MacReview
Exposure 2
With the release of Exposure in 2006, Alien Skin created a new category of Photoshop plugins — film emulation. Exposure allowed digital photographers to reclaim some of the characteristics of film photography lost with the move to digital imaging. With Exposure 2, Alien Skin has added even more film stock emulations — including numerous print film stocks, an improved interface, improved special effects, and support for Photoshop CS3 Smart Filters.
Interface Enhancements
The beefed up Exposure 2 interface now organizes preset into groups such as film – print, film – slide, Polaroid, focus, tonality, etc. to make finding the right preset easier. The preview now zooms the image out to fit your screen, and the filter remembers your last used setting and highlights it. These additions make Exposure 2 quicker and easier to use.
The Exposure 2 interface. Presets are now grouped logically for easier location.
Exposure 2 provides a wealth of controls for tweaking images. Here are the Tone controls, which include a curve editor along with sliders for commonly used controls such as contrast, brightness, shadows, and highlights.
The preview images can be split several ways (vertical, horizontal, diagonal, etc.) to compare “before and after” before committing to the effect.
Grain
Exposure 2 has an advanced grain generator that simulates the size, shape and color of real world film grain and includes a number of grain only presets. In addition it has several sliders to give you even further control over grain settings. These allow you to tone down granularity or change the roughness of the grain, for example. If you are trying to approximate the look of a scanned film image, Exposure 2’s grain settings can be quite useful.
Film Stock
Exposure 2 offers twice as many film stock emulations as Exposure 1. The bulk of these are print stock, which are more common in wedding, portrait, and fashion photography due to their low contrast and saturation, which result in smoother skin tones. A variety of Polaroid stock is also available for those who want a funkier 60’s look.
Here is a before (left) and after (right) example of a Polaroid 669 stock preset - Slightly Soft and Yellow (blur).
A few extinct film stocks are also included such as the gfa Scala, Fuji Velvia 50, and Polaroid Polapan. It is not possible for me to compare all the included presets with the original stocks, but they all produce good, usable results. And since Exposure 2 gives you numerous controls for modifying the presets, you should be able to achieve the effect you are looking for with minimal fuss.
Here is a before (left) and after (right) example of the Kodachrome 64 peset.
Here is a before (left) and after (right) example of the Kodak TRI-X 400 preset.
Special Effects
In addition to film stock emulation, Exposure 2 offers many photographic special effects such as color to black & white conversion, toning, focus, infrared, push processing, softening, early photography, and much more. They all offer numerous presets and impressive results.
Here are three options for converting a color image to black & white. Top left: original. Top right: Equal Weights. Bottom left: Negative Blue. Bottom right: Only Blue.
Here is a before (left) and after (right) example of the Glamour Shot - Low focus preset.
Pricing
Exposure 2 is obviously geared for the professional photography market as it is a bit pricey for a Photoshop plugin, and far too expensive for the casual or consumer photography market. However, serious photographers wishing to tweak their images with minimal fuss will more than likely find it well worth the price.
Final Thoughts
Exposure 2 is an impressive “tool kit” for serious digital photographers. It not only allows you to simulate film stock, it gives you a vast number of other “photographic” effects for tweaking your images. Thanks to preset grouping, it is now easier to find what you are looking for, and as with all Alien Skin filters, getting good results is a snap. Its interface has been improved and the number of film stock emulations doubled, making it a no-brainer upgrade, and worth checking out if you don’t already own version 1.
Publisher
Version
2.0
Type
Commercial
Street Price
$249, upgrade $149
Requires
PowerPC or Intel processor; Mac OS X 10.4 or later; A monitor with 1024x768 resolution or greater; Adobe Photoshop CS2 or later; Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 or later; Adobe Fireworks CS3 - Note: Using Alien Skin plug-ins as Live Effects in Fireworks CS3 are not supported.
Rating: 9.43
- Intended Function: 10
- Ease Of Use: 10
- User Interface: 10
- Documentation: 9
- Features: 10
- Uniqueness: 9
- Value: 8
Available At
Alien Skin offers a number of interactive image examples on their website that allow you to “roll” your mouse over an image to see the resulting effect.
Click here to visit the gallery.