Provides: Filters for creating a piece of art from a photo in Photoshop
Developer: Alien Skin Software
Minimum Requirements: Mac OS X v10.3.9, Photoshop CS, Photoshop Elements 4, G4 or G5 processor, 512MB RAM
Retail Price: New: $149 ($99 upgrade if you own other Alien Skin products)

Let's be honest here; when I first got my Mac 512, my Uncle was delighted that I was now typing out my letters because he couldn't read my handwriting. Likewise, using my Mac, I could draw a rectangle that didn't look like a wagon wheel. In other words, I can't draw worth beans. Using the filters that come with Photoshop, I've been able to create some nice looking "artistic" images from a photo, but the range of what Photoshop provides is limited and the creativity within each filter type is also rather limited. Now comes Snap Art, and it's fun.

Snap Art provides ten basic art "style" approaches to your photos (see the list on the right). Within each type of art style, there are essentially an infinite amount of potential variations. Keep in mind that you are not likely to print any of these images because they are not meant for printing. After all, an inkjet printing of a watercolor is not going to look like a watercolor and a photo of an Impasto could only look like a photo of an Impasto drawing. Simply, images from Snap Art are meant for displaying the images on the web or from a slideshow off of your computer. However, if you have a printed book of photos of say, a wedding, perhaps a photo of one of the images altered via Snap Art as a cover might also be a nice touch. It's your job to be creative, Snap Art just gives you the tools to do so.

You start to use Snap Art like most filters; with an open image, go to the Filter menu, drag down past the default filters to where it shows Alien Skin -> Snap Art -> and then select one of the ten filters. (Once the filter is opened, you can change to any of the other effects via the Filter menu in Snap Art.)

As seen below (decreased from 1000 pixels wide to 600 for this review), the general user interface is fairly consistent with other Alien Skin filters. On the lower right, you can see the image and the effects you are fine-tuning. Above the image is a magnifying glass to zoom in, a hand to push-navigate the image if it's too large to fit in the window (you can also press the Spacebar to access the hand, just as in Photoshop). To the left of the hand icon is an "unpreview" button that, when pressed, allows you to see how your image looks with no effects. The small thumbnail on the top of the window is also used to navigate the image if you are zoomed in too close (there are no scroll bars in the Snap Art window).

Just above the larger image are two options. One is a Preview Split. As seen below, you can mask off part of the image so you can see both the original image and any changes created by your art.

Above the Preview Split is the Preview Background. If you are working on only part of an image (a selection), you can chose what kind of background you wish to see your selection against. Below is a screen shot of just a selection of the flowers from a plant against a gray background. Inset in the image is the result of performing a Snap Art action on just the selection and overlaying the selection on the original image.

On the left hand side are all of the pre-sets provided by Alien Skin for use for each of the ten categories. There are around 30-40 presets per effect. Each set of pre-sets is customized for each type, but generally the pre-sets offer more detail, less detail, variations on abstract, variations on varying color, thickness of the tool, etc.

If the pre-sets do not give you what you want, then it's time to play! The next option in the tabs is "Basic." Basic has one option that is off by default. Not only should it be on by default, but it should be in a more accessible location. Here, you have the option to "Create Output in New Layer Above Current." What this does is leave your image alone and creates a new copy of your image with the changes that you've accepted. Your previous image is left untouched. This is very big for a variety of reasons that I'll get back to later.

[After you've played, if you really like the results, you can save your own settings for future use. To do this, you need to slip back to the Settings tab. On the bottom, you will see a Save button. Any setting you save in Comics will not show up in any other effect, and vise versa. You can import any styles sent to you by friends, but unfortunately there is no easy way to access these files. To find them, go to user -> Library -> Application Support -> Alien Skin -> Snap Art -> (specific effect, e.g., Comics) -> (your name for your "effect. f1s"). An export function would help this a lot.]

Please note that all of the tabbed options you see in the following set of screen shots of Snap Art are focused for the type of filter selected. Thus, the options seen below for Basic (or Colors, or Canvas, etc.), are what's seen for Pencil art. Those for other effects have variations on these that are pertinent to that effect.

Below, you see the Colors tab. Note that for black and white options, like Pencil Sketch, Colors' name is called Tone and the last two options (Color Temperature and Number of Colors) are grayed out.

There is a good variety of Canvas types, from cardboard to canvas to wood to brick.

Lighting doesn't do all that much, unless you are working with a type of painting technique like Impasto that has a significant 3-D effect (in real life).

When reviewing a product like this, one is faced with a big decision; does one seek out the best image to properly display the attributes of a given effect or just use one image as the constant model? Obviously some effects can best be displayed by certain types of images. Conversely, using one image for all best displays the differences for each effect. I chose the latter approach. If you'd like to see a better match up of image type and a good pairing of artistic styling, visit Alien Skin's website and view the examples.

Below are samples of all ten artistic types, and I do have a few comments interspersed. Every image has a link to a larger sized image that will open in a new window—simply click on the image (or the name). I do encourage you to look at the larger sized images to get a better view of the final results. None of these thumbnails properly display the value of the final image. Also note that I occasionally varied the canvas surface. If you notice that some of the images have a more defined canvas, you are correct. I was not consistent from image to image on the surface used.

Original Image	Colored Pencil Effect
On the left is the original image. On the right is the colored pencil effect. I was unable to find a setting that set the purple of the flowers as deep as the original.
Comics effect	Impasto effect
The Comics effect pushes the image toward both posterization and striking halftoning. Snap Art also looks for edges to mark, so this effect outlines the image very effectively. The Impasto must be seen in full size to be appreciated. It is a pity that there is no way to print the same depth that one can see in these images.
Oil Paint effect	Pastel effect
The Oil Paint effect is a bit smudgier than I'd like as it used brush sizes much larger than I'd prefer. Nonetheless it does a good job of duplicating that effect of oil paint...similar to the Pastel effect. In all of these, there are considerable variations with the standard provided pre-sets, and the range of options with the Pastel effects are worth the look.
Pen & Ink effect	Pen & Ink effect with reduced opacity
As I mentioned earlier in the review, some effects work better with some images than with other images. I found the Pen & Ink effect particularly did not work with this image (likewise with the Pencil Sketch effect to a lesser degree, below). However, by selecting the option for the new image to be placed above the original image, and then dropping the opacity so that some of the original image bled through the Snap Art image providing a hint of color made both effects stand out considerably.
Pencil Sketch effect	Pencil Sketch effect with reduced opacity
The Pencil Sketch effect does stand on its own, but by reducing the opacity and providing a hint of color does provide an added effect all on its own.
Pointillism effect	Stylize effect
Pointillism is a kick, but is best used on images with large components. On the other hand, what can I say beyond that a couple of the pre-sets are called Seurat and Impressionist. You want to do Van Gogh? Here's the chance...well, sort of. The Stylize effect was my favorite. It posterizes (like Comics, but without the halftoning), outlines, and embellishes. It was great. One of the other treats it has to offer is that it outlines images with strong lines and removes all other information. If you look at the image above on the right and consider the lines around the flowers and leaves and remove all of the purple and green, you might have an idea of what I'm talking about.
Watercolor effect
I'm not a big fan of watercolors in general, so I can't really say how good or bad this was. I noticed that many of the defaults have "breaks" in the texture. I'm guessing this is similar to using a semi dry brush, but I don't know.

Besides the location of the "Create Output in New Layer Above Current" check box mentioned earlier, my other big request would be that Alien Skin create a saved cache for the image. Every effect takes time to build. My home computer is a G5 with dual 2.5 MHz processors and 2 GB of RAM. Not spectacular, but nothing to sneeze at. Every time you make a change, the image has to rebuild. If you change the Preview Split, rebuild. If you change magnification, rebuild. This makes comparisons rather risky. Change this, rebuild, change that, rebuild.

Fortunately, you can interrupt any rebuild process, so you do not need to wait for each rebuild to finish before doing another task. That is, when you first select an image, it will open to that effect and start to rebuild in either the default, or the last used effect. If you want to change anything, go ahead and change whatever you want, and then it will rebuild. None of the rebuilding processes are very long, 5-15 seconds at most (on this machine), but, added up, there is a bit of waiting to be done.

So, what Snap Art really really needs is for a built-in cache to hold the image so that you can move the image around without rebuilding, change magnification without rebuilding, and, as a special treat, save the last several iterations of the image so you can do cross-comparisons of several images.

However, in leu of the last request, there is an alternative you can do now; since you can create each effect as a new layer, save all of the image variations as you'd like to and just keep on saving them above the original image. That's how I did this review; see below. As needed, I simply turned on or off layers. This way, anyone can easily compare one effect to another (or variations of effects) and keep or toss as needed. Keep in mind that you should save any effects as you create them. Once you move the settings, there's no way to go back to what you last had.

In short, Snap Art is fun. Admittedly, it's only as essential as you think it would/might be. That is, if this is a functionality that you think is wonderful, than Snap Art is just what you need. Do not stop and think about it, just get the program. Keep in mind that Snap Art is not the kind of tool that will make a poor image look better, fix colors, adjust lighting, or remove red eye. Snap Art is simply an excellent tool at taking images (that are already fixed) a chance to look like they are not photographs, but rather paintings. And, if you have any interest in doing that to your photographs, Snap Art is a great tool to do that with.

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