Its funny with technology comes a longing for nostalgia. When we had dot matrix printers we wanted better quality printing. When we got laser printers we wonted fonts that mimicked the look of dot matrix printers. We had film but wanted something easier and less expensive so we got digital cameras, now we want to make our high tech digital images look like they came from a 35mm camera or a range finder camera. Well, now we can and it is not only easy it is fun as well thanks to onOne Software’s PhotoFrame Pro 3.0 Adobe Photoshop plug-in. While PhotoFrame doesn’t handle the addition of film grain to your Image (for that take a look at Alien Skin’s Exposure Plug-in) it does let you add the film frames to your images.
PhotoFrame Pro 3.0 includes thousands of frames, mattes and borders for every type of image imaginable. The mattes well they look like mattes as if you had your image framed using a matte. These are photo realistic, in various colors from aqua blue and black, to forest, raw umber, ocean and more. You cannot however change their colors. So you are limited to what comes in the package. It would have been nice if the plug-in was flexible enough to allow you to recolor and texture these mattes with your own color choices and textures.
You also get a nice but again limited selection of realistic picture frames. These include things like antique embossed decayed, iron oxide and more. Like with the mattes you have very little control over the color and texturing of these photo realistic picture frames and the selection isn’t all that great and missing are some of the basics like colored aluminum frames or colored plastic frames, etc.
The actual frames (edges) number in the thousands from artistic type edges, to film edges and much more. These are where you have most of the power in PhotoFrame Pro 3.0. You can control texturing, color, shadows and more. All of these edges, frames and mattes are all applied through a clean and simple interface and everything is shown right on screen before you apply it to your actual image.
The one thing that I find very cool is that you can stack edges, picture frames and mattes and adjust the sizes and orientations of each separately. You can also adjust what in Photoshop are called layer blending modes, though you don’t have the large selection of blending modes that you do in Photoshop, none-the-less these are fun and can help create some stunning edge, frame and matte effects. For example a nice picture frame with an aqua blue matte and a canvas edge is not only possible to do in PhotoFrame Pro 3.0 it is easy too. You can even save these as presets for quick and easy application to other images.
Since there is a large number of edges included in the package OnOne decided to allow you to create favorites. So as you find favorite edges and things that you like you can add them to your favorites list for easy retrieval later. I find this much nicer than hunting through the lists of edges trying to find that one you saw earlier but can’t remember exactly where it was.
You also have what they call instant frames these are shapes that you can apply to your images like circles, squares, diamonds and more and like everything else you can add multiple ones and even combine them with the edges, picture frames and mattes.
You can add drop shadows, bevels, glows and more to the shapes, edges, etc. The bevel function comes with a lot of different bevel styles to choose form including such classics as flat, round, slope, picture frame 1, picture frame 2, etc. You have a lot of control over these bevels as well. You can control the surface, softness, light direction background color and more. The other special effects like shadows and glows provide a wide range of control options too.
The interface as I said is clean and resembles Adobe Photoshop with its clean palette system. You can zoom in and out, move things around with the arrow tool or move the entire image with frames and all using the handle tool. When you’re done you can apply your edge creations to the image or to a new layer. The new layer gives you added options once you get back in to your image editing program. It is here after applying your edges and stuff and leaving them as a layer that you stand the best chance of being able to adjust the colors and textures of the picture frames and mattes, though you do need to be careful what you apply in PhotoFrame Pro 3.0 if this is what you plan to do. Since everything you add in PhotoFrame is applied all on one layer instead of each being on a separate layer it could be very hard or impossible to re-color or re-texture just the matte. I wish they had a preference option that applied things all on one layer or on separate layers that you could do further adjusting in Photoshop after you leave PhotoFrame Pro 3.0. Maybe this and the other things will come in 4.0.
I think my only complaints with PhotoFrame Pro 3.0 is that it doesn’t include enough mattes or the options to control the texturing and coloring of the mattes. It could use more Picture Frames and more that actually look like real world picture frames and lastly the textures that come with it are without a doubt some of the ugliest textures I have seen, the textures need to be more real and more the types of things that one would want to use with a picture. As it most are just horrible and don’t look good with most any image. But, the saving grace is that you can load in your own edges, frames, mattes, textures, etc. So you can get the effect you want if you can find or make the items you want. Just keep in mind that the textures you import must be in JPG format. The frames also need to be in JPG format and you can import frames from Auto F/X Photographic Edges as well.
I like creating my own, you just use your image editing program like Adobe Photoshop to create a grayscale image. The areas that are white are transparent and the areas that are black are opaque and the grays in-between are a percentage of transparent. I have included for your downloading pleasure a set of frames I designed many years ago when Extensis had PhotoFrame (version 1.0 or 2.0 I believe) these are JPG edges and can easily be loaded in to PhotoFrame Pro 3.0. I give you these free as a thank you for taking the time to stop by and read about PhotoFrame Pro 3.0, Click Here to Download. If you want to make your own edges take a look at mine (load them in to your image editor) Nice the black, whites and grays they really are fun and easy to make and with the cool filters and other plug-ins available you can create some very nifty edges. You can then use PhotoFrame Pro 3.0 to apply them
PhotoFrame Pro 3.0 is not as sophisticated as Auto F/X’s PhotoGraphic Edges 6.0. However, I like the cleaner and easier to use interface a whole lot more than I miss some of the features that PhotoGraphic Edges offers. If want something that is going to give you good creative control, but be quick and easy to use the winner hands down for me is onOne PhotoFrame Pro 3.0. |
