December, 2007
Chameleon by Akvis is a photo editor that creates photo collages with little to no effort. This is accomplished though simple cut and pastes. With Chameleon I didn't have to create detailed selections. This program refers to selections as fragments. After choosing a fragment Chameleon can then place it into a new background three different ways.
-Montage places selected objects into a new background without changing the color or opacity.
-Chameleon places the fragment into a new background taking on the color attributes of the background without changing the opacity.
-Blend makes the fragment semi transparent and takes on the attributes of the background.
This is not a stand alone editor. This program is a plug-in that is compatible with Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Corel (Jasc) Paint Shop Pro, Ulead Photo Impact, etc.
I received Chameleon via download with an activation key via email. Instructions for installing the plug-in were clear and accurate. I had no installation or activation problems.
Here is a screenshot of the canvas:
This program comes with only four tools. The program itself does much of the work.
Chameleon contains:
-Keep Pencil tool to define what part of the fragments will remain in tact.
-Drop Area Pencil tool to define what part of the fragments will be removed.
-Eraser
-Transform tool to set the size and angle of the fragment.
Chameleon is an easy program to jump right into and have some creative fun. Below are some images I created in a very little amount of time.
This is the first image I created using the Montage effect.
Another Montage using these two photos.
Result:
The Chameleon effect with these photos:
Result:
The Blend effect with these images:
Result: I did not remove any of the white background of the first image. Chameleon automatically blended it away.
Chameleon by Akvis is a user friendly plug-in that creates fast, fun results. The one downside is that this is only available as a plug-in. This renders the program useless to anyone who doesn't own one of the compatible graphic programs listed above. Other than that I enjoyed using Chameleon and would recommend it to any photo editing enthusiast.
Pricing: $75.00
Company Website: www.akvis.com
Requirements:
Windows - 2000/XP/NT/2003/Vista
- Pentium III, 512 Mb RAM
- res.1024?768, 50 Mb HDD
- Core Duo, 2 Gb, 2Gb RAM
- res.1280?1024, 2 Gb HDD
Macintosh - OS X 10.3.9-10.4.10
- OS X 10.3.9, PPC G3, 512 Mb RAM
- res.1024?768, 50 Mb HDD
- OS X 10.4.6, Intel/G5, 2Gb RAM
- res.1280?1024, 2 Gb HDD
Copyright (c) 2007, Amy Feulner, All Rights Reserved
