Feature: One of our favorite plugin suppliers is Flaming Pear
Motivation: See what our favorite design plugin provider has for us in 2006

Back in mid 2003 we did a review of Flaming Pear plugins lavishing praise on several of the design oriented plugins - especially Swerve for whimsical distortions; Aetherize for adding eerie, existential colors; India Ink for its woodcut plus textured finishes; and Glare for making fixes to contrast while adding scintillating brightness. We were less enthusiastic about Twist (the changes were to radical), Lacquer (a poor man's Blade Pro) and just outright ignored Solar Cell despite the original promise.

Well two months ago I saw some work done with Flaming Pear's Blade Pro and Organic Edges and I decided that when doing design and finishing work on images, Flaming Pear has a set of plugins that are very hard to beat. This does not mean that Flaming Pear cannot do basic photo finishing operations as the color contrast features of Mr. Contrast (see our complete review here) attest to. But the graphic geeks at Flaming Pear really have a flair for setting up what I call virtuoso plugins.

These are plugins whose basic control are orthogonal to each other while allowing for intuitive exploration of their intended effects space. Also Flaming Pear make their plugins easy to learn use. Flaming Pear does this by providing the Dice button so you can quickly explore a wide range of effects. There are also presets which allow users to start from some common design goals like Molten, Canyons, and Pencils for the BossEmboss plugin. In short, it is easy to get started with most Flaming Pear plugins.

However this reviewer has two complaints. Unlike Nik or PaintShop Pro for all their effects and filters, Flaming Pear does not have a return to default button - so you can quickly restart from step one. Yes you can exit and re-enter the plugin, but that is a pain. The other quibble is that Flaming Pear unlike Nik or PSP, does not have the option to see a side by side, before-and-after view of the effect. Otherwise this reviewer generally likes what Flaming Pear is doing. Here are four design-oriented plugins that have captured our attention.

Blade Pro - is the original styling plugin everybody else, including Photoshop, copied.

There are literally hundreds if not thousands of Blade Pro presets available for creating all sorts of texture, beveled or sculpted metal effects. Here is a Whitman sampler of the freebie presets supplied by Flaming Pear with the plugin:
Candy wrapper in three colors
Cheap fibers thick
Clumps and cobbles, dirty
Coppery glass
Dental plaque
Diamond plating embossed
Gold furnace finishes
Grape crinkle, Gum wrapper, Hen scratches and on and on and on.
Again, you have to be parsimonious with your time - these presets can just eat up 2-3 hours of doodling with designs. I try to identify 4-5 major design motifs and then find 2-3 presets that match those need.

As can be seen from the screenshot, Blade Pro is made for adding style to type. The disadvantage of Blade Pro with type is that the type has to be converted to raster which then cannot be edited. But an easy workaround is to duplicate the type layer and use the Blade Pro plugin on the top layer which covers over the underlying type.

By the way this is a plugin made for masks and clever selections - but use a small feather of only 3-8 pixels at most. The cutoff of the edge of the Blade pro effect should be sharp. Finally, do take advantage of the ability to save your own presets - nothing is more frustrating than to try to recreate the exact same Blade Pro setting from scratch.

Boss Emboss - taking embossing to a new level.

The world of embossing is progressing in Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro and other top of the line photo editors. Their Emboss commands are more aware of colors and edges than ever before. However, Boss Emboss is not only aware of colors and edges but can do very interesting things with both - adding sparkle and a wide range of color/lighting glues or creasing and melting effects on the edges and reliefs created with precise control within the dialog. The range of possibilities is huge.

In fact Boss Emboss works well in a variety of settings. It is great for taking the familiar and giving it new raised 3D dimension. This works well in night shots or Halloween images or anything that says eerie, weird or possibly frightful. But Boss Emboss also works wonders on black and white architectural rendering or portions of the humdrum and hokey jarring a window view out of the ordinary. Finally, this photofinisher is using Boss Emboss to add snap to portraits selectively zapping the bling-bling plus wild and wonderful wardrobe used by performers on and off the stage. In short, when I want depth of feeling, I am thinking Boss Emboss.

Flexify - takes projections and distortions to new levels

Okay, you distorters and contortionists - and you know who and what I am talking about. Exercisers in the delights of Warping and Distorting the factual image worse than a Presidential press secretary - I have a plugin just for you. Tired of twirling, push in, pinching and all those juvenile projections ? Come to the world of Flexify.

First I am talking more than 20 input shapes projected onto any of over 100 hundred output shapes. Then add control over latitude, longitude, grids and size. But of course Flaming Pear has its 70 or so wonderful blend modes; so there is no-end to the permutations and combinations image contortionists can come up with. Combined with the humor possible with Flaming Pear's Swerve, this is pure satire in the right hands.

Glitterato - whats up doc ?

Like Flood and Solar Cell, there are some Flaming Pear plugins that are really for very specific design situations. Glitterato is one of those plugins. I could make neither heads nor tails on how the plugin derived input from the underlying image. Then I pressed the blend mode/Glue option. Glitterato glimmered neatly into place.

To get the most out of this Flaming Pear plugin first work with Glue settings to get close to the color and surface effect you want. Then use the other sliders, particularly Color, Scale and Brightness to zero in on the final desired results. A great tool for creating color and surface variations - a good complement to Flaming Pear's Aetherize and Kyoto Colors tools.

Kyoto Colors - an alternative to Aetherize that emits some major hue changes

Along with Aetherize and Glare, users have three choices for mixing up colors beyond the usual swishing down the Hue control in every photo editor's Hue/Saturation command. Here is how Flaming Pear describes their Kyoto Colors:
Kyoto Color changes color using a Hue/Luminance/Saturation color space, but it's not the same HLS color space built into Photoshop. The Kyoto space produces more lifelike results for massive hue changes.In contrast, the Glare plugin is more brightness aware and accentuates those colors while Aetherize is more dark area and hue shift aware and plays its color tricks in those areas. Kyoto Color shifts are more uniformly applied across the image - if that is possible. In short, with Glare and Aetherize, Kyoto Color provides a witches mixer for brewing up weird and wonderful hues changes. Use with Kyoto Colors with feathered selection/masks for maximum effects.

Summary

We have looked here at just 5 of over two dozen Flaming Pear plugins. In general, they are very good. Flaming Pear is not afraid to use non-linear effects - as you increase the slider the effect increases exponentially or reverses itself (e.g. Texture goes from out dent to indent). Every effect has a unique Save or Read Presets option so its easy to save and then later reuse the exact sliders settings you have found to be most effective for various situations. With presets and the Dice tool, users are encouraged to experiment with the many settings available. And that is the final strength of Flaming Pear's plugins - once you start using the plugins you discover that the properties or slider settings have been very well chosen. They are orthogonal to each other and work well over their selected range of values. Finally, the price of Flaming Pear plugins is BARGAIN, BARGAIN, BARGAIN. And even at that, Flaming Pear has a number of even better priced packages of plugins. PhotoFinishers will do well to start here first when considering color, texture and finishing plugins.