About Tiffen Photo Filter Effects Software
Photo filters have been around for a long time. You put one on the front of your lens to get an effect such as deep contrast (red filter for black and white film) or to take away some of the haze or ultraviolet light. Then Tiffen came along and marketed a whole range of special effects filters for motion picture and still cameras. The company has taken its filters and turned them into digital filters.
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Function
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The biggest problem with using a Tiffen glass filter is that the image is permanently altered to have a golden sky or a rainbow or ice crystals. Getting rid of such effects in Adobe Photoshop can be nearly impossible. The obvious solution for this once photography went digital was to take the same filters and allow you to superimpose them over copies of your images, thus leaving the original intact.
Interface
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Tiffen Dfx software can be plugged into software such as Photoshop, but there also is a stand-alone package available. Once loaded into Photoshop, it appears as a Filter on the Filter menu (click "Filter" then "Tiffen" then "Dfx v2"). Just like the Photoshop Filter Gallery, Dfx takes you to a separate control window where your photo will appear.
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Effects Groups
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At the bottom of the Dfx window is a series of buttons such as Film Lab, Gels, Image, Photographic and Special Effects, among others. Clicking any one of these will make a thumbnail of your image appear at the bottom with the different effects overlaid. Clicking on a thumbnail will do two things: Change the appearance of the big version of your photo in the center and show variations of the effect at the right.
Parameters
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The filter variations at the right can be selected each in turn to show that effect. Or if one already is selected, choose Parameters (click the "Parameters" button at the bottom right) to make adjustments to that effect. For example, if you choose Colored Infrared at the bottom and Color Infrared 4 at right, then click Parameters, you can alter then Magenta, Blue, Hue and Contrast with a series of slider controls.
Rendering
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When you have an effect you like, you can tell Dfx to make the change to the photo with the "Done" button (click the icon that looks like a gear in the upper left corner). This will take you back to the main Photoshop interface and a small window will appear that says "Rendering" and still giving you the option to cancel.
Other Effects
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There are many different effects you can choose from in Dfx. You can turn the image into a black and white infrared image, which many photographers have missed since the demise of film. You can color tint an entire scene or insert the image of light through a window or turn your photo into an image as if viewed through night vision goggles. And each effect has tweaking controls under Parameters.
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References
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- Photo Credit Shawn M. Tomlinson
