It is plain that there is a lot of power in ParticleShop. Some of the effects look great one time, and then are horrible the next. The lack of predictability may create some frustration with some users. Some will find this useful, I find it very annoying, like they know the starter brushes are inadequate and that to get real control you need to buy a brush pack.ĭue to the random nature of some of the effects, you may have to try the same thing many times until you get what you want. Don't worry about where to get more brushes, Corel will pop up a window on every launch and on brush selection to help you with an in-app purchase of more brushes. If you think that this is an awesome deal, then you are the buyer that Corel is looking for. If this sounds bloody expensive for effects, we're on the same page. Don't worry though because more brushes are available, with each pack of 15 brushes only an additional $29.99, so if you want everything, you're only in the hole about $400 including the engine. Sounds pretty cool right? It is, but you discover fairly quickly that the individual brushes are limited. Superhero - creates the effect of a superhero energy weapon.Space - when used on a dark area, creates the sense of nebulae, but you need to change colours regularly.Smoke - creates tendrils of smoke that look very realistic, go slow and build up.Light - creates pinpoints of light easily in addition to trails of light, nice for adding specular highlights.Hair - while I have not been successful with it, samples show the ability to paint hair on a subject, perhaps to create a Rapunzel type feel.Fur - grows fur on a subject, can be randomized and does a very neat job.Flame - does a decent job of making fire, keep the brush size small and build up.Fine Art - candidly, I still don't see what this thing does other than minor blurring and some unengaging brush strokes, but if you are drawing freehand, it's a custom pencil/brush tool.Fabric - creates a swath of coloured fabric where you paint with it.Debris - basically creates dust and spots and artefacts where painted.When you purchase ParticleShop, you get a sample kit of brushes. The software is not intelligent enough to erase only it's own work. You must reset otherwise everything on the layer gets erased when touched by the eraser. There's no gradation and for people used to working on layers and painting with an opposing colour to remove an error, this is not happening. A single use will erase everything under the brush right back to transparency. The eraser tool, which should really be called the "Remove Everything" tool is a classic eraser. When Corel says layer based, they aren't kidding. While this is annoying, it's not a killing stroke because the effects should be minor enhancements not the reason for the image. ParticleShop acts like many older Photoshop filters in that it only works on 8 Bit images so if you are doing a complex edit, consider making ParticleShop one of the last things you do as you will not be able to send it 32 bit or 16 bit images. There's no step back capability beyond a basic brush reset. While you can launch ParticleShop from Lightroom, the tiniest screw up could mean cancelling and starting over. ParticleShop is a layer centric tool, so let's be clear that to get real usability, you will want to work in an application that uses layers. As you select a brush from the brush selector, the control bar will change in accordance with the brush selected. Each brush gives it's own tool across the top of the window with revert, brush size, brush opacity and zoom being consistent across brushes. You get a brush tool, an eraser tool, a blend tool, an eyedropper for sampling a colour and a colour wheel for specific colour selections. While it can launch as a standalone, there is no way to load a file into the program in this way. ParticleShop is a plugin to Photoshop, Lightroom, Elements and Corel's own suite. The computational demands of the product are not insignificant and even on the fastest computers you need to be patient as it can take a little while for complex effects to finish rendering. That's what Corel's ParticleShop is designed to do.This is the first release of the product and is built using Corel's well respected physics engine. ![]() It would be cool to add flames, superhero powers, lightning, smoke and other effects easily without a lot of pain. Many digital photographers want to add special effects to their images.
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