Now from the company that brought you Eye Candy, Blow-Up, Snap Art and other must have plug-in suites, comes their hottest new addition Exposure 2. Their latest version replaces Exposure with new upgrades and Mac OX 10.5 Leopard compatibility. Although there web site shows Tiger compatible, their recent upgrade now brings it up to Leopard 10.5. This new set of plug-ins will give you the ability to simulate loads of film stocks and also offer you a ton of special effects settings and it is easy to use.

Their friendly user interface has tons of options under color or the black and white pull down menus. I repeat from past review of Alien Skin suites that this is great software for even the most inexperienced users of photo editing programs like Adobe Photoshop CS (or later), Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 (or later), or Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI (or later), and will find this a breeze to use.

My reviews of Alien Skin suites tend to be repetitive because the same nice things I say about one, tend to carry over to the others. Things like they are really easy to use even for people with a limited amount of time, fast learning curve and the filters were actually fun to work with. I have been on a Mac for years, it was my first computer. The thing I always loved about the Mac was the ability to get started on any task without having to pour through tons of manuals or Dummy books. Alien Skin has kept with this tradition in each and every product they create...got to love these guys!

To use Exposure 2, you don't need to know a thing about various films and what they look like. Although pros and many of us old timers, will have our favorite black and white or color films many of them haven't been available for years. Now that most of us have transitioned to digital, what we loved about using various color films is lost...or is it?

This program will help you get the look and feel of your favorite films by simply pulling down their convenient menu, picking the film you like and presto your digital photo now looks as if it was shot on your fav film. They even offer defaults for Infrared and Polaroid films as well special effects by using Cross Processing, Push processing and various effects like Focus (soft) and color manipulations. Their easy set of defaults are once again a great starting point. From any one of the many defaults, you can select the film or effect you want. For those that love to fine tune their effects, this is easy to do by going to the top menu and selecting Color, Tone, Focus and Grain.

Here is an example of how easy it is to work with Exposure 2.

Lets start with a color photo for this exercise . I am selecting the one you see below a shot of one of my models. Pull down the filter menu and select Alien Skin Exposure 2. From there lets go to the Color filters. Start with a default like "Color" or maybe select, "Focus", if you like or one of the 14 other directories in the Color menu.

Start to have some fun playing with the various default filters as I did and make sure to choose the way you want to Preview your work selecting one of the many Preview Split options. I like the side by side one for most photos.

Model: Ariel Austin This original photo has already been manipulated in Photoshop. Although it has been cleaned up, make-up has been added, it is still a bit rough and this is where Exposure 2 comes in where Photoshop leaves off.

"Once you select one of the default selections you are ready to get really creative. "

Next click on any of the tabs you see there and try them to get some ideas of what they can do for you. You can see from the many examples of Ariel that I used both the defaults and also the sliders and did some custom adjustments like the Color Film, Custom Adjustment you see on the left margin.

B&W Film & Filter Variations

Film Version can be selected here for great finished photos like the one above of a small child shot in a distant Amazon River village.
Child in Peruvian Village - Black & White Filters Used
Each filter set has its own set of custom adjustments. In the black and white section you have the Factory Settings but also Color, Tone, Focus, Grain and IR, which makes the possibilities endless.

The Alien Skin web site is an excellent place to start. On their Exposure 2 examples page , they have a nice display of original photos, click on them, they will open into a larger window and then mouse over them, they will show you how the various filters change the originals.

I did a number of images, on my new iMac 24" Silver, operating with 4 GB of ram and Leopard OX and the rendering flew. You don't need the fastest processor out there, but the faster the shorter the rendering between your adjustments.

I found that many of my favorite photos really looked spectacular using Exposure 2. As you can see it can change the way you process your glamour shots and it certainly can make a good photo spectacular. I have been shooting travel, glamour and just about everything else for years and being older, I tend to be set in my ways. After reviewing a number of new products from Alien Skin, I have to tell you that the way I do things just might change. Frankly, I find some of the new software daunting to use, including Photoshop. I am not shooting commercial work any longer and the feature rich software being sold today is, well...a bit more then I will ever use.

The learning curves are too great and many of the features I may have a rare occasion to use and once I do use them, it can take hours to master. If you are like me, if you don't do something over and over again you soon forget how to do them the next time around. This is my problem with Photoshop, InDesign, Quark and a lot of the other photo and design programs I use. Alien Skin has taken our plight to heart and has made it easy and inexpensive to do these arduous tasks using your original software to do the same.

Did you ever play with Duotones or some of the other tone features in Photoshop and end up with just OK results? Fawgetaboutit! Simply do it with Exposure 2, it is fast and easy and the results are spectacular.

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"...with Exposure 2, you can bring back all of your favorite memories by using their unique film type plug-ins to simulate your most beloved films of the past. "

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Exposure 2 announced this package a few months ago and it is flying off the shelves. They are running a promotion for owners of any Alien Skin Exposure and you can save $100. The current retail cost on the entire suite is only $249.00 which is great value and with the upgrade promotion, you can save $100.

Exposure 2 gets our 4 Stars and our Featured Product Recommendation. Go to their site to purchase this package and get all the tech facts with lots of samples of the results of the various effects.