The boys at Pixel Genius are always busy finding new ways to make complicated Photoshop tasks easier for the rest of us. PhotoKit Color 2 is the second version of one of our favourite plug-ins, designed to perform common and useful colour operation.



Obviously. Many of the old favourites from version 1 are still present, including the RSA grey balance for neutralising colour casts and fixing white balance problems, as well as the black & white conversion and toning tools. There are also the gradient filter tools and cross-processing effects. But added to this are new tools, wrapped up in the new ToolBox interface (which brings all the PhotoKit apps into one dialogue box). There?s new film-replication tools to make images look like, for example, US, Asian and European film-types (guess the unnamed brands). There are also special effects such as fog, blue sky and soft focus as well as Infra Red ? which is much easier than the old colour infrared E4 film process. The final new set of effects are dodge and burn tools, which are more effective and less destructive than the basic Photoshop dodge and burn tools.



Overall the Photokit Color 2 system is easy to use, and offers the kind of creative potential normally afforded to Photoshop power users, or those willing to sit and work through six-page tutorials. And because it works as layers, it?s easy to go back and edit or adjust the effects at any time.



Easy, elegant and effective, this is a plug-in that anybody who uses Photoshop CS/CS2 or Elements is sure to enjoy. Highly recommended.