For Immediate Release

For more information: Voice: 919/832-4124 Fax: 919/832-4065 http://www.alienskin.com

Alien Skin Software Announces Snap Art 2 Artistic Natural Media Plug-in for Photoshop

Photos are quickly turned into paintings or sketches that look handmade. New focus regions allow detail to be retained where needed, such as around faces. Significantly faster on most computers.

Raleigh, North Carolina – May 1, 2009 – Alien Skin Software today announces the immediate availability of Snap Art® 2, the new version of its artistic natural media plug-in for Adobe® Photoshop® and Photoshop Elements. Snap Art turns a photo into a beautiful work of art with a single click. Choose from ten natural media and hundreds of styles, such as oil paint, watercolor, and pencil sketch. Detailed simulation of individual brush strokes and canvas texture gives results that are indistinguishable from handmade art. You make the creative choices while Snap Art takes care of all the tedious work of drawing brush strokes.

“It is much easier now to render portraits with Snap Art because you can control where detail is retained,” said Tom Welsh, the designer and lead programmer of Snap Art. “I added the oval focus regions to give creative control, but they are simple enough that Snap Art is still quick and easy to use.”

Beauty
Snap Art can turn a photo into a work of art suitable for framing. Even a flawed snapshot can become beautiful when distracting details are washed away by large brush strokes and just the essence of the scene is retained.

Wedding and portrait photographers can use Snap Art to offer premium services. Once a Snap Art image is printed on canvas and framed, it is difficult to tell that it was not created by hand.

Snap Art 2 renders artwork even more naturally than before. The techniques of human artists are carefully emulated, such as multiple layers of varying stroke size and enhancement of important edges from the original photo. Snap Art simulates details down to individual bristles on curved strokes and interaction between the brush and canvas texture.

Ease of Use
Just like a real artist, Snap Art 2 can render most of a painting abstract while adding extra detail in critical areas, such as faces. You easily control this by placing the new oval focus regions over areas that need more detail. All the hard work of finding edges and drawing thousands of brush strokes is then handled by Snap Art. Because detail can be added selectively, the effects are now more suitable for portrait photography.

All of Snap Art’s presets have been improved and many more added. New in version 2, settings are grouped into categories to help you quickly find the style you are after.

Snap Art 2 takes advantage of multi-processors and multi-core CPU’s, making it significantly faster than version 1 on most computers. Now Snap Art 2 can work on images of any size, making it suitable for extremely large prints.

Pricing and Availability
Snap Art 2 sells for $199 USD with an upgrade price of $99 USD for registered users of Snap Art 1. Online or physical delivery is available through the Alien Skin website at www.alienskin.com. A real live human (imagine that!) can take orders or answer questions at 888-921-SKIN (7546). Snap Art is also available worldwide through stores, catalogs, and resellers. Free upgrades will be sent to purchasers of Snap Art 1 who purchased after March 31, 2009.

Host Requirements
Snap Art 2 is a plug-in and requires one of the following host applications:

• Adobe Photoshop CS3 or later
• Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0.1 or later (Macintosh)
• Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 or later (Windows)
• Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2
• Adobe Fireworks CS4

System Requirements
Microsoft Windows users must have at least a Pentium 4 processor or compatible and Windows XP or later. Apple Macintosh users must have a PowerPC G5 or Intel processor and Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later. For best performance on either platform, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 2 GB of RAM is recommended. A monitor with 1024x768 resolution or greater is required.

About Alien Skin Software
Alien Skin Software makes Photoshop plug-ins for photographers and graphic designers. We distill advanced math and cutting edge research into simple tools that render beautiful pictures. Our reputation for bug-free software and fast, friendly tech support has grown worldwide since 1993. For more information, visit our website at www.alienskin.com.

For marketing or product review information, e-mail or call (919) 832-4124 ext. 4.