David Cole
March 15, 2000

Genesis v2 Pro is a special effects category Photoshop plug-in for adding unique lens-flares and other effects to your images. Genesis is an advanced plug-in with a great deal of flexibility. If you've tired of the standard Photoshop lens-flare or creating your effects by hand - or if you just like great tools, this plug-in will give you a virtually unlimited supply of special lighting effects.

The Main Screen
When you first enter Genesis, the main screen presents you with many options. The first thing that you will probably notice is the large preview window with an auto-update check box. (Much of the time, you can leave the preview checked, but if you are working on a complex effect turn the preview off to speed things up a bit - except when you need to check results.) Another nice feature of the preview window is the click and drag which allows you to visually change the direction of your effect.

Beneath the plug-in window are controls for applying the filter (color or point) and selection controls, clipping and scale. If you choose color apply, then the area source options become available: Use Center, Multi, Colorize, No Mask, Mask In, and Mask Out.

The upper right section of the Main Window displays your filter selections, starting with an "Effects Group" so that you can save your sets for easy use later. Below the effects group is a listing of each of the effects in that group. You can select which you want with a simple check box. You can also create new effects, edit effects or delete effects from a group.

The Edit Screen
This is where you'll do most of your work creating or editing effects. Notice that the effect you are working on is listed in the upper right of the window, with options to Load, Save and Save As. Beneath that is a list of each of the elements that comprise the effect you are working on (some effects may have 10, 20 or more elements - the list box is an easy way to find and adjust one of those many elements), with a small preview of the individual element. Also, the large preview window in the upper left displays a layout of your effect, with the selected element's placement in a brighter color so that you can easily see what you are creating. Below the large layout are numeric controls for size, intensity, colorize, occlusion, and angle offset. There are additional check boxes for align relative to center, off screen render, and depth render.

Next to these general element controls are controls for type and position. The apply type control is a drop down and includes Light, Object, Tint, Add, Subtract, Negative, Blur, RGB Blur and several others. The location controls let you choose polar or center and as you change the values for X, Y, and/or Z, the layout window updates to reflect your changes - additionally, the location controls are affected by the check box "align relative to center".

On the lower right corner of the Edit Window is the shape preview and beneath that are buttons for Make, Edit, Morph and Noise.

Element Creation
Clicking the Make button on the Edit Screen brings up the Element Creation Window where you will create new elements for your effects. This window almost begs you to experiment with combinations and to just have fun - but don't forget to save your work so that you can use all the great elements you create here!!

The Make Window has three basic parts - preview, type and shape. Starting with the type section, you begin to set up your element. You can either load an already saved element or start from scratch. There are eight starting type shape buttons: glow shape, disc shape, ring shape, glow with hole shape, uniform flares shape, irregular flares shapes, blue rainbow shape, and red rainbow shape. Beneath these buttons are numeric and picker controls for width, number of streaks, color and intensity. Clicking the standard element button will bring up an open dialog so that you can choose a pre-saved element if you wish - this element's name will display next to the button. Finally, the shape controls finish the window. The shape buttons are circle, oval, polygon, star and swirl. The numeric controls are number of sides, factor, and aspect ratio. When you are creating your element, you'll use a combination of the type buttons and shape buttons to create the element. - But, just as important are all the numeric controls. You'll get drastically different results if you choose 3 sides or 32 sides. The intensity controls how bright the element is, the factor contributes to the glow width, angle and ultimately the shape of the final element- smaller numbers (below one) offer a great deal of variation. Once again, this window begs for experimentation - the buttons and controls interact with each other very well and you'll soon be able to obtain predictable results.

Noise
Clicking the noise button on the main edit window brings up a noise dialog that has the familiar preview window and a set of tabbed noise controls. The image to the right shows the before and after previews (the before being the one on the back window). The noise tabs are regular, turbulence, ripple, and crystallize. By default they are turned off when you first enter the dialog. Click the enable check box to turn on a noise setting. Each noise tab has numeric controls for various attributes of that particular noise, such as phase, frequency, seed, center, deformation, levels, and intensity. The effects of noise are cumulative, ranging from subtle variations to a complex patterns, so be bold and creative here - you can always cancel if you don't like your results.

Element Edit
Click the Edit button beneath the shape preview to do further editing and painting on the shape. The first four buttons allow you to make color changes and transparency changes to your element. The last two buttons affect the shape of your element. Use the numeric/picker controls to specify color, brush width and opacity. This is the only window that I saw with undo/redo buttons, and it's a good thing - I'm not that great with a brush. You'll need to exercise a little restraint here to avoid a big color blob, but by using the opacity control and a very small brush width, you can paint fine details into your element.

Morph
Lastly, is the Morph button. Clicking this button opens a window with a large preview of the layered elements, the current element's name and a From/To set of drop down's which list all of the elements in the current effect. Also, there are noise controls for seed, number, size, location, center, angle and more. You can morph a shape to itself for a large copy operation or to another shape to really change the effect. The number sets the number of copies (frames) in the morph. I found it easier to see the effects of Morph by morphing two different shapes. This feature will take a little practice to produce predictable results.

Genesis v2 Pro - Photoshop plug-in is definitely an advanced tool, but novices can quickly learn to use it. I found this tool easy to use and was able to quickly comprehend the interface and the results of my actions. While it is fun for plug-in groupies, it has a high enough level of sophistication, reliability, and versatility to keep even the most hardened professionals happy and productive.

Overall, this is a near perfect plug-in; however, the Help buttons did not work in my downloaded version and I was unable to find any tutorials on the company's website. There is a spot on the website indicating that tutorials will appear, but if you get started using this plug-in now, it is doubtful that you'll need tutorials. There are several effects sets/groups that many generous people have contributed and by downloading/studying these, you can get yourself "up-to-speed" in a day or two.

System Requirements
PC
Adobe Photoshop 4.*(or higher)
Windows 95, 98, NT 4 or Windows 2000
64mb RAM and 250mb Swap disk
(also supports Paint Shop Pro

Macintosh
Adobe Photoshop 4.*(or higher)
System 7.5.5 or higher
PowerPC
64mb RAM and 250mb Swap disk

Availability
For more information including downloading or "where to buy" visit the Future Fantastic website.

Copyright 2000, David Cole, All Rights Reserved