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Getting Started


Exposure is a Photoshop-compatible plug-in that makes digital images look like they were shot on film. With Exposure, you can imitate the look of a film stock, such as Velvia, apply special effects like selenium/sepia toning, or do some basic image enhancement.

Exposure takes the form of two entries in the Photoshop Filter menu, one for color film and one for black and white film. The Color Film filter works on RGB images. The Black and White Film filter can be used on RGB images or Grayscale images. Both filters work with 8, 16, or 32 bits/channel images. Both filters can be used in Photoshop actions, making it easy to apply them to batches of images.

How to Use This Manual

The Installation chapter provides information on installing and registering Exposure, as well as host and system requirements.

The User Interface chapter details how to preview effects, apply them, and work with settings. To get the most out of Exposure, be sure to read this chapter. We have a lot of cool features that may not be obvious.

The Factory Settings chapter describes the settings that come with Exposure. It gives background on how they were created and advice on when to use them.

The remaining chapters are devoted to tabs in the user interface. The Color tabs of the Color Film and Black and White Film filters are different. So two chapters are dedicated the Color tab, one per filter.

The chapter on the Tone tab describes our curve editor. Be sure to read about our improvements that make it different from Photoshop's curve editor. We added some sliders to simplify common curve adjustments.

The chapter on the Focus tab describes the sharpening and softening controls. Our color sharpening controls include a checkbox that reduces some of the ugly artifacts of unsharp masking. Our softening controls include an opacity slider that allows classic, glamour shots effects.

The chapter on the Grain tab describes our sophisticated grain generator. Our grain capabilities reach far beyond the simple pixel-sized noise found in image editors.

Installation

Installing Exposure is pretty quick and painless, but to be safe, follow these instructions.

Host Requirements

Exposure is a plug-in. That means that you must already have installed one of the following host programs. It is possible that Exposure will work with other image editors, but we have only tested with and support the ones below.

  • Adobe Photoshop CS or later
  • Adobe Photoshop Elements 3 or later
  • Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004 or later
  • Corel Paint Shop Pro 9 or later

System Requirements

Macintosh Systems

  • 1 GHz PowerPC G4 processor
  • 256 MB RAM
  • Mac OS X 10.3.8 or later

Windows Systems

  • 2 GHz Pentium 4 or later processor
  • 256 MB RAM
  • Windows 2000 or Windows XP

Macintosh Installation

Use the following instructions to install Exposure:

  1. Shut down your graphics host program.
  2. Note: To install Exposure, your OS X user account must have administrator privileges. For information on configuring your user account for administrator privileges, talk to your IT guy or consult your OS X user manual.
  3. Insert the Exposure CD into your computer. If you purchased an electronic version of Exposure, locate the Exposure installation program that you downloaded from the online store.
  4. Double-click the Exposure icon.
  5. Click Continue.
  6. Read the License Agreement.
  7. Click Accept.
  8. Enter your name, company name (optional) and your registration code.
  9. Note: The registration code is a 12-letter sequence inside the front cover of your manual.
    If you purchased an electronic version of Exposure, you'll find the 12-letter code in the e-mail invoice, sent with your downloaded software. Store this e-mail in a safe place for future installations.
  10. Click Register.
  11. Our installer will search for all compatible graphics programs on your computer and display them in a list.
  12. Highlight one program (you can only install into one graphics program at a time) and click OK.
  13. Rerun the installer if you wish to install Exposure into other graphics programs.

Windows Installation

Use the following instructions to install Exposure:

  1. Shut down your graphics host program.
  2. Note: To install Exposure, your Windows 2000 or XP user account must have administrator privileges. For information on configuring your user account for administrator privileges, talk to your IT gal or consult your user manual.
  3. Insert the Exposure CD into your computer. If you purchased an electronic version of Exposure, locate the installation program that you downloaded from the online store.
  4. Double-click the Setup.exe icon.
  5. Click Next.
  6. Read the License Agreement.
  7. Click Accept.
  8. Enter your name, company name (optional) and your registration code.
  9. Note: The registration code is a 12-letter sequence inside the front cover of your manual.
    If you purchased an electronic version of Exposure, you'll find the 12-letter code in the e-mail invoice, sent with your downloaded software. Store this e-mail in a safe place for future installations.
  10. Click Next.
  11. Our installer will search for all compatible graphics programs on your computer and display them in a list.
  12. Highlight one program (you can only install into one graphics program at a time) and click OK.

Rerun the installer if you wish to install Exposure into other graphics hosts.

Registering Exposure

You must register your software to receive technical support and critical product updates. Registration also qualifies you for product discounts and upgrade pricing on future versions of Exposure.

If you purchased Exposure directly from Alien Skin Software, you are automatically registered with us. You need to register only if you purchased Exposure elsewhere.

You can register online at http://www.alienskin.com/register. If you don't have access to the World Wide Web, mail in the registration card included with your software.


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