Software
Review: Eye Candy 4000 
by Rick Sulz
Imagine waking in the middle of the night to the noise of a spaceship landing outside of your window. You quickly grab your digital camera and manage to get in a few shots of our planet’s new visitors. Filled with adrenalin you download your Pulitzer Prize-winning shots into your computer. But wait; your pics do not include aliens, only pictures of a sleeping forest. Since you already notified your friends about your extra-terrestrial visitors, you have to alter your images quickly.
Here is where Eye Candy 4000 by Alien Skin Software comes to the rescue. As one of the premiere image manipulating plug-ins available, the package includes 23 sophisticated, photo-realistic special effect filters (compatible with Photoshop). Complex special effects are easily produced thanks to a feature-rich, yet intuitive interface. Within minutes a peaceful forest can be transformed into a raging scene suitable for a sci-fi movie.
Alien Skin Software produces other professional-quality plug-ins. Xenofex 2 provides more phenomenal effects such as lightning tools and clouds. Splat creates unique frames, textures, edges, borders and more, which allow you to customize any image in your collection. Image Doctor quickly removes blemishes and defects and will also clean up those JPEG files you compressed too much, producing astonishing results.
Designed for both the Mac and Windows platforms, students and digital camera enthusiasts will relish the power of these plug-ins for the production of school yearbooks, flyers, posters, handouts and websites. Novices will quickly learn the programs, but professionals will immediately recognize and put to use their tremendous power.#
