Photo looks discussion thread

Xara products (at least those with Live effects) will now have Magic bullet Photolooks bundled with them. After taking some time to have a good look at photolooks and have a good play :) I can see it being quite useful. It comes with lots of presets and yes some can look blown out depending on your photo. But here's the good news a preset can be used as a starting point and you can develop your own custom look very easily. So I'm opening this thread for questions, discussion etc about the Photolooks plugin!

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No I see it as being more than that. You need to look past the cutesy names and see the tools for what they can do. For example there is tool named pop that enhances contrast with two controls, one controls how much contrast and the other controls the size of details that will be effected. It's actually a very useful tool.

Think of the presets it comes with as starting points. They also give you a chance to see how some of the tools work together.

I'm not saying photolooks is the best Plugin of this type that they could have bundled but its not that bad either.

I need to experiment with that. Tried it a little but not enough to know anything.

if its the same one ive seen for $199 then its a good bundle
but masks and levels will do what you describe without using a plugin
sorry im just anti plugins in principle
people stop thinking and just press buttons
look what instagram did for picture taking
suddenly everybody thinks theyre an artist
never seen more worthless images clogging up the net
thank god the craze has died down
we dont need plugins
we need teachers

I hope you don't mind my posting this in this thread, but I can't seem to find the photo looks plugin. I bought the upgrade from 9 to 10 and when I went to register it I kept getting that it wouldn't connect to the internet. So I ended up getting the program unlocked by calling them. Now I'm pretty excited about the photo looks plugin and I can't find it in my program. I've got photo graphic and designer 10. Do you think my troubles are because I couldn't get it registered in the correct way?

on the photo tool flyout click on 'FX' [or use key shortcut ctrl+f5]

you will need to have the image you want to use selected - then click on the 'new' button above the tool flyouts - if you don't have an image selected this will be greyed out

the plugin should be on the dropdown menu

Attachment 102928 This is a screenshot of my effects.

ok, thanks for the screen shot

well I can't be absolutely certain, because I don't have the program upgrade and I'm basing what I say on what I have been told, but it does not look as if it is there

so it could be it's not registered - that would be a question for xara themselves I think, although another member may have more information

You might try Help > Download Content Installer

Gwpriester,

Thanks a lot. I was finally able to get the photolooks in my program. When I went to try and use Photolooks today it was in fact in my effects list, but I just got the error message that the render engine did not load successfully. After clicking ok on that message it said photo and graphic designer 10 was out of memory. I had just turned on my computer for the day and therefore just opened the program. I tried rebooting and still same messages. I'm really looking forward to playing with this so I hope you are able to help me. Thank you.

Hi Dawn, Try closing the program and then right click the icon on your desktop and chose run as administrator. If this works you should only have to do it once.

I meant to say the second error message stated the plugin was out of memory

Angelize, Thank you for the suggestion, but that did not work either.

Mine works like it should. So I wonder if you have something running at start up that is hogging your memory. Maybe not but it wouldn't hurt to check.

Another thing you could try is to uninstall and then reinstall the program. When you reinstall shut down any open programs that may be running.

take a backup of your toolbars registry with xareg otherwise any workspace customisations will be lost

Gary is correct, it is not available until you download and install the content pack. I didn't have it either until I purchased 10 and downloaded the content pack.

EDIT: Never mind. This thread has gone way beyond that.

thank you gary & larry, forgot about the content pack, downloading now
i'm downloading ma$ix panorama studio but honestly the inbuilt xara one is excelent anyway

Hi guys!

Just installed XPGD10 and the "magic bullet" option doesn't apear at FX filters list. I have already uninstaled this and didn't work? Someone has any idea of what is going on? Thanks a lot . Marco

Ok , sorry...I have already find out the content installer... was there! Thx!

See post #18 above :)

Welcome to TalkGraphics marcomonte to get that you must purchase the program then you need to download and install the contact pack. If you have already done those, then download the contact pack and install it again and see if it now shows up. If you have and are using the trial version, it is not available to you.

Having just bought XP&GD10, which I'm running on an XP SP3 system, when I try to run the Photo Looks plug-in, I get the following error .... IS anyone running it on XP successfully?

I have a 128 MB ATI Radeon 9600 (STOP LAUGHING) card (Actually it's an ASUS A9600) running Open GL 2.0 ... I think - One day when I'm rich and famous, I'll have to buy a new computer.

Attachment 110536

http://www.redgiant.com/support/faq/...let-looks/441/ - could be new installs can't ... if you see what I mean

Yes, I read that too John, it seemed to me that they have discontinued it from the suite. It doesn't say it will no longer run .... I've sent a ticket to Xara support anyway. I'll see what they say. Don't you ever sleep it's 3 a.m. there ...

It's my nocturnal genes - my ancestors were fireplace guardians in some of the best caves

Support replied as follows:

"It does appear Photolooks needs a more beefier graphics card to run, it does take a lot of resources rendering the images and effects. On the bright-side, not long now before you can sell the card as an antique."

Pretty much what I expected ....

TBH Keith you are not missing much. I think that Xara should pull photolooks I always had issues with it even with an good graphics card and a quad core PC. When I contacted Xara support I was told they had to pass my issues on to Red Giant so now that RG is no longer supporting it it makes no sense to keep it bundled.

. I use ON1 photo suite for most of my photo editing. It doesn't work as a plugin with Xara but it's awesome as a stand alone and you can get a version of the perfect effects module free. http://www.on1.com/apps/effects9free/

The folks at ON 1 posted once in their blog that they might be looking at supporting other non Adobe hosts in the future and Serif is pushing to get their foot in the door. I wish the folks at Xara would jump on this. http://www.on1.com/blog/page/5/

Yes. I've had a look at PERFECT EFFECTS 9 FREE ... Trouble is my "wonderful" computer hasn't got a snowball's chance of running it. These are the specs it requires ... Since it needs *GB RAM that makes it a 64 bit machine, which I don't have.

If anyone rich wants to send me a new computer, I'll let you have my address ....

Attachment 110558

It needs much more power that PHOTO LOOKS. However, my office laptop runs Photo Looks fine, and to be honest, I'm not too bothered anyway. I have lots of other programs and Plugins that do the same job, and I don't use them either.

Ohh yeah I forgot about the older computer :o I'd still love to see an On plug in that would run with Xara