If you were into graphic design back in the early 90s, you probably remember those first few days of wonderment after you discovered Photoshop. I personally have vivid recollections of saying “wow” numerous times while playing with all of the built-in filters. I’d load up an image and run through every single filter, and especially loved messing with the ones the really made things look crazy, like the brush stroke simulator and all of the artistic presets. Of course, soon thereafter, it seemed like everyone and their mother knew what Photoshop was and these filters became passé and tired. It was probably for that reason that Adobe didn’t include these filters into After Effects or Photoshop. I guess they assumed that if nobody was using them for still photos anymore, they definitely wouldn’t use them for video.
Getting up and running is made painless by this utility, which puts all activation tasks in one location.
However, fads have a tendency to swing back around after a few years; what is tired and clichéd today suddenly becomes hip and retro ten years from now. Usually this happens when someone comes along and puts a fresh spin on something old, and reintroduces it to a whole new generation. NewBlueFX might have done just that with their Art Effects package, which is basically a bunch of the filters we all know and love from Photoshop re-imagined and ported into the video world.
When its parameters were pushed towards the high end the airbrush filter produced video that almost looked like anime.
Art Effects includes ten different filters and a total of 100 different presets: you get Air Brush, Colorize, Color Melt, Dream Glow, Duochrome, Ghost, Hand Drawn, Line Drawing, Metallic, and Pastel Sketch. Very few of these filters can be called subtle by any stretch of the imagination, but instead will add a strong visual flair to your video. Whether you think the effects are garish or awesome really depends on your taste and how you chose to apply them.
The colorize filter turns everything black and white and then adds back in up to three colors. Here the colors were yellow and teal.
Ease of Use
Installation and activation of Art Effects is incredibly simple. Just run through the installer and let it do its thing. An activation tool can be found via the Start menu. You just type in your serial number and hit “activate”, and that’s it; it’s activated! If your PC isn’t connected to the internet you can also manually retrieve a key from any other computer that is on the internet. The same activation manager will also let you run the program in demo mode, or link you to a place on NewBlueFX’s website where you can purchase the software.
The presets in ColorMelt reminded me of what a 10th generation VHS copy looks like.
