Now Available: TK Magic Mixer plugin

The TK Magic Mixer plugin for Photoshop is now available on my website. The image above describes what each of the different elements does.

The primary purpose for this plugin is to allow Photoshop’s Channel Mixer adjustment layer to be a useful tool for converting color images to black and white. The Magic Mixer works via the Channel Mixer, but the user interface provides new capabilities and new levels of control not available from the Channel Mixer directly. The image below shows how the Magic Mixer is related to the Channel Mixer.

One obvious difference is that the color channel sliders (Red, Green, and Blue) look different. On the Channel Mixer adjustment they contain one color (red, green, or blue) but on the Magic Mixer they contain two colors (Cyan-Red, Magenta-Green, and Yellow-Blue). Even though the Channel Mixer has always been capable of changing the brightness of specific colors, it’s interface doesn’t provide the visual cues needed to do this. The Magic Mixer does. With the Magic Mixer, pulling a color channel slider toward a specific color makes that color lighter in the image. And pulling a slider away from a color darkens that color. So, for example, pulling the Magic Mixer’s Cyan-Red channel slider to the right (towards red) makes reds in the image lighter and cyans darker. Pulling it left makes cyans lighter and reds darker. The Magic Mixer’s two-color sliders make channel mixing more intuitive. With this interface, it’s possible to intelligently make channel-mixing decisions that target specific colors in the image.

Another major difference is that the Magic Mixer provides an independent Brightness slider while the Channel Mixer adjustment only provides a readout of “Total” brightness. The Magic Mixer is also capable of keeping image brightness constant when moving the color channel sliders so that image brightness does NOT change. This is not true for the Channel Mixer adjustment. Moving the color channel sliders with the Channel Mixer ALWAYS changes image brightness, making it hard to visually evaluate the results. The Magic Mixer overcomes the brightness issues of the Channel Mixer with its ability to keep brightness constant and by allowing brightness to be independently adjusted with its own slider.

Improving Photoshop’s Channel Mixer experience is only the beginning of what the Magic Mixer can do. By taking control of this adjustment, the Magic Mixer opens still more possibilities.

• Color channel presets (Red, Green, Blue and even Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow) are now available. These provide distinct variations for deciding where to begin exploring an image’s black and white potential. The color channel and brightness sliders can then be used to further tweak the results.
• The “Randomize” button creates an endless stream of channel-mixing variations. Additionally, moving the plugin’s Contrast slider to the right increases the degree of variation with subsequent “Randomize” button clicks by allowing the plugin to use a larger set of random numbers. Finally, the arrow buttons at the bottom of the interface allow easy cycling forward and back through the different variations.
• The plugin saves and loads user presets.
• A Live Clipping option allows for making adjustments to avoid clipped highlights or shadows.
• Color toning and changing color luminosity can be quickly added directly from the user interface.

I’ve included Dave Kelly’s “First Look” video below to provide an overview of how this plugin works. To get additional information please visit this page or download the free Instructions PDF.

SUMMARY: The TK Magic Mixer allows the Photoshop Channel Mixer adjustment to become a useful part of the Photoshop workflow. It’s especially good at exploring diverse black and white alternatives via an intuitive interface. Perhaps the best thing is that the plugin is currently on sale for only $7.50 USD on the Panels & Videos page. Just be sure to add the following PROMO CODE in the shopping cart to get this limited-time offer: Magic25