The LucisArt Plug-In

This year's edition of Triangle was boisterous and exciting, and among the many new things I learned was how popular the Portraiture Plug-In (see More Smoothing) is among the top photographers in attendance.  There are many who use it for nearly every image, including instructor Mark Campbell.  Nearly as popular is the LucisArt Plug-In, featured here because it's so cool and besides, you only have a couple of weeks before it balloons up to $595.  If you hurry you can still get it for less than $169.  Let's see how it works.

Original Image

Final Result

Duplicate the original background layer and, from the Filter menu, select Lucis and then LucisArt.  In the resulting dialog,

select the "Whyeth" effect from the drop-down list, make sure the first button is selected, and then click OK (it's the check mark just below "LucisArt").  Rename the layer "Whyeth" if you'd like.  Here's where you are now:

Notice that the pixel manipulation by the plug-in has slightly altered the colors in the face and jacket area in an somewhat undesirable fashion.  To fix this, duplicate the background layer, drag it above the LucisArt layer, and change its blend mode to "color".  Now you have this:

The change is hard to see here, but it's very apparent when you're in Photoshop and so easy to do.  We're getting there, but the current version isn't quite as punchy as the original.  That's typical of a LucisArt application.  To fix it, just add a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer and set the contrast to about +40.  The final step is to click once on your favorite action for applying a white oval vignette, and then click it once again:

Not bad for three minutes' work.  Obviously you can change the opacity of the LucisArt layer, and people like Eddie Tapp use multiple layers with several different effects.  He is particularly fond of the Exposure effect; check out his tutorial The Making of "Old Together".

If you're planning on buying LucisArt you'd better hurry, because the price rises to $595 on May 8.  Here's where you can download it right now for $169:

http://www.lucisart.com/index.htm  (Note: The Coupon Codes ARH3001 and/or BAW6789 may still be operational; if so they get you a 15% discount, or about $25.)

BTW, the LucisArt index page has links to an impressive gallery of images created using LucisArt, as well as a link to some usage tips.  You might also want to check out http://www.lucispro.com/Lucis_works.htm, which gives an explanation of how LucisArt works.  And here's another tutorial by Eddie Tapp: http://www.rangefindermag.com/magazine/Mar06/exposure2.tml.

P.S.: If someone says to you, "Oh, yeah, but you can do all that sort of stuff with native Photoshop commands," just laugh at them.  In three minutes?

What's the action for the white oval vignette?  Come back next month and see...