Friday, June 27, 2008

Friday News of Note

Jeff Revell of PhotoWalkPro fame has a great article called "I want to buy a DSLR, which camera should I buy?" on buying a DSLR camera that you should checkout. What I like about it is how he takes you through the steps to figure out just what you need.

Scott Kelby is doing a poll on the "10 Most Wanted Photoshop Features" for Photoshop CS4. Check it out and vote!

John Paul Caponigro is promoting his "Insights" monthly eNews that keeps you informed of useful techniques, discounts, reviews and industry news. 

What’s in the latest issue of Insights?

  • Camera Tests - Sharpest Aperture
  • Camera Tests - Vignetting
  • Camera Tests - Chromatic Aberration
  • Camera Tests - Dust
  • Download - Lens Correction Filter
  • Download - Evaluating Histograms

Tell them you heard about it here!

Finally Diet.com has an interesting video called "The Photoshop Effect" about creating the unattainable image of perfection.

Adobe Posts Camera Raw 4.5 Release Candidate

Posted by T. Michael Testi

Adobe has posted a release candidate (RC) for their newest version of Camera Raw 4.5. While this has been well tested by their internal test systems (including beta's) they feel that some real world testing would be beneficial before automatically distributing to customers.  If you do find a problem using this RC, they have a forum that you can contact.

Download

DNG Converter and Camera Raw plug-in for Macintosh and Windows.

System Requirements

See the system requirements for Adobe Creative Suite 3 or Photoshop CS3.

Installation

Windows®
  1. Exit Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Bridge.
  2. Open My Computer.
  3. Double-click Local Disk (C:).
  4. Navigate to Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Plug-Ins\CS3\File Formats.
  5. Move the existing Camera Raw.8bi plug-in to another location (for example, a new folder on your desktop). Ensure you keep this version in case you need to revert back.
  6. Copy the Camera Raw plug-in, Camera Raw.8bi, from the download into the same folder as Step 4.
  7. Launch Photoshop CS3 or Adobe Bridge.
Macintosh
  1. Exit Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Bridge.
  2. Open the Finder.
  3. Navigate to the root of the local disk (not the user’s home folder).
  4. Navigate to Library/Application Support/Adobe/Plug-Ins/CS3/File Formats.
  5. Move the existing plug-in to another location (for example, a new folder on your desktop). Ensure you keep this version in case you need to revert back.
  6. Copy the Camera Raw plug-in, Camera Raw, from the download into the same folder as in Step 4.
  7. Launch Photoshop CS3 or Adobe Bridge.

Release Notes

  • Newly supported camera models include:
    • Olympus E 420
    • Olympus E 520
  • Please provide feedback on your experience with the Camera Raw 4.5 plug-in and the DNG Converter on the Camera Raw User to User forum.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Are Photographers Really a Threat?

 

By Bruce Schneier

From The Guardian

What is it with photographers these days? Are they really all terrorists, or does everyone just think they are?

Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We've been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.

Except that it's nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn't photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn't photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn't photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren't being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn't known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about -- the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 -- no photography.

Read it all...

PhotographyBB Releases Issue #5 of their Free PDF Magazine

Posted by T. Michael Testi

Press Release: from PhotographyBB

VANCOUVER, CANADA, JUNE 10th, 2008 - PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the fifth edition of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine. By way of download in either PDF or ZIP formats, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. In a completely ad-free format, each issue contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers.

In addition to articles which aide beginners in getting the most from their DSLR cameras, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and applicable tutorials on how to use post-processing tools such as Photoshop, Elements, and more, to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

Regarding this recent release, Dave Seeram - Editor and Publisher says, “I am extremely proud of the accomplishments we have made with our 5th issue for June. The magazine has come a long way over the past 5 months. This month, we’ve added some new columns to the magazine, and we welcome another new contributing author. In addition to the Photoshop, Elements, and Dreamweaver tutorial series for photographers, we’ve just launched a new multi-issue series on HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography. Over the next few months, we’ll take you through everything you need to know about HDR from start to finish.

We are also beginning to feature a lot of thought provoking articles for the photographer to consider. Sometimes they are edgy, sometimes they are profound, but always - they are good food for the photographer’s brain. I look forward to sharing this issue with our readers!”

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

PhotographyBB was founded in Oct, 2006, and is a division of PowerButton Central (2004). For more information, visit the PhotographyBB website at: http://www.photographybb.com or by email at: admin@photographybb.com

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Software Review: FocalPoint From onOne Software

Written by T. Michael Testi

Have you ever wondered how professional photographers make their subjects stand out from the background? You may see an insect on a flower that is in focus and everything else is blurred. This is a standard trick used by the pros that is called selective focus. One method of doing this is to control depth of field in the camera by using a large aperture lens to produce a narrow depth of field.

Another method is to hand-manipulate the image in an image editing program such as Photoshop, but that can take time and some skill to get it to look good without that manipulated feel — that is, until FocalPoint from onOne Software.

FocalPoint gives you the ability to use selective focus to remove distracting backgrounds and allows you to force the viewer's line of sight directly onto the subject. While this is often used in macro photography, it is also very popular in portrait, wedding, commercial, and editorial photography as well.

FocalPointTo run FocalPoint on Mac you need OSX 10.4.10, 10.5 or higher with either 1 GHz G5 or Intel core processor. On Windows you need XP SP2, Vista, or later, 1GHz Pentium 4 processor or equivalent. And then you need Photoshop CS2, CS3, or Photoshop Elements 4 (on Mac) or Elements 5 (on PC) or later. You'll need a minimum of 1 GB ram (2 GB recommended), 25 MB disk space, OpenGL 1.5 video card, and Adobe Flash Player 9 for tutorial movies. On a PC you also need Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 or higher.

So what do you get with FocalPoint?

• Selective focus – gives you the ability to add selective focus to images after they have been taken. Unlike attempting this in the image, there is no special knowledge or additional equipment needed. Also, unlike camera-based selective focus, you can adjust the degree, the plane, as well as the "sweet spot" — the un-blurred area of your image — well after the image has been taken.

• Adding vignettes – will now let you lighten or darken the edges of the image to minimize the distractions within the image's edges and focus the attention back to the subject.

FocalPoint • Blur control – gives you the ability to blur via two shapes, planar and round. The planar simulates a tilt-shift appearance similar to that what you would get in a view camera, or a tilt shift lens. It gives a sweet spot that slices through the image from one side to another. The round creates a round or oblong sweet spot that is similar to using a selective focus lens.

• 3D tilt – lets you tilt the sweet spot aperture in 3D simulating the tilt effect of a view camera or a tilt shift lens. It allows you to increase or decrease the amount of feather or blur across a plane.

• Blur types – allow you to vary the blur style that is used. You can select from a standard defocused look, or add a little motion to simulate the look of certain types of lenses.

FocalPoint • Layers – FocalPoint always returns its results into a new layer in Photoshop. This protects your original image for additional editing. It can even add a layer mask so you can adjust the effect in Photoshop.

I found that FocalPoint is very easy to install and use. It gave surprisingly good results. The available resources via the help and the video tutorials make this easy to learn as well. I also liked the fact that you could go into the Fine-Tune panel to take more control over your image correction

I found that FocalPoint was very easy to use and apply. You take your image in Photoshop and select FocalPoint from the onOne Menu. Then you start with a FocusBug that you place on the image. By changing the four shorter extender bars you control the size of the sweet spot, and by changing the longer bars you control blur, opacity, and the feather. You also have slider bars on the side panel that you can control as well. Once you are done, you select apply and you are then returned to Photoshop with your image in a new layer. You can even save the effect as a preset to recall it later. The FocusBug will recall prior settings so you can apply it to a number of images easily.

FocalPoint really makes it easy to get professional results from outside the camera and the lens. If you have images that you want to have that selective focus feel, but cannot go back and re-shoot, if you don't the right equipment to get the look, or don't have the time to set everything up, then I can easily recommend FocalPoint 1.0.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Video Training Review: Vue 6 xStream Essential Training With Larry Mitchell

 

Reviewed by T. Michael Testi

Vue 6 is the latest release from e-on software for the creation of realistic 3D environments. These include landscapes, buildings, and atmospheres. These creations can be used for both still work as well as animation and have been used to create new worlds for popular films such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Spiderwick Chronicles. To learn more about the product itself you can read my review Vue 6 Infinite.

Your trainer for this library is Larry Mitchell, a digital media artist and producer for the last 20 years. He has created graphics and software for TV shows, arenas, video games and commercials. Vue 6 xStream Essential Training is divided into 11 lessons and runs 9.5 hours.

Lesson 1, "Getting to Know Vue" begins with a brief welcome and an explanation of how to use the exercise files. Then you move into an overview of the Vue interface and the rich number of options that are available for you use. You then are shown some essential preferences and how to select and transform objects. Lesson 2, "Vue Objects" gives you a good run through of all of the different objects that you can find in Vue such as primitives, rocks, plants, water, clouds, and terrain.

Lesson 3, "Additional Objects" describes the library, text, and the importation of 3D objects. Lesson 4, "Modeling Objects" teach you about the ventilator objects, Boolean, objects, and group objects. Ventilators are a method to give you a localized wind source so that when the main wind is blowing one way, the ventilator can blow something a different direction. Boolean allows you to use logic to create an new item from more than one object. Group objects allow you to create parent/child and sibling/sibling relationships between objects.

Lesson 5, "Materials" is all about the different types of materials that you can work with from within Vue. Here you will see how to create basic materials, animated materials, eco systems, hyper textures, and sub surface scattering; allowing light to be absorbed or redirected through a material. Lesson 6, "Lighting" shows you how to create different lighting types, how to control and edit lights, and converting objects to area lights.

Lesson 7,"Cameras" guides you through the use of camera. Cameras are how the rendering sees your objects. This includes controlling the camera, showing you what the advanced camera options are, and how to use frame guides to make sure that objects are effectively displayed in your render. Lesson 8, "Working with Atmospheres" is a detailed lesson in making your world appear more real. Here you will work with clouds, the sun, sky, fog, stars, wind, and other things that will give your image depth.

Lesson 9, "Rendering" shows that now that you have created your world, you now need to render it to make it really see it. Here you will work with render quality, render destination, picture size and resolution as well as rendering to animation. Lesson 10, "Animation" shows you how to make your world come to life by giving it movement. Here, along with giving it movement you will see how to animate a plane as well as a car. Lesson 11, "Integrated Workflow" will finish up with how to use Vue 6 with other programs such as Poser, and Cinema 4D.

As with his Poser training, instructor Larry Mitchell takes what is a complex program and really makes it simple to use. He systematically steps through each section and clearly shows you how Vue 6 works. While this title is Vue 6 xStream Essential Training, it contains plenty of information for the Vue family of products.

You can get Vue 6 xStream Essential Training two ways. One is as a DVD training package Vue 6 xStream Essential Training and the other is part of the online training experience at Lynda.com. The DVD Training Package is $149 USD and includes Vue 6 xStream Essential Training as well as containing everything you need.

The online training Vue 6 xStream Essential Training comes in three flavors. For $25 USD/month you get all of the videos that are available online (approximately 21,811 videos on 318 topics at this time). For $250 USD annually (or Premium at $375 USD per year) you get all the videos as well as all of the exercise files. Take note that the exercise files are not included with the monthly or annual subscriptions. They are included on the DVD and Premium subscriptions.

You can use Vue 6 xStream Essential Training as a training program for the individual student, as well as the college or vocational teacher looking to supplement their educational materials. It is of benefit to anyone who needs help understanding Vue 6 xStream Essential Training. You can also try out most of the first lesson and more for free at Lynda.com.

10 myths about digital cameras and imaging busted

 

Posted by T. Michael Testi

From CNET

Ok, what do you think? The better the camera the better the pictures? What about more pixels make better images? Or, here's one, you can solve all of your image problems in Photoshop right?

There are many misconceptions about digital cameras and imaging. Some of them have been around since the dawn of photography, while others surfaced with the digital revolution. It's easy to believe the hearsay when you've heard them often enough, but most turn out to be fake when investigated. In this feature, we explore the common myths and legends of digital photography and give you our take on them.

What to find out? Read it all...

Friday, June 20, 2008

Hooray for Ruining the Business

Posted by PT Staff

 

Old School PhotographyBelieve it or not, there are still photographers who balk at the idea of stock photography. Even before the days of microstock, when photographers got away with charging $100 for a mere 8×10 print, stock photography was being accused of “ruining the business”. And when microstock hit the scene, there was even more whining and rolling of eyes. There still is, and it never fails to bring a smile to my face.

From Zoom In & Rasmus Rasmussen

Read it all...

Product Review: ColorMunki From X-Rite

Written by T. Michael Testi

To paraphrase an old Beatles song, "Everyone has something to hide except me and my ColorMunki!" What do I mean? It is the hidden colors that exist in your photo, and because of any number of reasons, don't show up either on your monitor and/or on your printer, because they are not calibrated correctly and together. That is what the ColorMunki can do.

ColorMunki is the latest offering in the profiling and calibration market from X-Rite corporation and it brings some exciting capabilities to the prosumer photographic market as well as to the graphic design community. There are three models of ColorMunki, the ColorMunki Create, the ColorMunki Design, and the ColorMunki Photo.

Just what is a ColorMunki? In the case of the latter two, it is a full circle calibration and profiling product that makes round tripping from your monitor to your printer affordable to non-professional photographer and designer. It runs on Windows 2000, XP Vista with a Pentium IV/Athlon XP or better, or Mac OS X (10.4 or higher) G4 or higher processor, you need a powered USB port, a color monitor with 1024x768 or greater resolution, 16-bit video card (24-bit recommended), 512 MB RAM, and 300 MB of hard-drive space.

 ColorMunki Photo

There are really two types of ColorMunki. One is geared for Photographers and the other two are targeted to graphic designers and illustrators. The version that I am reviewing is for photographers and is called the ColorMunki Photo.

The ColorMunki functions in two main areas. One is for monitor calibration and the other is for printer profiling and calibration. Anyone who has worked with photographs for any length of time is familiar with the problem with getting the image from the camera, through the computer and on to the printer and having it come out reasonably close to looking like what like what you shot.

One thing to note is that because of the fact that my screen and printer are calibrated differently than yours, there is no way for me to display my results and guarantee that you will see anything close, so all that I can do is explain the process. The company who makes ColorMunki has been making profiling devices for many years and is well established in the professional market and so they bring a lot of respect and reliability to this new device.

When you get the ColorMunki, you get a USB spectrophotometer; that is based on the much more expensive i1 Pro product from X-Rite. It is zipped in a pouch with a sandbag handle. It looks about the size of a construction grade tape measure. You also get a small manual and the installation software. The CD only contains a downloader so you will need an internet connection to get the latest version of the software; and since this is a new product you will definitely want to keep up with updates. The product license also allows you to install and activate ColorMunki on 3 separate computers.

 ColorMunki Photo

After installing the software, to use the ColorMunki as a monitor profiler you select ColorMunki icon and you are presented with three options. The first is for round tripping between the monitor and the printer; which is probably what you will want to do when you first set up the system. The second option is for monitor calibration; which you will want to do on a regular basis, and the third is for printer calibration. Because the first option encompasses the latter two, I will focus on the second two as individual steps.

The beauty of the ColorMunki system is that it walks you through everything that you need to create a color calibrated monitor. Once you make a couple selections you are requested to hang the product over a spot on the monitor and the system takes over. Basically what happens is that the software displays specific colors on your monitor and the ColorMunki uses its spectrophotometer to measure the colors displayed for correctness. After it completes its process it then gives you the opportunity view the before and after results. You are then asked to save the profile.

 ColorMunki Photo

Part two is the profiling of your printer. This consists of printing a test chart that contains 50 sample colors in five strips of ten. Once the test chart is printed, you are asked to wait for 10 minutes for the sample to dry; the system puts a timer on the screen which can be overridden if need be. This is where you will need to use some judgment because the longer you wait for the image to dry the better your representation will be, but that could lengthen your workflow because that will also be how long you will need to wait for your actual images to dry to see if your colors are matching.

When profiling you are given the option to create a new profile or optimize an existing profile. One thing to note, you will need to create a new profile for each printer/paper/ink combination. For most people this will really be one printer, one type of ink, and multiple papers. In this case, you will need to create one for each type of paper. Again the ColorMunki gives you options.

Once you select your printer, you will give your profile a name. This will usually identify the type of paper; possibly ink if you are using multiple ink systems. You are then asked to print the 1st test chart. One thing to pay attention to is that you will need to turn off any kind of printer color management that your printer supports. You will need to look to your printer documentation or online support to find out how to accomplish this. If your printer software allows you to, you should save this as a profile within your printer setup because you will need to do this for every test strip you print as well as when you print from your application. One thing to note here is that at this point, the ColorMunki profiles are geared toward printing in Photoshop and QuarkExpress.

 ColorMunki Photo

Once everything is set, you print your test chart and wait 10 minutes for your sheet to dry. Once it is dry, you take the ColorMunki out of its pouch and place it at the bottom of the first of the five test strips. You can see the example. There are also videos available that show you how as well. On the screen you see a yellow box around the first test strip. You hold the button on the side and slide the unit somewhat slowly over the strip. When you reach the end, you release the button and on the screen you will see either a green or red box around the strip. If it is green, the box moves to the next strip. If it is red, then you will need to rescan the strip. When the color turns back to yellow, you can then rescan.

Once you successfully scanned all of your strips you will be asked to do this again to a second test strip. You will need to select the same setup profile to your printer that you used before. You then print the new strips, dry them, and repeat the scanning. The other option that you can use is to optimize a print profile. What this does is lets you choose an image to further enhance your profile. If you do a lot of portraits, you might choose an image with skin tones, or landscapes, one with outdoor colors. You then print an additional test strip with colors based on this image and scan it for greater accuracy of print rendering.

 

In most cases, no additional scanning is necessary, or perhaps round one of the image-based optimization will be enough for most people. Without going into too much detail, what this additional scanning does is allows the ColorMunki to target a specific color area in the printer's gamut. If your device is "well behaved" and the colors are linearly spaced when color management is turned off, then the initial profile should perform very well. If not, you may want to experiment for better precision of your color space.

One of the benefits that I really liked in using the ColorMunki is that you have the choice to spend as much or as little time to get much better prints. The optimization allows the ColorMunki to figure out what is going on inside the printer gamut and more accurately characterize the color presented in your photos. It is important to note that you must be consistent with your printer setups or your profile will take a left turn and your output will look nothing like what you intended when you use the profile. While the ColorMunki is a complex device, once you catch on to making sure that a few things are correct, your output will be so much better and reflect more accurately what you see on the screen.

Some other capabilities of the ColorMunki Photo include what is called a "DigitalPouch" program that will let you send images and photos to a client, friend, coworker in a digital package and this package will alert them when they are viewing the content in an environment were the color management is not setup correctly and the colors may not appear correctly. The ColorMunki also has the ability to do 'spot' color measurements that in turn let you use those measurements to build up palettes and color schemes. The ColorMunki also calibrates projectors as well.

There are three models of ColorMunki. I have described the Photo version which was designed with the emphasis on screen-to-print color matching. The other two are more geared toward a color selection, palette creation, and a palette management tool. When you launch the ColorMunki Photo you are presented with a profiling tool, and you have the option to use a color picker tool. With ColorMunki Design however, you first are directed to the powerful tool for color selection and palette creation, and the profiling is just a small button away.

 

The third product is ColorMunki Create and while it, too, is aimed at the design community, it comes with a colorimeter as opposed to the spectrophotometer. The display profiling option has been simplified quite a bit by removing many of the options, and there is no printer calibration as well.

My personal view is that the ColorMunki is a very welcomed and much needed product in this price range; $499.00 USD for the ColorMunki Photo and ColorMunki Design, since there is not a lot out there under $1000 that does full circle calibration and profiling. The ColorMunki Create is $149.00 USD.

It took a little bit of experimentation to learn how to use the product, but once I spent the time, I have been generating some of the best images from my system to date. From my understanding this learning curve will get smaller as X-Rite adds videos and additional training information to their site along with more in-depth customer support.

I guess at this point, if you have spent hundreds to thousands of dollars on your camera, more on your lenses, another $500 or more on your printer, why would you not own a ColorMunki to get the best output possible? Don't let the most accurate colors of your image hide in your printer; bring them out with ColorMunki. I very highly recommend the ColorMunki.

Monday, June 09, 2008

Software Review: Vue 6 Infinite From e-On Software

Written by T. Michael Testi

 

Vue 6 Infinite is the professional version of e-On Software’s Vue 3D product line which is used to create realistic 3D environments. In total there are five versions of Vue. Easel is the entry level version for newcomers to 3D graphics. Esprit is designed for artists and illustrators. Pro Studio is geared for the advanced artist. Infinite is designed for the professional 3D animator and production studio. And xStream is the integrated solution; this is a version of Infinite that can integrate directly into other 3D applications such as Maya, 3ds, Lightwave, and Cinema 4D. To see all of the differences, you can check out the comparative matrix from e-On software.

Vue 6 InfiniteThe main difference between Vue 6 Infinite and xStream is that Vue 6 Infinite is meant to run as a standalone product and xStream is built to run in other products; other than that difference, the features are the same.

Vue 6 Infinite runs on Windows (2000 or greater) or Mac (OS X 10.3 or later) with 2 GHz or faster recommended, 1 GB RAM (2 GB or more recommended); an OpenGL enabled graphics card is not required but highly recommended with 1024x768 in 65K colors/16 bits (24+ bits recommended), and 200 MB free hard disk space. Multi-processor rendering is only available on all multi-processor OS X, 2000, XP Pro and Vista systems.

Originally developed by French College student Nicholas Phelps in 1992, Vue was created to construct animated landscapes. e-On Software was founded in 1997 with the release of Vue d'Esprit 2. Embraced initially by artists and animators, it has now become a feature in Hollywood and has been used to create scenes in such movies as Pirates of the Caribbean II and the Spiderwick Chronicles as well as for television shows such as those produced by the Discovery Channel. It is also finding its way into advertising and the fine art industry.

So, what's new with Vue 6 Infinite? A lot! Since this latest release is actually version 6.5, I will focus more on these items, but you can check out the complete feature list.

NightFlight Courtesy e-on Software and Philippe Bouyer• EcoSystems Generation II – lets you directly paint over surfaces with pressure sensitive tablets. You can create stacks of layered EcoSystems, change the size and color on the fly, and control everything right down to individual instances. You can have multiple layers, each with its own complete set of parameters for easy control of separate populations. The new affinity setting allows control of one layer by another. You can even choose from EcoSystem display modes.

• Unlimited Overlapping Spectral Cloud Layers – will allow you to create complex and realistic cloudscapes. The spectral atmosphere engine is capable of rendering volumetric clouds with lighting and shadows. Spectral cloud layers are 3D renditions which allow you to create everything from thin ground fog to massive cumulonimbus.

• New Cloud Lighting technology – lets you set local lights that affect spectral atmospheres and clouds. Create true to life thunderstorms, searchlights or illuminated objects that fly through clouds.

• Faster Atmosphere rendering – lets you render spectral atmosphere animations faster than ever before with a new optimized anti-flickering technology.

• High resolution rendering – is now capable over a network of computers. The render control panel gives you precise control over every parameter which gives you the flexibility to do what you need without sacrificing quality. You can render in stand-alone mode or via network rendering. You can even integrate Vue 6 Infinite into a render farm that is capable of running several different applications.

• Animated Graph Editor – now lets you animate using keyframes, time curves, tangents and interpolation. It has been redesigned to give you all of the tools and controls you will need to create your animations. Along with traditional techniques, you also have an animation wizard that lets you create path animations as well.

Ventilators Courtesy e-on Software – Click to view Ventilators video • Omni and Directional Ventilators – give you much greater control in creating wind and special effects. These two new wind generators enhance the ability to create localized wind effects that can be linked to the movement of other objects in the scene.

• SolidGrowth 4 – Plant rendering technology will let you can produce flicker free animations. This is based on random growth technology so no two plants of the same species will ever look exactly alike. It also simulates the different color tones found in nature for greater realism. There are over 50 plant species (grass, shrubs, trees, etc) and you can develop your own, or purchase more online.

Vue 6 Infinite is nothing short of incredible! At first blush, one might look at this product and say that this is really only useful for animation and film production, but that would not be taking into account all of the other industries that could benefit from its use.

For example, if you are a builder, architect, landscape designer, or other professional that needs to emulate an environment, Vue 6 is the perfect application to model your design and/or prototype as a proof of concept design. If you are in advertising, what better way to provide backgrounds and other layout art without having to go on location or pay a high dollar firm to do equivalent work? The uses are endless.

With five different versions of Vue 6 ranging from $99 to $1035 USD there truly is a version for everyone and considering what this product can do, each is well worth its price.

If you want to see what some have done with Vue 6 Infinite you can check out the gallery that is located on the e-On Software website. There is also a pretty active community forum available as well. I very highly recommend Vue 6 and especially Vue 6 Infinite.