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Review - Genarts Sapphire v5 for Adobe’s After Effects

If one thing wow’d me when I first started editing, it was third party plug-ins that really amazed me, and one package that always seemed to be a given on any editing system was Genarts Sapphire.  Wherever I was freelancing, they always seemed to have a copy of Sapphire.  Back in the day, they were the premiere plug-in package to own, as Sapphire seemed to have an effect for just about any situation.  Fast forward to 2010, and Genarts has just released they newest version of Sapphire, version 5, so let’s see if Sapphire has stood the test of time, and is still the package to beat!

INSTALLATION

Genarts, much like Adobe, has with online licensing for Sapphire.  Gone are the days of having to contact Genarts to have them generate a machine specific license for you.  Now, you can simply purchase and download the software and activate it over the internet.  You can also deactivate it, and switch the license from machine to machine, but you can’t have the same license on two different machines at the same time.  Genarts also offers a free trail of Sapphire 5 from their website.  All-in-all, the download and installation of the plug-ins should take you no longer than 10 minutes.

WHAT YOU GET/HOW IT WORKS

I have to start out this section by mentioning that Sapphire 5 is 64-bit compatible, and running on After Effects CS5 for both Mac and Windows.  That being said, currently there is no AVX or FXPlug version of Sapphire 5 (Sapphire pre-version 5 is available for purchase for both AVX and FXPlug), but I can only assume that those versions are on their way (I hope!).

As I had mentioned earlier, Sapphire has been a plug-in powerhouse package for a while, and version five adds sixteen new effects to the over 200 that were with its previous version.  Of the sixteen effects, eleven of them are wipes/dissolves, and the last five are made up of:

TV Damage

Fairly self explanatory.  An effect that simulates static, ghosting, interference and much more

TV Channel Change

A very cool transition effect that simulates the channel changing on an old-school TV

Technicolor 2 Strip/3 Strip

Give your footage the look of 1930’s TC 2 Strip or 1935-1955 3 Strip

Swish 3D Dissolve

A transition effect that transitions between clips while performing 3D moves on each.

Check out the below sample I quickly put together with some of the new effects:

Also, I want to mention that Genarts has also updated some previous effects, as well as added additional features such as +1 threshold control to support HDR.  You can check out all the additional feature updates here.  One thing that I have always liked about Sapphire is that it covers a wide range of effects that eliminates the need for you to go out and buy a plug-in “here and there”.  They have divided up Sapphire into four Main Catagories. The Lighting “box” has the Glows (probably the best out there in a plug-in package), the Glints/Glares, Lens Flares and Rays.  The Stylize “box” has the Film Effect (another fantastic effect), Bleach Bypass, Cartoon and the Damage effects (JPEG Damage, TV Damage, Scanlines, ect).  Moving on to the Adjust, Blur/Sharpen, Composite and Distort “box”, you have everything from Blurs to Tones (Duo, Tri and Quad), to a Soft Focus (another of my favorites) and Shake.  Last, we have the Render, Time and Transitions “box” that has Gradients, Lightning (one of the best ones out there) and a ton of transition effects (including TV Channel Change and Swish 3D).  Needless to say, I’ve only scratched the surface of the effects included in Sapphire.  You can check out the full list here.

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i liked that video and it effects…

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  08/11  at  04:58 AM

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