As far as using the actual filters go, it couldn’t be easier. Just apply one of them onto your video and select a preset from the drop-down menu. Each filter has a few parameters that can be tweaked (usually no more than three), but really the presets are going to get you 99% of the way towards the effect you’re looking for. The only filter that is slightly more complicated is “colorize”, but that’s mainly because it gives you the option to select and replace specific colors within your scene, which requires a little more intervention on your part.
At low settings Dreamglow can produce a nice soft diffusion for romantic scenes.
Depth of Options
As with NewBlueFX’s other plugins, the main selling point for me is that there aren’t a large number of options. I hate it when I get a plugin and it takes an hour of messing with 80 different parameters in order to get what I want out of it. I just want to slap it on and have it look the way I see it in my head! Why can’t software designers read my mind?!
Each filter includes a variable number of presets, ranging from moderately subtle to completely crazy.
In all seriousness, the thing that NewBlueFX does well is create presets for their filters. In each module the presets range from moderately effected to totally wacked out. Since there are only a few parameters to tweak, if there’s nothing close to what you want in the presets then you can be pretty sure that you’re using the wrong filter. I like the simplicity of this way of working, and also think it saves time and increases productivity.
Duochrome creates a two-color-only image, which can result in crazy effects like this or slightly more subtle sepia-tone effects.
Performance
Rendering time on these filters is almost real-time, and I seriously doubt this software is going to bog down any PC made in the last 5 years.
The Ghost filter can mangle your video to produce trippy lava-lamp videos.
