Exposure 4 has a new interface with a preview that updates in real-time as you hover over presets with your mouse. At right are the parameters you can set either from scratch or to change a preset’s options. The preview area does double duty as a Navigator when you zoom in and the image becomes too big to fit the Alien Skin window. The Settings (presets) are neatly organized in two tabs: Factory and User. All presets are visible by default, but you can select a radio button to only show Color or B&W settings.
The presets list has become even more complete than the one available in Exposure 3. There are now Cinema film settings to choose from too, as well as Infrared and Lo-Fi (the latter only for colour settings).
The real treat, however, comes from the parameters that you can set. Color, Tone, Focus, Grain, IR, and Age hide a dazzling array of sliders and… presets. Contrary to other tools that offer the same type of image manipulation, Exposure 4 allows you to start giving your image a look-and-feel bypassing the Factory presets altogether. Instead, you can immediately start tampering with one or more of the six categories that I just listed.
But in other apps you would need to dive in head first, while Exposure 4 gives you a path that is less daunting: the parameter presets. Take Color Saturation, for example. You can start by selecting “Boost Midtones” instead of directly trying to boost independent colours — which you can, using the sliders directly beneath the Preset drop-down menu. If you find the Boost Midtones add too much red, you can decrease the Red slider — and you can save your fine-tuned Color Saturation to a new preset name that will appear in the drop-down menu.
This allows for much creative freedom without costing valuable time experimenting. The Color tab also has Black and White settings. When you select the “Black White” radio button, the Color Saturation settings change to Color Sensitivity settings. Finally, the Color category also offers you the ability to decrease the overall intensity of your settings using one slider.
Exposure 4 doesn't just tweak the color and tone curve, and overlay some grain on the image. There's a wide range of effects possible, including textures, borders, and even the ability to add dust, scratches or light leaks. This is one area in which the plugin has been completely reworked since its predecessor, yielding much more realistic, random effects. There are also more controls available, including color split toning, and the latest release can now recreate the look of more film types, such as color infrared.
Exposure 4 for Mac and Windows Photoshop CS4 or later can be purchased on the Alien Skin Software site for $249. A trial version is available for download.