Feature: Flaming Pear's Super BladePro is a very good follow on to Blade Pro
Motivation: But if Blade Pro is so good, what do you get in "Super" Blade Pro

Why fool with success ? Flaming Pear's Blade Pro has been one of those plugins, like KPT-Kai's power Tools that many early photo finishing artists just could not do without. It allowed users to apply textures to masked areas and text in such nifty ways that Photoshop and a host of other plugin providers went out and reproduced the Blade Pro ideas, often in novel ways as in the case of Photoshop's Styles. So don't mess with the best - let it stand as a plugin monument.

Well the gals and guys at Flaming Pear went halfway - they still provide Blade Pro resources so users can add their own photo textures (all you need is a black and white .bmp file), all the old familiar slider controls like Height, Gloss and Glare while still providing a huge library of preset files for instant Gold Nugget lettering or Sandstone relief or even dozens of users own created settings. But Flaming Pear also dared to add to the feature set and then call it Super Blade Pro. Well the outstanding question is this new Blade truly Super ?

Super Blade Pro - Not messed up success

If the dialog looks familiar and just as intimidating as Blade Pro before you are right. Nicely Blade Pro resources such as BMP texture files and preset .q5q files work in Super. And the same learning curve rules apply. Learn how to approach Super Blade Pro for maximum effectiveness. Do five things when getting started:
1)Set the Height slider to 0 - this eliminates any bevel shape, you want to add that last.
2)Set the Glue to Normal - this shows the effect alone without any blend, but also try Add before making any decision on whether a design is working or not for you.
3)Turn the lights off (as seen in screenshot); again this is a late, last step correction.
4)Turn the magnification up to 100% - this allows you to see the sometimes subtle effects of Super Blade Pro control adjustments.
5)Experiment - the fastest way to learn Super Blade Pro is disciplined experimenting.
With these steps you are now are nearly ready to start working with Super Blade Pro.

Disciplined Experimenting

Super Blade Pro, like all Flaming Pear plugins, provides 3 facilities for experimenting. First, as seen in the screen shot is the input for presets. This allows users to go to the large (and if users loaded in the free Super Blade Pro library of resources, HUGE) set of presets and quickly see what the pros do with Super Blade Pro. Watch the settings change as you try different presets. Also vary some of the sliders and see how the plugin changes. Try changing the Glue/Blend Mode pulldown ( number 2 in the screenshot). There are a huge number of Glue options and they can really change the overall effect quickly.

Next try the Dice. This randomly changes the all of the settings except for Texture. Try 5 to 8 roll of Dice settings until you hit upon one you like. Then try changing individual setting sliders. Move them to their extremes and back to see the full range of possibilities for a specific slider control. But remember - depending on the overall settings some sliders will have more or less relevance/impact on the effect. For example, Glow and Reflection sliders have small effects in darker and large contrast images. Ditto for Iridescence and Iri colors. Overtime you will learn to know when and what sliders have large impact on specific Super Blade Pro settings and images.

Finally master Texture and Glue. These are two high impact settings for Super Blade Pro. Texture settings is actually two pulldowns of texture presets supplied by Flaming Pear plus a special option, bmp. It is the latter that you want to use because again a lot of free texture resources are available for use with the plugin - take advantage of them by adding your own black and white textures to the existing set.

Here is how to do so. Find an image that has strong texture elements (see the bean and fruit pictures Fotki gallery's Kensington Market   for some texture examples). Crop it into a square image - 256 x 256 or even 512 x 512 on a side. Color is allowed but it will influence coloration. If you do not want this to happen, make sure the image is grayscale. Finally store the finished image into the Super Blade Pro environments and textures directory (mine is C:\plugins\environments and textures). Make sure to store the file as a .BMP, otherwise all your work is for naught. Now choose your image/texture files for each Texture pulldowns and see what happens to the finish of your image as a result. Be sure to use the Scale slider between the two textures.

The upper Texture is the master - and imposes its overall look and feel on the image with light embossing; the lower texture is the modifier of tone/contrast over the image. You will have to try different values to see the precise effect - be sure to have magnification set at 100%.

Finally, as noted before, the Glue or Blend Mode option has the most profound effect. This is how it works. Super Blade Pro is creating an effects image layer that it blends with your original to produce the final effect. This is just like using Layers in Photoshop or PaintShop Pro. The difference is that Super Blade Pro has all the Photoshop/PaintShop Pro blend modes plus about 50-70 extra ones many of which are quite novel and innovative in their results. Hence, users should take time to tryout the different Glue/Blend Options in order to get an idea not only how well Super Blade Pro works but also several options for approaching their Super Blade Pro work.

This is where the ability of Flaming Pear to save your specific setting as presets become so valuable. Just hit icon below the Input Preset (Save Preset icon is the one with carat icon in front of the CD). Give your preset a memorable name. For example mine is YellowmossonNet. Now the nice thing is that Flaming Pear has different filetypes for all its presets. So the next time you use Super Blade Pro, it will only show you the Super Blade Pro presets. Let me tell you they are very convenient. In the screenshot below, a preset Chalkergreen is brought in to give

Part of an image a new stronger look. This is one of the real strengths of Super Blade Pro. Not only does it work well adding texture and finish to text (an upcoming review will cover this topic), but it can pickup areas of a photo that are washed out, slightly blurry, or just blah. By applying a mask with sharp feathering (if the region is bright) - working with Super Blade Pro is a natural in these masked regions. The example below shows a typical before and after.

These results were achieved largely with Super Blade Pro's new Abrasion, Blotch and Tarnish sliders and settings. As with some other sliders, they have a distinct, non-linear effect when applied - so do fuss around to get the exact look you want. Try the complete range of values. Also note the color dependency of some of the sliders. In short new (or Super) is lots of fun.

Summary

Super Blade Pro is one of those versatile tools that packs a lot of wallop which can turn some people off. Don't be jangled. This plugin, at $39US, is a must have in your photo editing tool set simply for the range of opportunities it affords. Yes, it does take a bit of learning to getting used to its nuances - but the payback in enhanced imagery is well worth the effort. For existing Blade Pro users the update to Super is a clear case of Tarnish, Moss and Leakiness among others - indeed a super upgrade.