AKVIS Frame Suite 2.6

Reviewed by Geetesh Bajaj, December 27th 2007

Introduction

AKVIS Frame Suite 2.6 is a Photoshop compatible plug-in with an impressive collection of frames, edge and texture effects suitable for the decoration of photos and other image compositions.

Frame Suite 2.6 provides 12 basic effects that can be further customized to create your own presets and libraries.

Frame Suite 2.6 is a new version of the same plug-in that I reviewed in the past -- the updated version has several new and improved features.

The new features are:

• New frames and edges has been added for the holiday season.
• All the new frames and edges can be found in the Pattern Library.
  

Frame Suite is from AKVIS, a company based in Russia that specializes in graphics programs. Apart from Frame Suite, AKVIS also creates other Photoshop compatible plug-ins like Retoucher, Chameleon, Stamp, Sketch, Enhancer, Decorator and Coloriage.

You can download a free 10 day trial version of Frame Suite from the AKVIS site...

My contact at AKVIS for this review was Kat Kharina, thank you Kat.

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How To Use

Here’s how you can typically use Frame Suite 2.6 on a image.

1. Open any image in an image editor such as Adobe Photoshop.
   
   
2. Choose Filter | AKVIS | Frame Suite, as shown in Figure 1.
   
   
   Figure 1: AKVIS Frame Suite
   
   
3. This will open the Frame Suite 2.6 interface that you can see in the Figure 2 below.
   
   
   Figure 2 : AKVIS Frame Suite Interface
   
   
4. The interface is divided into two parts: the left side is the preview window where you can see the picture and the changes made, the right side of the interface has the list of frames and the settings.
   
   
5. Select the frame list provided as show in Figure 3 and choose the Pattern option.
   
   
   Figure 3: Frames list
   
   From the Pattern Library choose Holidays. see Figure 4
   
   
   Figure 4: Holidays
   
   This opens a panel with festive holiday patterns -- double click the pattern you want to select.
   
   
6. This opens the properties for the chosen pattern, as shown in Figure 5 .
   
   
   Figure 4: Pattern properties
   
   If you want to use another pattern, double click on the thumbnail to open the pattern library.
   
   
7. After selecting the pattern, click the Run icon (see icon below).
   
   
   
   
8. This applies and creates a preview of the image. If you want to make more changes, you can select another pattern as required. You can preview the changed image in the After tab, as shown in Figure 5.
   
   
   Figure 5: The Before and After tabs
   
   
9. Once you’re done with the applying the texture, apply the result to the image by pressing the Apply icon (see icon below) to return to the image editor.
   
   
   

Note: Although the instructions above showed how you can use AKVIS Frame Suite as a Photoshop plug-in, the product also works in the same way in standalone mode -- just launch the application through its icon in the AKVIS Frame Suite group in your Windows Start Menu.

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Specifications

Photoshop Versions:	5+
Platforms:	Windows, Mac
Site:	AKVIS
Price:	US$49 and above
Trial Version:	10 days

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