Eye Candy 5 Textures ( Windows/Macintosh )

Having recently reviewed a companion product from Alien skin, I was thoroughly familiar with the suite of Alien Skin Programs.Eye Candy 5 Textures loads up in a flash, and was up and running as soon as I launched Photoshop CS.The newest offering from Alien Skin is really just one of a three part series of effects programs. The others are Eye Candy 5 Nature, and the soon to be released Eye Candy 5 Impact.There are perhaps dozens of texture creation programs out there, including the one built in to Photoshop. So why do we need another one, you might ask?Well, the answer is contained in the Eye Candy 5 Textures CD.This Effects Plug-In contains a total of 10 texture groups, with a total of over 200 presets available for immediate use.If you are a user that regularly needs to go searching for various textures to place into your artwork, you will absolutely love this program.And a great built in feature with Eye Candy 5 Textures is that every filter has a seamless tile option that really gives the user the ultimate power to create as they see fit.On to the filter groups: There are 10 major texture groups: Animal Fur, Brick Wall,Diamond Plate, Marble, Reptile Skin,Stone Wall, Swirl, Texture Noise, Weave, and Wood.Located in each of these groups are the menu controls, and presets that bring the real power to this program.The presets are all located in a left hand box within the main menu window.The controls are on sliders, and control everything from the variations to the color, and many many other controls for each specific filter group. And I found most of these custom controls to be fairly intuitive, and straight forward.In addition to these controls, there is a button bar with buttons at the top of this window that brings up entire new sets of additional controls, like lighting direction, settings, etc.And in addition to all of the preset effects, and your own creations, you also have the option to save any custom presets that you have personally designed.So, like any true Photoshop effects junkie, I jumped in with both feet.I created a new file (a small one @ 72 PPI) to experiment with. Now, I realize that I will probably be using this program only on much larger images, but this image was built to play with, and play I did.The first new texture group is aptly titled "Fur"(can you guess what it creates?).Immediately I was scrolling through the myriad of preset effects made to resemble all types of realistic animal fur..Way cool stuff.I then jumped to the new "Brick Wall" filter, and was again having a great idea; of fun just experimenting with all of the great effects that were possible.But then I switched to the New "Diamond Plate" filter, and was really asking myself questions like "where can you use this on my next project"? These are all just wonderful effects, and it is obvious that Alien Skin has done their homework with this entire plug-in.I "textured" my way through Marble, Reptile Skin, and Stone Wall, and loved most of what I saw. Deciding right then and there that I will be filing away these great textures for future use when the right project comes along.So, all in all without any hesitation, I love this program. It loads up fast, runs fast, and has some of the best textures that I have ever used. And it even runs now in a 16 bit mode as well. Alien Skin 5 Textures contains numerous improvements in the user interface such as a new "Show Original" button, and an improved online help system that really works wonderful. There are other nice touches added like integrating Photoshop style keyboard shortcuts, and unlimited undo's to make every user smile.Alien Skin 5 Textures is an amazingly powerful program, and one that I will be telling all of my friends about for a while. Alien Skin has continued to produce great, user friendly effects programs, and this one gets my vote for the best fun in a box available.