The Bottom Line
Eye Candy 6 by Alien Skin is a plug-in effect system for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements and the newest release of the Eye Candy line. With 30 powerful and detailed filters, Eye Candy is certainly appropriately named. This is one of those programs that make professional and amateur photographers alike say "Ohhhh, cool!" While it is professionally more suited to high-end graphic design and photo editing, than casual usage, photographers of all levels will have hours of fun "playing" with all the features of Eye Candy 6.
Pros
- Very customizable output
- Nice effect variety
- Strong tutorials on Alien Skin site
- Works on PC and Mac
Cons
- Price (suggested retail $249 - upgrade $99)
Description
- Animal Fur, Backlight, Bevel, Brick Wall, Brushed Metal, Chrome, Corona, Diamond Plate, Drip, Extrude, Fire, Glass...
- Gradient Glow, Icicles, Marble, Motion Trail, Perspective Shadow, Reptile Skin, Ripples, Rust, Smoke, Snow Drift...
- Squint, Snow Drift, Super Star, Swirl, Texture Noise, Water Drops, Weave, Wood
- For Photoshop CS3 or later, Photoshop Elements (6 or later Mac)(7 or later Win), Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2, Fireworks CS4
Guide Review - Photo Software
Eye Candy 6 by Alien Skin is a powerful tool for graphic artists and photographers who heavily edit their images for sale as illustrations. However, its also a very useful "toy" for casual photographers. Want to add some light trails to your Christmas light photos? Use the Squints filter. Want to add a motion trail to the photo of your son's motocross race? Use the Motion Trail filter. Need to punch up the look of the program for the school play you were "volunteered" to create? The Perspective Shadow and Bevel filters will really add impact to the text. Did you ever wonder what your dog would look like with cheetah fur? The Animal Fur filter can show you.
While a couple of the 30 filters included in Eye Candy 6 can be achieved with features already included in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, Eye Candy 6 makes the effects much quicker and simpler to achieve. As with all of Alien Skin's software, the filters within Eye Candy 6 have a huge amount of presets (1,500 in this version) and each setting can be fine-tuned for incredible control over the final output.
There are also some new productivity features in Eye Candy 6 that will be very welcome to heavy users and casual users alike.
While a couple of the 30 filters included in Eye Candy 6 can be achieved with features already included in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, Eye Candy 6 makes the effects much quicker and simpler to achieve. As with all of Alien Skin's software, the filters within Eye Candy 6 have a huge amount of presets (1,500 in this version) and each setting can be fine-tuned for incredible control over the final output.
There are also some new productivity features in Eye Candy 6 that will be very welcome to heavy users and casual users alike.
- Filters now work as "smart filters" in Photoshop/PSE for non-destructive edits.
- Filters can now be output to new layers
- Effects will adapt to selection size so that less edits to settings are needed
- 64 Bit support has been added
