Some time ago, I discovered some fantastic plug-in filters from Flaming Pear Software that you can buy to spiff up your digital images that work wonderfully with Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro.  I thought it would be fun to give a quick blow-by-blow on some of these filters just to give you an idea of what to expect from some of these great little additions to your graphic design software.  Priced from as low as $15 per individual filter, or $49 for certain bundles containing four or so different filters, plus all are available for a trial download, you simply can’t go wrong with the software I am about to recommend to you.

Flaming Pear Software

http://www.flamingpear.com

This software company has a fantastic group of plug-in filters available for purchase on their site, and each one is available to you for a 30 day free trial download!  I highly recommend all the plug-ins this company offers.  I have chosen five of their different effect filters to discuss in this article, and I hope you will go and check them out and grab your trial downloads…you won’t regret it!

Super blade pro - $30

Flood - $20

(or $50 when purchased in the Photography Pack, bundled with Aetherize, Melancholytron, and Mr. Contrast)
 

I have to say this effect is probably the most fun to use of all the Flaming Pear filters.  It is exciting to see the results when you open a photo of say, a sunset, for instance, then apply the Flood filter to create your own beautiful “digital water scene” that suddenly appears before your eyes.  Add a few of your other extracted elements and you end up with a stunning, creative digital illustration that will amaze you and everyone who sees it.  The settings for the Flood waters you immerse your image in vary from waviness to complexity; and wave height to brilliance.  It is just a stupendous effect that I personally never tire of.  Take a look at the example below to see what I mean: 

Once you adjust the settings to get the effect level you desire, and save your base image you’ve just ‘flooded,’ add some of your other graphic elements, such as I have done in the next example below, where I added a rowboat, and enjoy the tranquility of your beautiful image.

Whatever your desire in a water scene, whether you want to create a glassy pond or a raging hurricane, you can create all things watery with this versatile filter.  Flood gets a big two thumbs up.

Aetherize - $20

(or $50 when purchased in the Photography Pack, bundled with Aetherize, Melancholytron, and Mr. Contrast)
 

Aetherize is as its name suggests, an ethereal treatment for any image you choose.  This filter is pretty versatile, and lets you take mundane snow scene, or anything for that matter, and turn it into a wintery wonderland, or a fairytale setting that looks amazing.  There are tons and tons of presets in this filter set for you to try, or you can make your own variation by tweaking to your heart’s content.  For an example, I opened an image I shot of some trees with snow falling on them this winter.  You can see my results below:

After I opened my snow scene image, I clicked Filter>Flaming Pear>Aetherize, and started experimenting with the different presets.  I settled upon the one above that has some interesting and ‘dreamy’ looking colorizations to it.  I then did a little tweaking and adding of other elements, and ended up with the dreamy scene below:

I also performed another little trick with this image; I combined filtration by applying the Flood filter to this after the Aetherize filter, to make an even more fantasy-looking composite image.  This filter is really spectacular for sending any of your photos into an ethereal or dreamy direction, and gets a very enthusiastic round of applause from me!

Melancholytron - $20

(or $50 when purchased in the Photography Pack, bundled with Aetherize, , Flood, and Mr. Contrast)
 

For my final filter review today, I’ve decided to talk about Melancholytron.  This filter isn’t a really heavy-duty effect module like some of the others mentioned above, but it is a lovely addition for those who want to give a bit of an ‘old timesy’ look to a photo by blurring out photo edges and adding a sepia vignette to an image.  It works just splendidly on images that are already heading toward sepia tone, or even on b/w images as well.  For this example I am using a photo that I ‘borrowed’ from a fellow Redbubble member, Australian photographer Michael Rowley, who captured a wonderful photo of a pair of glasses on an open book.  I felt that this image would really be terrific with the addition of the Melancholoytron filter.  See the example:

Melancholytron has many different presets you can choose from, and as in the other filters discussed here, also allows you to tweak as much or as little as you like using the settings sliders.  For Michael’s lovely photo, I decided on a round vignette with a dark sepia tone to it, which enhances the tinting in the lenses, while gently blurring out the edges of the picture.  Below is the finished photo after I also adjusted the levels slightly using Image>Adjustment>Levels.  I felt like this image had a whole different feel to it after applying the filter.

Wrapping up

With so many plug-in effect filters out there, it was really difficult to pick out just a few to review and discuss, and I barely just scratched the surface here by covering only one plug-in software developer.  However, I do plan to acquire more effect filter plug-ins in the near future, and I will certainly share some input with you on those as I work my way through them!  It is just amazing how many terrific tools are available to us that are just a few clicks and a free trial download away! 

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written by Mukesh Srivastava, August 18, 2009

I liked the description about different types of filters. Thanx for sharing!!!!!

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