Xenofex 1.0 - Filters
Karl Peter
 
Product: Xenofex 1.0
Rating: 4 out of 5
Pros: The best easy way of creating lightning and electrical 
discharge effects, clouds, cracked dried mud, various distressing and
distrortion effects, and my favourite, the Stamper tile mosaic tool.
Cons: Not quite as revolutionary nor as essential as Eye Candy.
Category: Plug-ins, XTensions and Xtras
Product Type: Photoshop plug-in
Platforms: Mac & Windows
Developer: Alien Skin Software: http://www.alienskin.com

After much research and development Alien Skin (love that name, don't you?) have released their much-awaited Xenofex plug-ins set, and to be honest it is not the kind of product that absolutely every computer image-maker is going to rush out to buy tomorrow. There are some damned good things within it however, and it offers the best way of achieving some effects that would otherwise take too much effort to justify.

It contains a diverse collection of looks, 16 in all, so here is a list:

Baked Earth - creates the look of dried and cracked earth within a selection.
Constellation - recreates an image as points of light, with each point the colour of the original image at that particular point.
Crumple - simulates the look of printing an image onto crumpled then flattened paper.
Distress - an organic ageing and crumbling effect, eating away at the edge of a selection.
Electrify - bolts of electricity branching out from the edge of the selection.
Flag - renders 2D image objects that are on transparent layers as 3D-look rippling surfaces, like a flag blowing in the wind.
Lightning - creates glowing lightning bolts across the selection.
Little Fluffy Clouds - exactly what it says, cloud forms and cloudy effects.
Origami - cuts the selection into small triangles then swaps their positions, to imitate the look of folded paper.
Puzzle - a jigsaw puzzle effect.
Rounded Rectangle - creates a round-cornered rectangle inside the edge of the selection.
Shatter - an effect like viewing your selection in a shattered mirror.
Shower Door - like seeing your image through a lumpy glass shower screen door.
Stain - creates a spilled liquid stain effect in the shape of the selection.
Stamper - fills the image with miniature duplicates in a mosaic effect. Makes an otherwise laborious effect fast and easy to create.
Television - simulates the look of old televisions with their settings out of whack.

Editors note: [Darren]
Xenofex is an effective suite of tools but I can’t always say I can find practical applications for such filters as Origami and Shower Door. They do however produce exciting and different effects to liven up artwork.

The key to Xenofex is the ‘when’ and ‘where’ you use the filters. I have found the weirder the situation the better.  I was able to power up this simple site header [above] in just over 2 minutes by applying Distress to the background image and Electrify gave me the yellow light shots beaming from the word ‘art’. 

Should you buy it?
Yes! Photoshop is only as good as your imagination, BUT the tools you use make life a whole lot easier. This rates up there with other greats as KPT, PhotoTools and Eye Candy.

As filters go this is a growing gem, at version one I hope it will be developed and refined, like its sister set of plug-ins Eye Candy [which by the way I rate better than Xenofex].

If you’ve Eye Candy by Alien Skin already then buy this, if you’ve no filters yet buy Eye Candy first then Xenofex [makes good sense].

More information on Eye Candy can be obtained from:
http://www.alienskin.com/eyecandy/ec_main.html

Darren

Final thoughts
Alien Skin's Eye Candy Photoshop plug-ins suite rapidly became one of the two must-have creative filter sets upon its release, alongside MetaCreations' Kai's Power Tools. Both are still in regular use by many thousands of Web and print designers and image-makers, and although other less well-known developers have attempted to rival some of the traits within both suites, none have managed to achieve the same degree of fame with their offerings.

Karl-Peter Gottschalk, 
<karlpeter@bigpond.com>