selection, either
inside or outside the selection edge -- perfect for quickly
creating "buttons" of any shape -- or create
a chiselled effect. The new Bevel Profile Editor provides
users with precise control over the shape of the bevel
or carve effect. |
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The Chrome filter uses
reflection maps to create a wide range of strikingly realistic
metallic effects, including gold, silver, copper and other
metals. Reflection maps are uncompressed TIFF files that
are warped around your selection to create the reflections
similar to those seen on actual metal objects. You can
create your own TIFF files to use as reflection maps,
or use one of the variety of reflection maps we have included
with Chrome. The new Bevel Profile Editor provides precise
control over placement of the effect. |
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The Corona filter quickly
creates solar flares, gaseous clouds and other astronomical
effects, with control over size, color, stretching, waver
and more. |
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The Cutout filter recreates
the selection as a hole in the image by adding shadows.
Users control the direction, distance, opacity and more.
There are three fill options for the Cutout effect: making
the selection transparent, filling it with the original
image or filling it with any solid color. |
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The Drip filter instantly
turns text and images into dripping paintings with 3D-like
drops, with control over drip width, length, tapering,
dribble and more. |
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The Fire filter quickly
creates a wide range of fire and flame-like effects.
The new Color Gradient Editor is included to allow users
to choose their own color scheme; users also have control
over flame width, height, tapering, movement, density
and more.
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The Fur filter creates
a variety of fur and hair effects: fuzzy textures, wavy
curls, long strands and more. Users control hair length,
density, curliness and more. |
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The Glass filter creates
a layer of clear or colored glass over your selection
by simulating refraction, light filtering and light reflection.
Users also control smoothness, tinting, gradient shading,
bevelling and more. |
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The Gradient Glow filter
can create a variety of realistic glows around a selection,
including complex color gradients using the new Color
Gradient Editor. Sliders control width, softness, opacity
and more. |
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The HSB Noise filter adds
visual noise to a selection by varying hue, saturation
and brightness values, with easy control over the size
and direction of the noise. The new Fractal Roughness
slider adds detail to the Smooth Fractal and Wrinkled
Fractal options. |
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The Jiggle filter produces
a powerful distortion based on randomly-spaced bubbling.
Unlike the Photoshop distortion filters, Jiggle is not
based on a wave pattern, or around a single axis. Instead,
Jiggle yields a more organic distortion, resulting in
a selection that appears as if it is bubbling, gelatinous
or even shattered. |
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The Marble filter creates
a variety of realistic marble textures, including full
control over the color, size and shape of the rock and
vein features. The seamless tiling option allows you to
easily create smoothly patterned marble backgrounds. |
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The Melt filter turns
up the heat on any image, creating the appearance of melting,
including the pooling of the selection at the bottom of
the melted area. Sliders also control ripple width and
stretch length. |
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The Motion Trail filter
draws a trail from the selection to create the appearance
of rapid movement. Users can easily control direction,
length, taper, opacity and more. |
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The Shadowlab filter easily
creates drop shadows and perspective shadows. Sliders
control the shadow direction, distance from the selection,
opacity, color, blurring and perspective blurring. New
In-Preview controls allow for easy, intuitive placement
and shaping of any shadow. |
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The Smoke filter creates
billowing smoke, haze, fog, fumes and more. The new Color
Gradient Editor is included to provide a wide variety
of color choices for the effect. Users easily control
direction, turbulence, tapering, length, blurring and
more. |
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The Squint filter creates
realistic organic blurring by spreading each pixel in
your selection around the edge of a circle. The result
is a blur that closely duplicates the effect of poor vision,
an image projected out of focus or a reflection in a vibrating
mirror. |
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The Star filter quickly
creates stars, starbursts and other regular polygon shapes
without the need to import them from another program or
use paths to approximate them. New In-Preview controls
allow for easy, intuitive placement and shaping of any
polygon. |
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The Swirl filter smears
your selection using randomly-placed whirlpools. The spacing
and shape of these whirlpools can be controlled to achieve
an amazing variety of texture effects, from spirals to
crystalline effects and more. |
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The Water Drops filter
creates a variety of realistic liquid shapes and textures
in any color, including drops, spills, spurts and more.
Sliders control drop size, coverage, opacity, refraction,
color and more. |
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The Weave filter recreates
your selection to give it the appearance of being woven.
Users have control over the width of the strips and gaps
that form the weave, as well as control over what is seen
through any weave gaps. Users can also add texture to
the woven threads. |
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The Wood filter quickly
and easily creates a variety of realistic wood effects,
including control over variation and coloring of the rings,
knots and grain of the wood. |
Alien
Skin Xenofex
Xenofex is a collection of 16 inspirational special effects
that will energize any graphics project. Realistic natural
phenomena and sophisticated distortions have never been easier
to create. The interface is simple and intuitive, and includes
a fully resizable and zoomable preview window that allows
you to see the effect on any part of your image with a single
click. Xenofex also includes over 160 presets to help you
begin creating complex special effects in seconds.
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Baked Earth uses shadows
and highlights to create the appearance of dried and cracked
earth over your selection. A wide range of realistic textures
is possible, including peeling paint, reptilian skin and
pebbles. |
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Constellation recreates
your image as points of light, with each point of light
the color of the original image at that point. This filter
can also provide a wide range of kaleidoscopic textures
and effects. |
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Crumple simulates the
effect of printing the image on paper that has been crushed
and then partially flattened out again. |
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Distress creates an organic
aging and crumbling effect, as if something has been eating
away at the edges of your selection. |
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Electrify creates bolts
of electricity branching out from the edges of your selection.
You have a wide range of control over the number, shape
and color of the bolts of electricity. |
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Flag provides realistic
3-D rendering of rippling surfaces, adding shadows and
highlights to create a windblown banner effect. |
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Lightning draws a glowing
lightning bolt across your selection. You can easily control
the length, branching, spread and color of the lightning. |
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Little Fluffy Clouds creates
a wide range of cloud shapes and cloud-like effects, from
slight wisps to threatening storm fronts. A wide range
of plastic, snow and liquid effects is also possible. |
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Origami cuts your selection
into small triangles and then swaps the position of nearby
triangles, resulting in shapes reminiscent of folded paper. |
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Puzzle adds highlights
and shadows to create a jigsaw puzzle effect over your
selection. |
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Rounded Rectangle creates
a rectangle with rounded corners just inside the edges
of your selection. The rectangle can have a 3-D bevelled
effect or appear flat, and can be empty or completely
filled in. |
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Shatter breaks up your
image, creating an effect similar to that obtained by
looking at your selection in a broken mirror. |
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Shower Door is a distortion
filter that simulates viewing your image through lumpy
glass, similar to that found in many shower doors. |
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Stain creates a realistic
spilled liquid effect in the shape of your selection. |
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Stamper fills your image
with miniature duplicate tiles, creating a mosaic effect.
You can choose any uncompressed TIFF file as the source
for the miniature tiles, or use your original image. |
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Television makes your
image appear as if it were displayed on an old television.
A wide range of video-like effects is possible. |
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