Every photographer knows that you can turn average-looking photos into stunners with Adobe Photoshop. But, unless you are a Photoshop ninja, that can sometimes be harder and more time-consuming than you might think. If that’s you, then there are other applications to the rescue. One of the most comprehensive is Boris FX Optics, which evolved out of Digital Film Tools and Tiffen Dfx when the developers became part of the Boris FX family in 2020.
In addition to photographic enhancements, Optics integrates additional Boris FX tools, such as Sapphire filters and Particle Illusion emitters. The toolbox features over 180 filters with thousands of presets in ten categories: Color, Diffusion/Blurs, Film Lab, Grads/Tints, Image, Lens/Distort, Light, Render, Stylize, and Particle Illusion.
The new Optics 2024 update adds eight filters (Atmospheric Glow, Magic Sharp, Orbs, Prism, S_PrismLens, Smoke and Fog, Super LED, and S_UltraGrain) and over 100 more presets. In addition, the Particle Illusion category within Optics gains masking functions, 3D deflectors, force turbulence, and more.
Optics 2024 works in both macOS and Windows and can either be used as a standalone application or as a plugin within Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Lightroom Classic. As a plugin, you can send a layer from Photoshop to Optics, make your changes in Optics, and then send that enhanced image back into Photoshop. Alternatively, simply open an image directly into the standalone application.
It’s worth noting that this also works with photo browsers like Adobe Bridge and Apple Photos, using their “open with” or “edit with” contextual commands. I actually prefer to use Bridge, because you can quickly browse photos and select favorites. The additional advantage to Bridge over Lightroom in a facility operation is that it can browse images on networked, shared storage. Lightroom only works properly with local storage.
Ease of use
The primary attraction to using Optics over other photographic enhancement tools is that its operation is fast and intuitive. A range of image formats is supported (including camera raw) and you can then save the results back to that image or to a copy, depending on your workflow. The interface is designed for speed. Select a category, filter, and preset – then make adjustments to taste. As you make your selections, all of the interface thumbnails are displayed using that current image, which eliminates a lot of guesswork. You can quickly jump between filters and presets to explore ideas and potential looks.
Optics uses a Photoshop-style layer system with blend modes and opacity values for each layer. Only one filter effect or enhancement can be applied to a layer at a time. But you can create a custom design by stacking several layers with different effects and bending values on each. Layers can be enabled, disabled, duplicated, or deleted, and what you see will be the final result. Plus, there are several ways to make A/B comparisons and splits between the original and final or between two different layers.
Since you have so many options to choose from, the filters panel includes a search function. Click anywhere into the filter panel and hit the Enter key to activate the search field. Type in a term, such as “vignette,” and the filter panel will display only those options. Click the Escape key to exit search and see all of the categories and filters again within the panel. Presets can also be tagged as a favorite by clicking the star icon on the preset panel. Tagged presets will appear in the Favorites category of the filter panel for quick access in the future. That’s handy for those filters that you use most often. Of course, there’s access to the User Guide right from the app’s help menu if you have questions.
Masking
Layers are enhanced with a masking system, where image areas and objects can be isolated using spot, gradient, path, snap, selection, paint, or EZ Mask tools. Multiple masks can be applied to the same layer. The EZ Mask function is quite interesting. As I discussed in my original 2020 review, simply paint loose strokes on the inside and outside of an object. Left-mouse paint strokes inside (green lines) and right-mouse strokes outside (red lines). Let the computer calculate the selection and you quickly have a useful mask.
The mask can be inverted, depending on whether you want a layer effect to happen inside or outside of the mask. Let’s say you want a person in the photo to be in full color, but everything around them in black-and-white. Create the mask for the person. Make the color enhancements for the person (inside of the mask area). Create a new layer and drag the mask to that next layer to copy it. Invert the mask and make the black-and-white adjustment for the background.
Particle Illusion
Particle Illusion was added in the 2022 update. It features over 1700 presets, including groups for Smoke, Fire, Water, Sparkles, Explosions, Dust, Sci-Fi, and more. Typically you would use these as atmospheric enhancements. However, given the variety, there are plenty of ways to push the style into something unique.
Unlike similar filters/effects in other applications, Particle Illusion effects are not simple overlays. They are adjustable and integrated into the layer. For instance, the appearance, path, branches, and other variables of a lightning bolt emitter can be customized. Many of these emitters effects are time-based. If you only want to generate a still image, then scrub through the time parameter until you find the best frame of the emitter animation to use.
On the other hand, Optics can also be used to create motion cinemagraphs, which are still images (your photo) with a moving element (the animated emitter). This can create the illusion of something frozen in time. One simple example of this that Boris FX uses in their tutorial is a cup of coffee with moving smoke coming from the top of the cup. When you are ready to export, the Particle Illusion interface will open for you to set the video export parameters. In this case, you’ll be exporting a movie file instead of a still photo.
Batch processing
One feature that’s easily overlooked is Optics’ built-in batch processing tool. Let’s say you have a series of stills to which you want to apply the same correction, like grain or a film stock preset. The first step would be to open a representative photo and set up your look with any custom adjustments. Save that as a preset file and close the image. Open the batch window, add the files to be processed and apply the custom preset that you just saved. Images can be resized as part of the export process. The last step is to start the batch process, which includes setting the target destination for the rendered files.
Even though Optics is a stills application, batch processing can also be used in some video effects situations, since some cameras generate media as image sequence files. Therefore, supported formats can be processed by Optics as if the frames were a folder of individual photos. For example, flat, log, or camera raw image sequences could be corrected with a custom look. The images would be processed and then subsequently assembled into a movie file using another application, such as After Effects.
Performance
In testing the update for this review, I was using a variety of high-res images from various cameras shot by different photographers. Many were Canon EOS camera raw files (5472 x 3648) at around 24MB in size. But, I also had RED 4K and Blackmagic 6K files in the mix. Optics 2024 is installed on my 2020 Intel iMac – older, but still plenty of power. Optics was well-behaved and responsive, but several things did impact performance. If I built up a lot of layers – especially with Particle Illusion emitters and/or masks – responsiveness slowed a bit. Not a showstopper, but noticeable.
If you are an avid photographer who likes to enhance your photos – whether for professional reasons or simply enjoyment – Boris FX Optics 2024 gives you a complete photo lab in one easy-to-use and efficient application. There are many more options than anything available in Photoshop or Lightroom and you don’t have to be a photo-styling guru to get great results. As with other Boris FX products, there are plenty of official Optics tutorials, as well as numerous videos to be found on YouTube.
Click through the gallery images below to see examples of looks and styles created by me using Boris FX Optics 2024.
©2024 Oliver Peters
digitalfilms 