One way of making your images stand out from the billions of others artistic photos out there is by “putting nature on your side”. With AKVIS NatureArt you can make bolts of lightning, rain, snow, auroras, or rainbows work for you and add an extra layer of creativity to your best photographs. It works as a standalone application and as an add-on for the most popular Adobe and Corel professional editors.
Its limited functionality makes it very clear that it was first conceived as an add-on for Photoshop or the family of Corel Paint products, and the standalone option came later. NatureArt works seamlessly in both contexts, though as an extant software tool it becomes a somehow squalid one-task utility. If you value it for what it is and not for what you think it should be, you will enjoy playing around with this surprising tool.
What makes it so surprising is the superb quality of the outcome. When you launch it for the first time and take a look at its somehow lame interface design, or when you start adding some bolts of lightning using those simple straight lines, nothing can prepare you for the forthcoming results. This is a two-edge sword, actually, as nothing you draw on your photograph can really anticipate what the result will be, which on the other hand always turns out to be a nice surprise. It is not easy to define an aurora or the shape of a lightning using straight lines only, but the resulting graphics are worth the extra effort. Other effects, such as rain, are easier to apply and to anticipate, as you will be offered a standard brush to “paint” the rain in all or selected regions of the image.
You can always fine-tune the effect applied by tweaking some of the sliders provided – such as thickness, curvature, or branching for lightning, and density, angle, or dispersion for rain – and by changing the size and angle of the effect. However, if you add to the cryptic straight-line approach the fact that changes are not reflected in real time in the image selected, reaching the perfect result may require quite some trial-and-error attempts. Despite the longer processing times, be prepared to be surprised.
AKVIS offers more than 25 artistic effects both as plug-ins and standalone software tools, which can be acquired separately or in bundles. NatureArt is not exception, and it is also available in three versions – Home, for individual users; Home Deluxe, if you wish to add more effects to the Home version, and Business, for commercial use.
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