Alien Skin is both a collaborator and a competitor with Adobe. Its flagship applicaion, Exposure X4, operates as a plug-in with both Lightroom and Photoshop, but it also runs as a standalone application that can manage photographs and perform basic edits. Unlike the Adobe applications, Exposure X4 comes with a perpetual license so there are no annual fees.
There's a lot to like in the new version. Alien Skin has been one of my favorites for a long time because of the stylized filters that it could add to Photoshop and Lightroom. There's always been a certain amount of competition with Adobe, though, and that seems to have intensified in recent years. Adobe has added capabilities similar to some of what SnapArt, another of Alien Skin's applications, offers and Alien Skin has responded by adding the ability to organize, catalog, and manipulate raw files.
With the new X4 version, Exposure offers a Lightroom migration tool that connects Lightroom folders to Exposure and imports Lightroom metadata. One significant shortoming ia that Exposure doesn't import Lightroom adjustments directly. This could be a deal breaker for someone who has hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of images that have been manipulated in Lightroom. You'll lose all of those edits unless you export the modified images at TIFFs (large and lossless) or JPEGs (smaller but lossy). This process could consume a lot of disk space for duplicates of images that have been processed in Lightroom.
On the other hand, if you don't have a huge catalog of existing images, or if you prefer to use Exposure as a filter, there's nothing to be worried about. Because Exposure's edits are non-destructive, modifications are stored in sidecar files that are placed in a subdirectory. As a result, Lightroom cannot see any changes that Exposure has created unless it's used as a filter.
Clearly, then, there are problems if you want to use Exposure as a standalone application and also use Lightroom. If your workflow uses Lightroom as the primary management tool, then Exposure continues to be one of the most useful plug-ins on the market.
As powerful as Lightroom is, there are tasks that it doesn't perform. Let's say that I have a photo of a giraffe standing in mid-day bland, flat sunlight. We can say that because I do have such a picture.
I could use Lightroom to warm the image, but I'd also like to change the light source and that sounds like a job for Exposure X4. So, from Lightroom, I choose an option to edit the image in Exposure.
In Lightroom I had a digital negative image that Lightroom created when I imported the raw file from a Canon camera. The first step involves creation in the background of a TIF image that will retain all of the data from the raw image and allow it to be edited in Exposure without modifying the original.
Previous versions of Exposure had overlays that could be placed, but not modified other than by being flipped vertically or horizontally. The X4 version adds mobile overlays. These are indicated by a hand icon on the thumnail.
So the next step is to load the overlay. I chose a flare effect and the default placement was on the left edge of the image, which wasn't where I wanted it.
Instead, I wanted the flare to be on the right side of the image, where the sun would be. It's possible to drag the source entirely off the image. In this image, I was experimenting with a red glow instead of the flare that I eventually selected.
In addition to moving the effect, it can also be made larger or smaller, its opacity can be modified, and the blend mode can be selected. In other words, the user has a nearly infinite number of adjustment options.
Exposure also has options for basic adjustments (similar to those found in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw), detail, color, tone curve, vignette, geometric transformation, focus and bokeh, lens corection, grain, and even metadata.
When the Exposure modifications are complete, accepting them returns the updated TIFF image to Lightroom.
In this case, the final image is similar to the original, but with a stronger sidelight. You may think this improves the image or you might not. The point with artistic work is that users are able to create images that satisfy themselves.
Incidentally, if you're wondering about the background in this image, it's exactly what came out of the camera. I was using a 600mm lens and a relatively wide aperture to keep the giraffe in focus and to blur the background. Had the background been sharp, I could have used Exposure's Bokeh setting to blur it.
Other improvements in the new version include better shadow and highlight revovery and transformation tools that allow perspective correction.
Alien Skin continues to provide capabilities that photographers want.Users of Alien Skin's Exposure application who have wished that the overlay feature did more will want to upgrade to the new X4 version for that reason alone. Photographers who don't use Lightroom and want to avoid software as a service will welcome Exposure's improved organizer functions with smart collections and monitored folders. New users will pay $150 and those who are upgrading will pay $100. The Exposure X4 Bundle (which includes Snap Art and Blow Up) is $200 for new users and $130 for upgrades.
Additional details are available on the Alien Skin website.
Adobe's annual Max conference was held in Los Angeles this week and there were so many additions and improvements that Monday's two-hour keynote couldn't cover them all. You'll hear about some of the changes, enhancements, and additions in coming weeks, but a few deserve to get some attention right now.
Existing Creative Cloud members received the new versions of the applications, along with the new applications, on Monday. Adobe's artificial intelligence (Sensei) continues to become more capable of taking over the routine, repetitive tasks that creatives dislike and give them more time to be creative.
Photoshop users have wanted a better undo for years and now, at last, the CC 2019 version has an undo that does more than just toggle the most recent change off and on. Now repeated Ctrl-Z keystrokes move back through the file's history. Attendees cheered. Also, resizing a Photoshop component now locks the proporotions by default. Developers have also brought to Photoshop the ability to create frames like InDesign has. Inserting one image into another will be considerably faster without the need to mask the inserted file.
Three words: Content Aware Fill. This technology has been part of Photoshop for the past several years, but now is part of the video workflow.
Premiere is a complex program and often work needs to be done in Prelude before the file goes to Premiere and in After Effects when the work in Premiere is complete. Premiere Rush is intended to simplify video production and is aimed primarily at website content creators. It includes the ability to capture, edit, adjust color, improve audio, add motion graphics, and render for platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. The version released this week doesn't support Vimeo, but Adobe is working on that.
Lightroom users previously could create high dynamic range (HDR) merges with multiple images and they could create merged panorama images. Those who had HDR images of a series of panorama images first needed to create individual HDR images and then merge those into a panorama. Now there's a single step. Select a series of images, select HDR Panorama, and Lightroom figures it out.
Sensei provides a big assist for InDesign users. Placing an image in a frame is now easier. Until now, the image had to be dropped into a frame, resized (often several times), and then moved (also often several times) to properly position the most important part of the image. Now Sensei examines the image, attempts to identify the subject, crops the image to fit the frame, and positions the subject. Even if the AI doesn't get it exactly the way the designer wants it, far less work will be involved in getting it just right.
Until now, Adobe Typekit was primarily an add-on application with significant limitations. Not all typefaces were available for both the web and print. Those who used Typekit faces on websites had limits on how many uses were permitted per month. Not all faces were available without additional charge. Adobe Fonts changes all that. Now there are no limitations. All fonts are also included for those with just the photography plan or a standalone Acrobat license.
Creative Cloud now contains 25 desktop applicatons and many applications designed for mobile devices. In 2019 a full version of Lightroom CC will be available on the Ipad. It's currently in alpha testing within Adobe and Max attendees were able to see it in action. The overarching goal, according to Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen is to make it possible for photographers, designers, and videographers to be able to capture and work on an idea whenever and wherever inspiration strikes. The company's 20,000 employees are working to make that a reality and some 14,000 Max attendees got a look at the latest technology and at what's promised for the future.
More detailed looks at individual applications will be coming up on future programs.
A presentation by serurity firm Cybereason this week is more than a little disturbing. Called Hacking the Vote, the presentation was aimed at the private sector, not government. It concentrated on the election to give it a more immediate feel and a context that most people could understand.
The table-top exercise pitted hackers (red team) versus police (blue team) with oversight by a control team (white). The goal of the attackers was to distrupt the election, not to halt it. The intent in the scenario was to create a situation so that regardless of who won the election, the results would be questioned -- thus eroding faith in the electoral system as Cybereason's senior director of intelligence services, Ross Rustici, explained.
The hackers had political information about the area, which the police didn't have. The police had information about the physical city, which the hackers (presumed not to be local) didn't. The game maintained normal police activities such as dealing with accidents, crimes, and such to maintain a feeling of reality.
The Blue team was initially overwhelmed because they tried to do everything alone and only called in state and federal agencies late in the game. So, who won?
The bad guys also had the kind of technology that a group intent on destroying the electoral process would be likely to have according to Cybereason's cheif security officer, Sam Curry.
The takeaway for most of Cybereason's clients is that it's important to consider threats that often aren't the first things that security officers think about. If you'd like to listen to the entire program, it's available on YouTube.
