Resources v2.0.0

Resources
Software & Sources
ActionFx.com - Large assortment of Photoshop actions, brushes, presets, tutorials
Alien Skin - Eye Candy and numerous other filters
Cosmic Pack 3  from Digital Heavens. Make your own universe using a PS/PSE action; demo & tutorials.
Flaming Pear - wide variety of plugins including Flood, Flexify, Swerve - available as full function demos.
Impressionist - a plugin with a wide variety of artistic effects
KPT Collection - Kai's Power Tools formerly from Corel, a set of plugins for creative editing, no longer available
Painter 12 - Corel's digital paint program, available as a demo as well as a limited version "Essentials"
PhotoImpact - variety of special effects in a PS plugin from Corel
Photomatix - an HDR program to merge exposures, available as a non-expiring trial version with watermark
Photoshop - digital editor from Adobe, part of a "creative suite", demo available; also a limited version "... Elements"; CS2 released as free download Jan 2013
Picasa - A photo organizer and basic editor, available as a free download
Pixel Bender - A free plugin system from Adobe; Oil Paint and Droste are examples or make your own filter. Oil Paint became a standard filter in CS6
Redfield Plugins - including Fractalius which applies a variety of threadlike effects
Terragen - A program to generate landscapes; a free non-expiring Classic version is available
Topaz Labs- a family of plugins with a range of image effects, notably Simplify
Wacom - graphic pens and tablets for digital drawing and painting, available in a wide variety of sizes & types

Pixel Bender Plugins
Several plugins written by Tom Beddard are available on his sub-blue website.
Escher's Droste Effect makes repeating fractal patterns of decreasing size (included in the PB toolkit)
Landscape generator with basic controls for sun angle, water level, and camera orientation

Books - a number of great books on photography and photoediting are available from the NSN Store.
Photoshop Masking & Compositing (Katrin Eismann - New Rider 2005)


Short Glossary - Some frequently encountered image editing abbeviations and verbal shorthand:
AMP - Art Master Pro, a program with a variety of painting options simulate a variety of media such as watercolor and oil
CS - Photoshop Creative Suite, CS x refers to PS v8 onward, e.g., CS4 is version 11
Efex - Generally used to mean NIK Software's Color Efex 3.0 Pro, or Silver Efex for Black & White
Elements - Photoshop Elements, a limited version of Photoshop. A complimentary package is often included with cameras
FP - Flaming Pear Software plugins (for a complete listing see the FP website)
FP Flexify - A plugin with wide range of effects, including the mirror ball
FP Flood - A plugin to simulate reflections from water
FP Swerve - A plugin for controlled image distortion and / or fragmenation
HDR - High Dynamic Range, a specialized treatment to allow combination of images which exceed the tonal range of a single exposure
PS - Photoshop, usually a generic reference to all versions, sometimes to include Photoshop Elements
PSE - Photoshop Elements, often followed by the version number, as PSE 9
COMPOSITES
Reserved for P&DA Use