Alien Skin is in the process of upgrading their Eye Candy 4000 line of filters to Eye Candy 5. The upgrade will be sold in three packages of ten new and upgraded filters. In the first release are 4 new filters, Brick Wall, Diamond Plate, Reptile Skin, and Stone Wall.
My take is that Animal Fur is really quite good. Brick Wall does fair brick walls and nice tile walls but if you are willing to do post production with selections via Color Range... and then create new layers of the bricks and mortar, you can use layer styles and obtain excellent results. Diamond plate is interesting, not quite realistic, but fine fo stylized results. Marble is OK (yawn). Reptile Skin is one of the most interesting possibilities. Stone wall is quite good but my response to Brick Wall applies equally here. Swirl and Texture Noise leave me with no enthusiasm but others will find some use in them, no doubt. Weave is always fun and a bit better than the older version. Wood is OK.
So is it worth the purchase? If you purchase it as an upgrade, probably. New? Um, I don't know...maybe after all three packs are released and sold as a bundle. You will have to decide for yourself, of course. I've attached a sample image done in minutes after downloading the filters and no reading directions. Here's the Alien Skin page which allows you to view their samples.
http://www.alienskin.com/ec5t/ec5t_examples.html
My take is that Animal Fur is really quite good. Brick Wall does fair brick walls and nice tile walls but if you are willing to do post production with selections via Color Range... and then create new layers of the bricks and mortar, you can use layer styles and obtain excellent results. Diamond plate is interesting, not quite realistic, but fine fo stylized results. Marble is OK (yawn). Reptile Skin is one of the most interesting possibilities. Stone wall is quite good but my response to Brick Wall applies equally here. Swirl and Texture Noise leave me with no enthusiasm but others will find some use in them, no doubt. Weave is always fun and a bit better than the older version. Wood is OK.
So is it worth the purchase? If you purchase it as an upgrade, probably. New? Um, I don't know...maybe after all three packs are released and sold as a bundle. You will have to decide for yourself, of course. I've attached a sample image done in minutes after downloading the filters and no reading directions. Here's the Alien Skin page which allows you to view their samples.
http://www.alienskin.com/ec5t/ec5t_examples.html