Auto FX started out life as a small developer of plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop in the early 1990’s and have gone on to become, in my view, one of the biggest and best providers of special effect plug-in filters in the world. They are a joy to use and very intuitive.

Mystical Lighting, the subject of this review, is one of my favourite filters that I use for both my Photography and digital artwork. There are a lot of options, thus I will go over the main ones that are provided in my own copy of this programme. As the programme provides an Auto-Update feature on-line, you can be assured of always having the latest version.

The special effects can be produced from your own choices, or from drop-down menus with a variety of choices that produce instant results. You can quickly apply high quality effects to images with ease by using the presets, and there is no need to stop there, as you can customize the presets and it lets you save your customized effect so you can have it as a preset., all very logical and the more you use and improve your skills the better the results become. 

Mystical Lighting works as both a plug-in and as a stand alone application for Windows 98/NT/2000/ME/XP and with Power Macintosh systems running OS 9 or higher. Mystical Lighting runs native under all versions of OS X.

I would also imagine that Microsoft Vista will work without any problems since the code is well written and works well across so many platforms. Just run the disk and follow the on screen information. If you want it to work as a plug-in, point to your plug-ins folder the first time you install it.

 

Bodmin Moor
© copyright Daniel O'Byrne

 

Features

Edge Highlights: Add subtle highlights to your images.

Ethereal: This provides the soft lens look. Great for weddings and portraits.

Fairy Dust: Allows you to add twinkles, sparkles, snow flakes, stars, glowing embers, light flares, confetti and lots more to the shape of a path.

Flare: Creative for use in any space fans to make alien looking suns, rays of light and vortexes (Great for sci-fi scenes).

Shading Brush: Lets you enhance the shading and tonal values in your image naturally.

Radial Light Caster: Adds different types of radial shaped lights, beams and rays to your image.

Rainbow: With this you blend coloured rainbows into your image using a path. Loads of styles to choose from. Great for mystical images, rainbows over waterfalls, etc.

Shader: Lets you cast shading and tonal changes onto your images by a path.

Light Brush: Brush on extra light and blend in the area you want. Control how the light fades onto the surface of your image.

Light Caster: lets you stream light, sunshine and make underwater light effects. It can be used with or without a masked selection. Great for mist or haze in your images and not easy to produce in other ways (A personal favourite).

Shadow Play: Adds realistic looking shadows to your work. Select from hundreds of pre-made shadows like foliage, branches and shapes.

Spotlight: Adds various spotlight effects to your images. Play about with it and you get some really cool effects.

Mist: Add natural looking ground fog, blowing mist, smoke and even a blowing snow type of look to images. Just brush it on. Very effective for lots of atmospheres.

Surface Light: Add light through objects like window panes and have it cast onto your image. This is very good for certain types of architecture. Cathedral windows are a particular favourite use of this as an example.

Mottled Background: Create mottled canvas style backgrounds. Great for portrait photos, and also, if you ever need to replace messy backdrops.

Wispy Mist: Brush on mist and fog effects.

 

Castle Combe Vista
© copyright Daniel O'Byrne

 

Conclusion

Overall this is a wonderful set of creative effects for making the most of lighting to add a bit of mystery or drama to your images. Mystical does seem the right word to describe them!

It is fairly expensive if one compares it to other offerings such as Dream Suite, and it’s a pity that it does not install into the Dream Suite Bundle interface. If you do an effect in Dreamsuite 1 or 2 and you want to apply an effect from Mystical Lighting on the same image, you have to save your work in Dreamsuite, close it, then open up Mystical Lighting and apply your effect. It would have been better if you could access all of Auto FX software from one interface. With that said, it's still one of the best plug-ins that I have seen and used. It does make life a lot easier and faster to apply great looking effects to your images. I heartily recommend it. If you want to add some special effect lighting to your work there is nothing like it on the market.

 

 

Mystical Lighting is currently priced at $179.00 (USD)

For more info, please visit the Auto FX website.

Member of Renderosity since August 2002 and active as a Moderator of the Photography Forum and Gallery. I have had a few nominations for AOM in both photography and mixed medium. Aged 59, Born in Cornwall and have a special interest in Wildlife photography. I have travelled widely while serving in the Royal Air Force as a medic, and later working as mental health professional in the UK health service prior to retiring in 2005. Visit my website: http://www.digitalartzone.co.uk