Chromagraphic consists of 2 plugin-in filters for use with Photoshop 3.05 and higher and other compatible image editing programs. The two programs are ChromaColor and ChromaPalette. Chroma color has three main components: 1 - is an automatic mask selector; 2 - is an edge wizard for blending edges; and 3 - is a color replacer.

Chroma Palette is a series of preformed palettes, and ones that can be created by the individual whose range of colors can recolor an image without changing its color balance.

The requirements for Chromatica are on a window s system: win 95 or NT, Adobe Photoshop 3.0.5 or later and other applications that support Adobe plug-in filters for standard version 3.0 or later. The program takes up very little space on the hard drive. The street price is approximately $99.00.

Chromagraphics's web site is www.chromagraphics.com.

Each of the functions of Chromatica will be discussed separately and all examples will be found on the TCS web site at www.tcs.org in the September I/O Port section

One facet of Chromatica is its ability to create selections easily. The program works best with objects whose colors are different from the background or adjacent selection. Contiguous pixels can be selected or all pixels in the image with a certain range of color can be selected. With areas of color that are differentiated, selection is a snap. With areas that are colored in a more similar fashion, fine tuning the program is required. These adjustments are easy to use. This feature, I believe, would be especially useful for people who use a mouse or a track ball since exact selections using a lasso or another tool are difficult to control with the two above named devices. In addition, in all of the figures that I selected, I never had to remove stray pixels. See Figure 1.

The edge selector is similar to the feathering command found in Photoshop. However, its edge blending can be seen in the preview box and the desired setting chosen quickly. Also, all blending can be done in one step. See figures 2 and 3.

ChromaColor recolors an area through the use of SHV (saturation, hue, and value). These sliders create a new color that matches the dynamic range of the original color. See figures 4 and 5.

ChromaPalette can be used to recolor images with the same dynamic range of another image. ChromaPalette comes with 1,000 palettes and more can be created by the user. Some very interesting effects can be created. Two settings can be initially chosen - Color and Color and Texture, then the number of colors chose from 256 to 78,829. Also RGB or HSV color models can be chosen. This filter is especially useful for creating textured background, changes in flesh tones, sky, eyes, etc. See figures 6, 7, and 8.

The manual is well written and the help or, in this case, Information (I) menu is explicit.

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