Don’t be shy.
As I worked on the press release for Exposure 4, Tom Welsh stopped by. Tom is the designer and lead programmer for Exposure. Knowing that the press release would contain a quote from him, he said, “It’s always a fun surprise to hear what words you put in my mouth!” I showed him a quote that listed geeky features. Tom said, “The rest of the release has enough dry technical details. Let’s have the quote be what I really think.” Here it is.
“This is the most significant update to Exposure since its creation. Across the board everything is faster and much easier to use.”
At first I thought it was too gushing, like typical marketing BS that no one believes. But Tom convinced me that if you really mean it you should say it. Tom means it and so do I. Exposure 4 is much faster and easier to explore and that is the most important upgrade any product can get.
The user interface has been completely redesigned. Here are a few of the significant improvements shown in screen shots. Click the pictures to see full resolution versions.
Group Presets
Below you can see what we call group presets. Those are presets that control a group of related sliders, like the ones for the new texture overlay feature shown below. Group presets let you quickly explore options for just one aspect of your look without fiddling with individual sliders. There is a pop up menu of group presets above each important group of controls, such as tone curves, focus, grain, vignette, etc.
Click to see a higher resolution version.
Thumbnail Previews
The thumbnail in the upper left of the window has been enlarged and now gives you fast previews of presets. As you mouse over a preset name the thumbnail updates to show you what it will look like on your photo. Just slide your cursor down the list of presets to rapidly explore them visually.
Click to see a higher resolution version.
Texture Overlay
The dust and scratches feature in Exposure 3 is simulated, so it sometimes looks a bit artificial. We threw that out and replaced it with a texture overlay system that uses high resolution photos. The result is that Exposure 4 can beautifully render a wide range of messy real world effects, like brushed emulsion, light leaks, scratches, dust, and frames. In the screen shots above you can see a light leak and an off-center vignette. Below are more examples. Click for higher resolution versions.
The Geeky List
I wouldn’t get into this much detail with the press, but most of you are familiar with Exposure and probably want to hear it all. So, here are more of the improvements. I may elaborate on some of these and show more photos in the blog later.
Improved User Interface
A redesigned user interface makes Exposure 4 much easier to use.
- Black and White and Color filters are combined into one filter so you can find all the effects in one place.
- Group presets let you explore custom effects easily.
- Thumbnail Preview. Hover over a setting to preview it in the thumbnail.
- Settings Search. Find settings based on name or description.
- Speed. Dramatically faster on Mac and Windows.
New Controls and Effects
New controls let you create new custom looks quickly and intuitively
- New controls let you create Black and White effects more easily (more color channels, B/W Color Filter, Split Toning Control).
- New controls let you create custom color effects more easily (more saturation channels, color split toning).
- New Color Infrared effect
- New Texture Effect (light leaks, dust and scratches, borders)
New Presets
Hundreds of Presets. Many presets have been improved and new ones added.
- Alternative Photography. New textures help you recreate historical photographic processes. Cyanotype, Lith printing and Wet Plate Photography.
- Lo-Fi. More realistic toy camera settings using light leaks and organic textures
When? How much?
Exposure 4 will be available in February 2012 for $249. Owners of any version of Exposure can upgrade for $99. Free upgrades will be automatically sent to everyone who purchased Exposure 3 directly from Alien Skin Software in November 2011 or later.
When Exposure ships we will announce it to our e-mail list (sign up at the bottom of this page), in the blog (RSS here), Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr.
Youtube
Flickr
Facebook
RSS
Twitter
GooglePlus
Great work Jeff & Tom! I love the looks of this. I’ve been an Exposure user for years and can’t wait to get my hands on this! If you are looking for a beta tester, hit me up, I’d love to help! I have almost 5000 photographers on my newsletter mailing list and I’ll be helping spread the word via a video tutorial : )
Cheers!!!
-
Dean
Hollywood, CA -
http://deancapture.com
http://www.modelmayhem.com/deancapture
is jan 2011 close enough to get it for free
I really like the speed thing and light leaks
In order to receive a free upgrade your purchase must be within 90 days of the release.
Holy hand grenades, Batman! This does look like quite an impressive update. All the features are welcome and look fantastic, and I can’t wait to try them out! Now we have to wait two whole weeks before getting our sweaty little hands on it. ;p
Counting down the hours…
I see the things that can be done and am trying to get the software so can do even more than I do with my little things. I love taking picture of all things and making slide shows with mi=usic as well for family, friends, and even just me. This is why I get newsletters from the site so can make sure keep up. Have a Great Week Debra
The upcoming release looks great. I’ve been using exposure 3 as part of my portrait and wedding workflow for over a year now and love the product. Thanks for providing such great software.
Hi Jeff,
I made an upgrade from Exposure 2 to Exposure 3 in November 2011 at your store, because I changed my Mac OS (now Lion). Will I get also a free update to Exposure 4?
Stefan
Yes, if you purchased Exposure 3 in November then we will automatically send you Exposure 4 when it is ready. An upgrade to Exposure 3 counts.
So, if we bought the whole suite for $299 after 11/11because we already own one of the apps in the suite, will we be provided the Exp 4 without charge?
Yes, if you purchased Exposure 3 as a full version, an upgrade, or as part of the Photo Bundle in November or later then we will automatically send you Exposure 4 when it is ready.
OH yeah you just made my day!
Awesome updates!!! I can hardly wait. Is it February yet???? =)) I LOVE all of your software and have every single one of them!
So excited!!! I got my exposure 3 in the beginning of November! Looking forward to 4!
Just awesome guys! I’ve been using Exposure since it first came out, and from what I see, it keeps on getting better and better! I’ll definitively upgrade this time around too! A feature I would like to see though, is a slider to adjust the user interface from light to dark. Today, most editing software UI’s are dark and switching between them when you’re in the middle of editing hundreds of images, takes your focus from the images and can almost make you snow blind for a second or two. I would be truly grateful for being given the choice to adjust the color of the UI myself. Anyway, looking forward to getting my hands on Exposure 4 in Feb!
I will pass your idea on to the team. Version 4 will not have that feature, but it is a good idea for the future.
By the way, I like your web site.
Thanks Jeff! Looking forward to the feature in version 5, then. Meanwhile, I am sure I will just love Exposure 4! There are some features there (textures etc) that I am really excited about!
That’s a good idea… but CS6 has a new interface and NikSoftware also uses a dark background. I don’t understand why this isn’t an option in Exposure 4.
I have forwarded this idea to the development team.
Hey there! Any chance of seeing some examples of the Wet Plate photography settings? (Pref. with a before & after
I use Exposure on pretty much every project i work on (and as a matter of fact, most of the images on my webpage have been Exposurized in some way, and quite a lot bokeh’d aswell
so this will be a no brainer update for me. “Unfortunately” i got the entire pack in June so will have to dish out the upgrade molas 
Bring it out asap please =) Can’t wait.
Sure, I’ll ask Tom to do a blog article showing off some of the new wet plate settings. I think he is particularly proud of those. He worked a long time with paint brushes to photograph the texture overlays just right.
Yes, Wet Plate has such a unique look and how it renders the tones differently from other media so it’s extremely difficult to replicate properly. Really looking forward to seeing Tom’s take on them =)
Great improvements! I love that BW and Color will be combined. Will it allow output of multiple versions?
I suspect that combining the two filters will be the favorite feature of everyone who has been using Exposure for a while. Long overdue!
You will have to apply Exposure separately to create each version of a photo. We’ll consider that for a future version.
This is indeed very exciting news! I use photoshop sparingly as I prefer to share what it was I saw through my lenses. However, to have ‘Exposure 3′ on hand is a valuable tool for my work (please visit my site and have a look at ‘Supreme Court’ which became a very sucessful exhibition of mine; all images were finally processed with ‘exposure 3.’). I find that ‘exposure’ enhances and adds clarity to my medium format film work and I am grateful to Alien Skin for that! (is there, perchance, a contra deal for my sucky words??).
The upgrade looks awesome.
This is great news. The fourth generation of Exposure looks great with even more varied effects you can achieve.
As someone who still shoots real film, because of the demise of many classic emulsions I find myself wanting for a particular look. Exposure has it on tap. Even film photographers do post-processing!
For me, photography has never been so exciting.
First of all: congratulations on finishing Exposure 4. It looks great and I am sure to be upgrading from version 3!
The thumbnail previews look fantastic and I’m very curious to see how those historical photographic processes have been included as presets.
One question though: will it play nice with my Photoshop actions which I currently have? I often search for a “look and feel”, combining both filters from Exposure 3 as well as others. Once I am pleased with the result I save the actions to be able to apply them in a batch to a whole series I shot. I guess I will have to recreate the majority of these actions with the new version?
Kind regards,
Ken
Hi Ken,
Actions do not transfer over from one product to the next. You can think of them as macros that remember what program they were created to work with. In this case you will have to recreate your actions if you want them to use Exposure 4.
Best regards,
Robert Lounsberry
Delighted as a December purchaser and lover of Exposure 3. Just one question, will the new version retain all the film presets (print, slide, polaroid etc) of version 3 or will I lose some of these with the upgrade? I’ve become somewhat attached!!
TIA
All the old presets should be there. There might be some slight tweaks to some of the more exotic ones, like an added texture overlay, but all the basic film stocks should be exactly the same. A few of the more funky presets have been organized into different folders, but you can find them easily with the new text search.
Thanks Jeff. That sounds really sweet, glad to hear I won’t lose my beloved film profiles. Really excited now!
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very excited about exposure 4. looks great! i know you probably have it listed somewhere but i couldn’t see it. what are the minimum system requirements for exposure 4? what’s the olderst versions of Photoshop and Lightroom it will work in?
Hi Rob,
You can find all the information you need in the Exposure 4 press release. Here is a link to them. Exposure 4 is the first one.
http://www.alienskin.com/about_us/press.aspx
Best regards,
Robert Lounsberry
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Awww, come on! You have to give us a date!!!!
Mid-February is what we are shooting for, but I can’t be more specific. I hate to make promises and then break them!
Woaaahhh!!!
The list of changes is fantastic!
It would be unbelievable to see such a product and to use it!
Will look forward to seeing it!
Thank you guys!
Can i run this plugin on Win XP because i read somewhere it’s VIsta or higher.
It is officially Vista or later, but it may work on Windows XP. Our system requirements are the systems we carefully test with. We don’t have time to test carefully with other configurations, but they often work. If you want to take a chance then just run it in trial mode once we release it.
Alright, thank you sir.
I edit hundred of photos, speed is the best with exposure 3, I can’t wait to upgrade to exposure 4.
Regards
Adan Martell
Photographer
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Sounds like it will be amazing !!! Can’t wait till February to discover this new version, I use your product since version 1 and it was always a success
Congrats
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Hi, really great news!!
Just one BIG questio: i have so many presets i created in exposure 3. Will they be available in version 4of the plugin or will they be lost forever?
Thanx
a
That is a great question. All of your compatible Exposure 3 presets will be upgraded and brought into Exposure 4.
Great news!
thx!
The only reason I pulled the trigger on Exposure 3 a couple of weeks ago, is to get the new Exposure 4!
Please let me know when it’s ready!!
Patience, young Grasshopper.
The middle of February is looking very good. In the mean time, I’ll post a few more photos soon made with Exposure 4.
Yeah. Cant wait!
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How I can change color for light leak present? I don’t like Red color.
It is not possible to change the color of the light leaks in Exposure 4. Perhaps in a future version, we may be able to add more control. I will make sure to pass this request on to our development team.
Thks you so much, Robert
No problem at all. We are here for you!