Bringing new effects to Photoshop digirati, Kai's Power Tools 3.0 delivers new filters for previewing effects in real time, an improved texture-making plug-in, and a revamped interface. As always, KPT's filters let you create incredible effects.
KPT Lens f/x puts some of the real-time effects power of KPT Convolver into a new interface that lets users apply Smudge, Noise, Find Edges, and Gaussian Blur filters through a lens that users can move over images. Users can change the filter parameters as they drag the lens, making Lens f/x an easy-to-use tool for experimentation.
The revamped KPT Texture Explorer provides new options for generating textures, and with the KPT Interform filter, users can create a combination of textures from Texture Explorer or a morph between selected textures for use in any QuickTime-compatible program.
In what promises to become this year's most conspicuous filter, the Spheroid Designer is a new addition to the effects package that can create a variety of 3-D spheres that have bump, transparency, and lighting attributes that are much more complex than what can be achieved with the current version's Glass Lens filters.
The package also sports a new interface option with a neutral-gray background, rather than the previous version's pictorial one, and up to 36 levels of undo/redo. Previews are four times as large as in the previous version, and users can preview full-screen versions of filtered images. These innovations should mean that less time is spent jumping back and forth between the various filters and Photoshop.
The version 3.0 upgrade is available from MetaTools. Upgrade from version 2.1, $79 (free for those who purchased Kai's Power Tools after August 18, 1995). 805-566-6200.
