OnOne FocalPoint – another bad plugin
So here’s the first entry in my new category: Shitty Pay Plugins – OnOne FocalPoint.
This plugin is supposed to simulate lens blur. I wonder if they have ever seen real lens blur because this ain’t it.
To simulate lense blur (I’m not saying that other word, lalala not even thinking it) there has to be aparture blade shaped highlights placed where the speculars in the photo are. FocalPoint does nothing like that, even the Photoshop built in Lens blur filter does a better job at that.
Basically what the plugin does is apply something that looks like gausian blur smeared over the image making it look like a bad photoshop job. You can move and resize a masked feathered area around and that’s about it, 159 samolians please.. Not.
What I also can’t grasp, is that I decided to try the plugin after reading many reviews from photographer communities, all overly positive and raving about it, and the reviewers photos with FP applied looked like ass, picure someone drawing a blurred cicle mask then applying gausian blur to the photo, yay PRO.. wtf?
If you can draw an eliptical mask on a smart object layer in Photoshop you have what this plugin can do. On top of being expensive and being bad at what it does, focalpoint also needs license manager services installed like it was a 2K$ CAD program or something.
Use a standard serial, drop the price to 49$ and maybe it’s worth it for doing the occasional vignette, 159$? Hell no.
