Updated onOne Software Review

This includes the new information for CS5 as well. A great product… still very useful and a fun addition to my set of tools!

I’ve written at length about the importance of tools nowadays. I can’t imagine being a digital photographer without using tools to shape the final image the way I want it. No matter how creative you are inside, the tools from the onOne Plugin Suite will give you a wonderful assortment of inspiration and execution.

onOne Coupon Code

The nice people at onOne Software have given my readers the best Coupon Code available. The code is “STUCKINCUSTOMS” and it will work for everything there!  You can visit the link before, or go right to the onOne Store.

onOne Plug-in Suite

This review talks about a variety of products in the Plug-in Suite. Note that you don’t have to get all of them. You can just get a few, or save a bunch of money and get all at the same time.

When you get the plugin suite installed, it dumps more toys into your Photoshop than you will know what to do with! If you are like me, it’s like Christmas and it’s all awesome! There are so many fun things to play with… I love getting in there, loading up images, and trying this stuff out.

That’s the real key here — these tools are fun! It doesn’t feel like work… the effects and results are so stunning. I feel like a kid in art class just goofing off, seeing what this little thing does and that colorful thing over there does.

If you are familiar with my other reviews, you know that I am pretty short and sweet, and I like to show by example. Below, I touch on many of the tools, but not all of them. I think you will be very happy.

onOne PhotoTools

Okay, of all the tools, I think this one is the best! I have spent hours and hours in here, and I plan on spending a lot more. If you follow my reviews, then you know that I only review things that I use. This is something that I use like a madman! Below, you can see some of the screenshots.

There are so many presets that it is amazing. I’ve only shown a few, but if you look at the bottom, you will get a hint of the THOUSANDS of things you can do.

Under the Landscape Enhance options – the “Wow Landscape” – I subtly applied it here – You can see a “Fade” value in the top right

Another Landscape Enhance tool – the “Sunglow2 A1″ filter with the “More” option

Under the Toning Treatments, here is the Wow Tint – Muted Brown option

Under Camera Tools – the Lens Zoom tool – just one of hundreds and hundreds of fun options!

The Great RC Concepcion also has some presets in there. This is his “1974″, but I removed the white borders and adjusted some of the other settings… each one of the various settings “stacks” on the right side for adjustment and tweaking. Sweet.

onOne PhotoFrame

This is a fun tool! You have seen people put nice frames around their images, right? Well this has hundreds and hundreds of options! I have only shown a VERY small sample size below… but you can do anything from traditional frames to grungy ones to birthday frames to ones that look like you are a Scrapbooking Master. There are so many options that it is scary! Scary cool!

onOne FocalPoint

Do you know those delightful photos where only one bit is in focus and everything else is blurry? That effect is really in demand and can look amazing! You can accomplish the same effect with a nice lens or in post-processing (or both!).

FocalPoint gives you some really fun tools to set that spot of perfect focus and blur everything else. It’s easy and a blast! Below are four examples. One of them is with the custom tool, and the others are with some simple presets.

Isn’t the focus always on Johnny Depp?  Sure it is!  You can see the little tool there on his face… it’s fun to use!

A shot from Mammoth in Yellowstone with one of the onOne presets active.  You can see it makes a new layer automagically – nice!

Here is a great one from NAPP called “Bloom Bomb”.  It did some nice glowy stuff on the edges.

This is one of the NAPP presets called “Glamour Blur”.  I used the British spelling to make it look even more glamour-y.

onOne PhotoTune

This tool is also simple and fun to use.  You can go in and quickly tweak color and detail settings on your photo.  I know there are other ways to do this in Photoshop, but this one is a bit different and better in some ways.

For one thing, if you are get down one of those ratholes and forget what crazy layer-things you have done, this has a better/worse set of options to guide you to the best final photo!

onOne Genuine Fractals

Genuine Fractals is a simply amazing tool that allows you to dramatically increase the size of the image without losing quality!  In fact, it’s so good, I have a whole separate Genuine Fractals Review that you may also enjoy.  Here are some images of Genuine Fractals below.

onOne Mask Pro

Masking is an increasingly important (and hard!) task that requires precision work in Photoshop. Often times, you need to select some part of an image, and it can be a nearly impossible task if you have a complex edge.

Below is an excellent example of how Mask Pro works. It’s so simple. First, you use one eye-dropper tool to select the “parts you wanna keep”, and then use another one to select the “parts you wanna drop”. As you can see, I wanted to keep all those millions of bits of fur in her hood, but drop out the background, the horse, etc. Mask Pro makes this very easy!

You can see the parts of Natalia’s furry hood that I wanted to keep and what I wanted to drop

Another VERY nice feature of the onOne software is it has these little windows that pop up and tell you how to use the tools!  This is valuable to me because sometimes I forget!

Conclusion

I love it!  As you can see, the tools are incredibly robust and there is something in there for everyone.  If you get it, be sure to use the onOne Coupon Code to save the most with the code “The code is “STUCKINCUSTOMS“”.  Then they will know who sent ya!

Well, I hope you enjoyed the onOne Software Review.  I’ll keep playing with all these great tools and bring the best ones to you.  Feel free to stop by and read some of the other reviews on the site!

Any questions about the nature of these reviews? Visit my Ethics Statement. It’s all quite simple!