OnOne Photo Effects 8 — my first look.

<p>Ok, I downloaded and am playing with OnOne Photo Effects 8. While most of the time it is a little slower than Photoshop CS5, I am working with 16 gig RAM, a 2 TB HD and a fast processor. It isn’t terribly slow in most cases, but some of the slider functions make you think that it has crashed before it updates. The program code really needs to be revised.<br /><br />It seems to be aimed more at people who just want to play with photos than for most of us who need to do serious post processing. I don’t really have any interest in “one mouse click solutions.”<br /><br />It does seem to do a lot of things that I am interested in, but the controls are a bit too touchy, and many changes seem to be extreme, and need to be brought back a bit. Guess I’m just used to PS. I probably need to look at OnOne Photo Suite 8. This seems to have a lot more of the tools that I am looking for. I am going to download the trial version and take it out for a spin. It looks like this might be a reasonable substitute for PS.</p>

<p>I lucked into the permanent freebie download of Perfect Effects 8 last month and have been using it in conjunction with Lightroom 4. Overall I'm impressed enough that I'd consider buying other onOne software rather than comparably priced software like Elements, Paint Shop Pro, Nik, etc.</p>

<p>While neither of my PCs meets onOne's minimum recommended standards it works fine - albeit a bit sluggishly - with both my desktop and low end Lenovo laptop. Both machines have only 4GB RAM and 5500 RPM hard drives. The desktop has a 3 GHz AMD quad core but very basic on-mobo video - Perfect Effects 8 tools work quickly but the screen refreshes slowly. The laptop has a 1.6 GHz AMD two-core GPU that is much more sprightly than it seems on paper. If anything Perfect Effects 8 runs slightly better on the laptop, presumably because onOne makes use of GPU advantages. I plan to upgrade my desktop video to see if it speeds things up a bit.</p>

<p>I'm doing basic adjustments in Lightroom before working in Perfect Effects 8: white balance, camera/lens profiles, noise reduction, and if necessary some basic fixes to highlights and shadows. Perfect Effects can do almost everything else, including good recovery for highlights and shadows within each layer. But it can't quite match Lightroom for nearly flawless recovery of highlights from blown skies to recover subtle textures in clouds and gradations. But once that's done, Perfect Effects 8 works well to maintain highlight and shadow detail, or to blow it out if preferred.</p>

<p>Perfect Effects 8 enables working in layers with adjustments very familiar to folks who've used Photoshop, Elements, Paint Shop Pro or any pixel level editor. Each layer can be adjusted and rearranged exactly like pixel level editors. The only significant difference is that layers cannot be saved when finalizing the image. But the steps can be saved as presets and reapplied to the same foundation image, and tweaked as desired.</p>

<p>Perfect Effects 8 presets do seem to favor extremes, but I'm betting that's for demonstration purposes. All effects can be adjusted for subtle and even barely perceptible looks. And you can create your own textures.</p>

<p>While onOne's tutorials emphasize trendy special effects it's also capable of streamlining some straightforward processing that does some things even better than Lightroom 4. The dynamic contrast tool offers some excellent capabilities beyond Lightroom's clarifying, black/shadow, white/highlight tools for wringing out micro-contrast without going overboard into artificial looking tonemapping or pseudo-HDR effects. There are lots of sharpening presets for everything from screen display to printing. Basic adjustments for color, contrast, etc., are all available. </p>

<p>So it's not just a trendy special effects and insta-filter tool But some of those filters and effects are pretty nifty. It's possible to emulate alternative process effects like hand-coated cyanotypes, collodion, etc., including flawed and sloppy effects. There are plenty of preset textures to emulate paper and flawed effects, and you can add your own. I'm making a few new textures from my own photos because I'd rather have more subtle effects.</p>

<p>I'll add a few photos I've recently prepped in Perfect Effects 8. In the first example I'll post the b&w JPEG straight from the camera to compare with the variation prepped in Perfect Effects 8. I preferred the subtle near-monochrome color version, and Perfect Effects 8's dynamic contrast tool neatly brought detail and texture back to the thistles, while maintaining the silhouetted look I wanted in the original.</p>

<p>In-camera b&w JPEG:<br>

*<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17665352-lg.jpg" alt="DSC_7958_original-in-camera-JPEG via single uploader" width="469" height="700" border="0" /><br>

*<br>

Perfect Effects 8 version:<br>

*<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17665351-lg.jpg" alt="DSC_7958_PerfectFX8 via single uploader" width="467" height="700" border="0" /><br>

*<br>

The rest all use more extreme special effects, "grunge" effects and pseudo-alt process looks.</p>

<p>This was an attempt to emulate my soft focus lens in addition to the sepia grunge effects:<br>

*<a href="/photo/17684273&size=lg"><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17684273-md.jpg" alt="Perfect Effects 8 - Stickplace unicorn sepia grunge" width="679" height="455" border="0" /></a><br>

*<br>

Pseudo-cyanotype with rice paper and spatter textures:<br>

*<a href="/photo/17684272&size=lg"><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17684272-md.jpg" alt="Perfect Effects 8 example - locust thorn cool" width="679" height="509" border="0" /></a><br>

*<br>

Same locust thorn photo with warmer tone and different texture effects:<br>

*<a href="/photo/17684266&size=lg"><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17684266-md.jpg" alt="Perfect Effects 8 example - locust thorn warm" width="679" height="509" border="0" /></a></p>

<p>It is working well on my 64 bit 4GB windows desktop as a plugin on PSE 11.I am not a photoshop enthusiast and find it helpful to have a preview of the effects in a panel on the LHS of the screen.<br>

So far I have used the HDR to enhance a landscape that had a blocked up foreground and also to process a B/W negative scan with a long range of tones.The X-process fashion passion worked well with a model shoot pic.It also has a large range of different borders.I have not investigated the full suite yet.</p>

<p>Just installed Perfect Efects 8 yesterday, running it as a stand-alone for the first time right now. One thing's for sure, it has the slowest browser I've ever seen. I opened a folder of 25 D300 tiffs and after about 5+ minutes it's rendered exactly 6 previews. <em>And</em> it has my HDD maxed out at 100% according to Task Manager.</p>

<p>Seriously unacceptable and ultimately unusable. Even if it caches the previews, it would take the rest of my natural life for it to make its way through all my images.</p>

<p>It must be written in some high level un-compiled code, or something. I can’t understand why PS can give real time images of your changes, while this one makes you wait while it crunches the math. I haven’t tried batches, because this is something I don’t normally do.</p>

<p>Yup, it is sluggish. I've been testing it on my 3GHz quad core desktop and 1.6GHz laptop, and while it's sluggish on both it's slightly quicker on the laptop, which seems to indicate it does use the newer GPU's more effectively. But if I'd paid full retail price I'd have been disappointed. However the basic editing effects and special effects have some real potential, so hopefully onOne will work on the program's overall efficiency.</p>

<p>Incidentally, I've attended a real-time webinar led by an onOne tutor and her machine seemed to respond pretty quickly. I would be interesting to know what type of machine they consider optimal for this program.</p>

<p>The Effects section is at least functional for me and, although the screen updates a bit slowly (especially when changing zoom levels), it's nowhere near as slow as the Browser, which would make a slug look rocket-like by comparison.</p>

<p>I also discovered yesterday that, in Lightroom, <em>Edit In</em> (as invoked by a right click) will not launch Perfect Effects. I have to use File>Plug-in Extras>Perfect Effects 8. Not a huge inconvenience but I wonder why it doesn't work like everything else. I guess it's no better or worse than having to launch PE8 in Photoshop by going to the Automate menu instead of Filters...</p>

<p>I wouldn't use the Perfect Effects 8 browser anyway. I use it through Lightroom, same as with DxO Filmpack, Nik and other doodads. It is a bit sluggish compared with DxO and Nik but, again, my PC is way below the specs onOne recommends. Both my PCs have only 4GB RAM (onOne recommends 8GB) and 5500 RPM hard drives.</p>

<blockquote>

<p><br /> "...in Lightroom, <em>Edit In</em> (as invoked by a right click) will not launch Perfect Effects."</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br /> I hadn't tried that before, but it worked for me just now. Usually I go through the menu bar - just habit.</p>

<p>A few times when I've selected TIFF rather than JPEG I've had to relaunch Perfect Effects 8. Something would hang and the TIFF would be created in Lightroom but PE8 wouldn't open. So far that hasn't happened when I selected JPEG instead of TIFF. Again, I'm betting my underpowered PC is to blame.</p>

<p>Just now, as an experiment, I tried editing a 10mp camera DNG in Perfect Effects 8 via Lightroom 4.4. I applied a preset I'd created in PE8 that has eight or nine layers. Took about 20 seconds to see the preview and another two minutes from the time I clicked "apply" to finish the file and get back to Lightroom. This was via my 1.6GHz laptop with 4GB RAM and 5500 RPM hard drive, running at about 75% power because I'm on battery at the moment. Plugged into the wall wart and running in turbo mode it's a bit faster.</p>

<p>The most significant difference I'm seeing in speed appears to be due to better integration of AMD's 1.6GHz E-450 Zacate APU and Radeon video. My desktop with older style AMD 3GHz quad core CPU handles some processing much quicker, but, lacking an up to date video processor, it's really sluggish in viewing edit changes to Perfect Effects 8. I'm enjoying PE8 on the laptop but finding it frustrating on the desktop - and it's just the opposite in Lightroom, where the quad core desktop beats the pants off the laptop. So I'm betting the GPU is the key to getting satisfactory performance from onOne software.</p>

<p><a href="/photo/17686912&size=lg"><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17686912-md.jpg" alt="Jack Creature" width="680" height="510" border="0" /></a><br /> <em>Eight or nine-layer preset applied in Perfect Effects 8 via Lightroom 4.4. Took about two minutes. Not quick, but I wouldn't use PE8 for routine editing anyway. Lightroom is fine for that. I like PE8 for the nifty graphics and, especially, the dynamic contrast tool for subtle or dramatic results.</em></p>

<p>It's like any other tool. Wizards, slider controls, and buttons CAN'T take the place of taste and judgement. I have it, and for free, it's a great tool. I use it sporadically, more as a spur to creativity than anything else. To get me out of a creative rut and shake the cobwebs loose. Do the photos I alter with it ever get seen by others? Not very often, but frequently the ideas I come up with from using sometimes do. either in my photography or my writing.</p>

<p>I've not use Photo Suite 8, so I don't know if it is a REAL editor or not. But in my mind, stringing together a bunch of stand alone plug-in apps via a specially written front end doesn't mean you have an editor. It means you have a bunch of plug-ins that play well together. </p>

<p>If a person wanted to avoid Adobe products, I wonder if going to products designed from the ground up to be an editor, like say, PaintShopPro, or Serif PhotoPlus, wouldn't be a better solution. At least you know you would still have scripting languages, batch tools, proven color management, etc. Maybe I'm just being cranky today!</p>