Programs by AutoFX

AutoEye (v. 2.0.5)

DreamSuite (v. 1.1.8, Effects Series I & II)
DreamSuite Gel

PhotoGraphic Edges (v. 5.0.6)

by AutoFX Software
511 Highland Park Circle
Birmingham, Alabama 35242
Phone: 205.980.0056
Fax: 205.980.1121
www.autofx.com

AutoEye $129 (upgrade from v. 1: $79)

Requires Mac OS 9, full support for OS X (no problems in X.2)
128 MB RAM minimum, 256 MB or more STRONGLY recommended

Reviews by Gary Coyne (replace the "-at-" with "@")

AutoEye is billed as software that can set the color, shading, contrast, hues, sharpness, and saturation of any digital image better than you can. And, for the most part, it delivers. And, AutoFX, feeling that that might not be enough for a complete package, have also prepared some pre-made filters for providing fancy blurs, color casts, and photographic noise to your pictures.

Using the same interface as seen in DreamSuite and Photographic Edges, AutoFX can be run as a separate program, or via the Filter Menu in Photoshop (as seen in the above image).

Once the filter is selected, you are done for the program's automatic operations. "Improves images with a single click" are the claims that the web site makes, and for the most part they are correct. But that depends on whether the default results are what you would end up with if left on your own.

Consider, using my (well used) chickens below. On the right half is the result of some Photoshop "sweetening" that I did, and the left half was the result of AutoEye. Personally I like the stronger contrast that I achieved, but if I wanted less contrast, I probably would have ended up with something that was in greater comparison to what AutoEye achieved. In other words, if you depend upon "one click" results, you may not get what you'd like.

However, the above image may not be all that good an example as it wasn't all that bad to begin with. The below example is a different matter altogether.

The image above is the inside of a church in the La Purisima mission in California. As seen in the center section from the original image, it was dreadfully underexposed. On the right is the result of what I spent about a half an hour working in Photoshop, on the left is the result of one click in AutoEye. AutoEye did lighten up the image, but it pales to what I did with a lot of work.

But again, this is not entirely fair as AutoEye does provide a variety of mechanisms to further enhance an image. So, I played with the Color Controls for a few minutes. Perhaps misnamed, this set of controls (seen to the right) also provides settings for contrast, brightness, tonal range, and other aspects of an image beyond just "color."

There are three sets of controls for AutoEye: Enhancement, Color (seen to the right), and Creative. The Enhancement controls consist of "Remove Color Cast," " Rebuild Detail," "Smooth Noise," and "Enhance Strength." The latter has 5 possible settings and is an overly simplistic Unsharp Mask.

One of the big limitations with all AutoFX software is the lack of an Undo feature. If you are not constantly saving everything with the "Memory Dots," or take everything very slowly and write all the variations you attempt so you can go back to what you last were set at, you can easily get lost and have to start from the beginning.

As can be seen below, the center is the result of what I ended up with in AutoEye after tweaking. One of the problems I was having with AutoEye was that the image seemed better while in AutoEye than after I clicked the OK button and brought the image results back into Photoshop. This is partially the result of their use of "Proxies" of an image to speed the program up, which also results in variations from what you get in the program versus what you finally achieve once back in Photoshop. Even with Proxies turned off, I still saw different results. So, on the left is the result of some Levels tweaking, and on the right is the (same) result of my original tweaking in Photoshop.

In this case, I prefer the results of AutoEye combined with my Photoshop tweaking as the colors seem more vibrant than my Photoshop tweaking alone. The colors from my original work in comparison are somewhat washed out. Regrettably, at this point I cannot remember how vibrant the colors (in real life) were, but, considering the nature of this church, it was probably more like my result.

As mentioned, there are some Presets (25 in all) which provide various blurs, graininess, color shifts, and other tweaking of the original image. The biggest problem I found with these was matching the kind of image to the kind of preset. If not properly matched, it was not a pretty sight.

In short, I found the value of this product depends on how anal you are (or want to be). In lieu of Photoshop, it can--at a minimum--do an adequate job of improving your image and probably can do quite a good job with many images. But, under no circumstances should it be considered an end result with no need of Photoshop. Whether you like the final result of the church with AutoEye over my result or not, it took about 5-10 minutes with AutoEye and Photoshop, while it took some 30 minutes with just Photoshop. You do the math.

AutoEye (like all AutoFX programs) still needs an Undo, and a batch mode would also be strongly recommended.

Programs by AutoFX

DreamSuite (v. 1.1.8, Effects Series I & II)
DreamSuite Gel

AutoEye (v. 2.0.5)

PhotoGraphic Edges (v. 5.0.6)