Now from the company that brought you Eye Candy, Blow-Up, Exposure and other creative plug-in programs comes Snap Art. Snap Art is a suite of ten artistic effects including, Color Pencil, Comics, Impasto, Oil Paint, Pastel, Pen and Ink, Pencil Sketch, Pointillism, Stylize and Water Color.

These are the starting points for tons of effects that will enable 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), will find this a breeze to use.

Having a limited amount of time, I was a bit fearful of doing just another software review. Often the learning curve and then writing the review takes so much time, and time is not what I have these days. I was pleasantly surprised as I began to fool around with Snap Art and found the time spent working with the filters was actually fun and not work.

I discovered that you don't need to know a thing about the slides and controls for each effect, because Snap Art has a nice selection of defaults that make it a great starting point. From any one of the many defaults, and there are a load for each effect, you can then go and fine tune your work.

Here is an example of how easy it is to work with Snap Art. Lets start with a color photo and pull down our filter menu and select Alien Skin Snap Art and from there lets go to the Watercolor filters. Start with a default like "Abstract, intense colors" or maybe select, "Architectural more detail", if you like or one of the 30 other settings and then start to have some fun. Once you select one of the default selections you are ready to get really creative.

Next click on the tab called "Basic". Basic now had the following sliders, Brush Size, Fine Detail and Paint coverage, so you can adjusts any one of these to begin the customization. Next we want to go to "Colors". Here you have controls to adjust saturation, contrast, brightness, color temperature and random color variation. So now you start to feel a bit bolder, but you are not done. Click on "Canvas" and now you can select the canvas texture, canvas cloth, paper, cold press, or others, then adjust the canvas thickness and the canvas zoom.

Now just when you think you can't do more, you go to the final tab which is "Lighting". Now you can adjust the direction of the light, the highlight brightness and size and finally the highlight color. These controls enable you to virtually change the look of your final piece of art with many thousands of variations and that is only on the Watercolor filter.

Watercolor Variations

Three versions showing the degree of control you have over the finished images.
Watercolor of the Miami, Florida coastline.

Each filter has its own set of adjustments and you can see them at the Alien Skin web site. On their Snap Art products page, they have a nice display of original photos and when you mouse over them, they will show you how the various filters change the originals. I did a number of images, initially on my very slow and very old iMac G4 and the rendering became painful with my 80 Mhz processor...don't laugh, I still use my iMac and love it on my desk top. I then decided to move Snap Art over to my Pentium 4 PC and the rendering flew. You don't need the fastest processor out there, but the faster the shorter the rendering between your adjustments.

Each time you decide to make an adjustment the software will begin to render it, so if you are like me and have no idea what you are doing, then a slow processor can make this a painful experience. You can of course select the way you want to preview your work by selecting from a drop down menu. In the above illustration, I have selected Preview Split, which cuts down on the rendering time and also gives you a visual as you make the changes from your original. I personally would like to see a Render button and have it render my group of adjustments. Maybe they will add this in their next version.

I found that many of my favorite photos really looked spectacular using Snap Art. I love the way it changes a beautiful red rose center piece in a luxury hotel into a true work of art, suitable for enlarging and framing. I don't know about you, but after so many years of shooting travel, glamour and just about everything else, my walls are covered with my best photographic works. But there are times and places a photo is not the best fit. Now I don't have to go to the local art studio and purchase another artists work, I can simply render some of my best photos into stunning water color or oil paintings, out put the art on some beautiful cotton rag paper or canvas and have my own art.

Hey you may prefer a hot looking modern piece of art like the Roy Liechtenstein classics, well then select their pointillism filter and go nuts. If you like to sketch or like to go a bit modernistic, you can do that as well. I took some nice shots from Bryce Canyon with the rich warm red ochre colors of the "Koodoos" and converted them to a stylized artists impressionistic view.

Pastel Filter Used To Change This Photo Into Art

I tend not to get too technical on my reviews because there are so many "mechanics" out there that can tell you every detail on how everything works. Even as a photographer, I never got into the details of how the image is made, I have the basic knowledge of how my equipment works, a good eye and the ability to take pleasing shots.

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"...with Snap Art, you don't have to take a bunch of lessons to get good results and guess what, you don't even have to have any rhythm to turn out stunning works of art."

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You know what they say about dancing, some people have rhythm and never have to take a dance lesson, while others take tons of lessons and never really learn how to dance well because they don't have any rhythm. I can tell you that with Snap Art, you don't have to take a bunch of lessons to get good results and guess what, you don't even have to have any rhythm to turn out stunning works of art.

If you are like me, love your photos, but would like to take some of them to another place and another world, then try Snap Art, you won't be sorry. If you want to make great looking occasion cards, invitations, gifts and so much more, then once again Snap Art is the right choice. I know a lot of people are doing tee shirts these days or need some art for their brochures or web sites as we do at IPA. Well now I need only take my own or inexpensive royalty free stock photos and convert them to our needed art for the web site or for illustrations.

Snap Art announced this package this past December so it is only out a few months. They are running a promotion for owners of any Alien Skin Software and you can save $50. The current retail cost on the entire suite is only $149.99 which is great value and with the promotion, you can get all 10 filters for under $100 that is only $10 per filter and that is indeed a deal.

Snap Art 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.