Alien Skin – Image Doctor

Posted by RustyHill - 13/11/09 at 08:11 am

Visual Defects in Images
What do you do with images that show scratches, dust, spots, pimples, wrinkles, or even the dreaded ex. Get Alien Skin’s Image Doctor 2.0. This Photoshop plug-in provides a set of five cool filters that clean up visual defects in digital images.

Image Doctor 2.0 includes:

Dust and Scratch Remover,

Smart Fill (eradicates the ex),

Blemish Concealer, Skin Softener (lotion for images – removes wrinkles)

JPEG Repair.

Improvements to Image Doctor 2.0 provide:

Improved rendering speed and quality

Broader range of skin retouching capabilities

16 bit support, native support for Mac Intel computers

Multiprocessor support

Improved user interface.

Clean & Easy Interface
Each Image Doctor 2.0 filter opens with a clean, easy-to-use interface that provides intuitive defaults and the power of custom adjustments. Select “Settings” tab, and this interface offers a selection of factory default output settings. Custom settings can be saved and reused that enhance efficiency. Choose the “Basic” tab on the user interface to adjust sliding default and custom settings.

Image Quality
To test Image Dr image quality, test images were selected from photos taken with a Nikon D200 (10 MP sensor). The selected images were processed using both Photoshop CS4 and the Image Dr filters. The original and “Doctored” images are presented below.

Image Doctor – Smart Fill

Removing the buoy presents several backgrounds – water, rock wall, buildings along the water, and the trees. As recommended in the user manual, the buoy was replaced in four steps. Each step selected a section of the buoy with a different background. The manual does an excellent job of explaining this process.

Manipulating the adjacent image required the “Manual–complex background” from the Factory Settings on the Settings tab. By selecting one of the “Manual” Factory settings, the user can select the area of the image that would be used in to replace the selected section of the image.

For some images, using the Smart Fill Filter a second time can significantly improve the result.  For this image, none of the “Auto” Factory settings gave acceptable results. The “Auto” settings worked better with a consistent background.

As shown above, Smart Fill filter works great with trees and foliage, and does an acceptable job with the buildings in the background. However, this filter did a fair job of replacing water. The Smart Fill filter appears to have difficulty creating the inherent patterns. In water, typically ripples, waves have a pattern that look artificial when broken.

Image Doctor – Blemish Concealer

Blemish Concealer zapped the blemish over the right eye, and reduced the red coloring on the nose. Skin Softener softened and smoothed the smile lines. Now the subject is happy. As show above the combination of Skin Softener and Blemish Concealer work wonders on the young, and the young at heart.

Image Doctor – Dust and Scratch Remover
Not only can you remove dust and scratches, but the Dust and Scratch Remover filter remove offending lines, trees, branches that in photos, seem to “grow” out of people’s heads. Select the Photoshop lasso tool and then remove as a group using the “Remove object – large features” Factory Setting on the Settings tab. As explained in the User Manual, the “Random Seed” button on the Basic tab should be clicked several time to get the replaced area to look good. Power lines, barbed wire fences, or other objects can be removed successfully.

Alien Skin offers a free download at Product Downloads , and video tutorials can be viewed at Alien Skin Tutorials.

System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4 with PowerPC G5 or Intel processor (Adobe Photoshop CS2 9.0.2; Photoshop Elements 4.0.1; Adobe Photoshop Elements 5; Fireworks CS3); Windows XP with Intel Pentium 4 processor (Adobe Photoshop CS2 9.0.2; Photoshop Elements 4.0; Phtoshop Elements 5; Fireworks CS3; Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2)
Contact: www.alienskin.com
Cost: $199

This entry was posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 8:19 am and is filed under Photo Tools, Photoshop Plugin, Web Site Tools, storytelling. The entry is tagged under Alien Skin Image Doctor, Image Doctor, photoshop, Photoshop plug-in. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.