MetaCreations Announces Powerful New Version of Kai’s Power Tools
World-Famous Plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop
Carpinteria, CA, November 6, 1998 – MetaCreations Corp. (Nasdaq: MCRE)
announced today a new version of Kai’s Power Tools (KPT), a set of
plug-in applications for use within Adobe Photoshop. The new version, to
be called KPT 5, will provide professional designers and illustrators, Web
authors, photographers, and digital artists with brand-new powerful effects to
enhance their digital creative content.
“The definition of KPT has always been ‘tools to create something totally
new’ and I am very happy that this iteration will be even more unique than
many expect,” said Kai Krause, chief design officer of MetaCreations. “We
hope that designers all over the world will quickly embrace these as must-have
tools in the pursuit of visual beauty.”
Introduced in 1992, Kai’s award-winning Power Tools offer artists and
designers unique tools that allow them to differentiate their digital images.
KPT-generated effects are used to enhance artwork used in print, multimedia
projects, Web sites and broadcast television projects.
In addition to working with Adobe Photoshop, KPT 5 will work with any
image editing applications that support the Adobe Photoshop plug-in
architecture, including MetaCreations’ Painter 5.5, the world’s leading natural
media paint program for creating digital print and Web images.
“Our goal has always been to give digital designers the ultimate set of special
effects for use with Adobe Photoshop and MetaCreations Painter,” said John
Leddy, vice president of professional products at MetaCreations. “KPT 5 not
only adds an amazing array of effects, it also includes time-saving technology
that lets designers quickly enhance or create unique images.”
KPT 5 New Plug-In Applications
KPT 5 includes a host of real-time 3D tools, particle growth effects and
professional blurs. To give digital artists more control over these
effects, the
KPT 5 interface has been refined to offer precise access to numerical values,
real-time interactive previews of all operations and user-customizable options.
KPT ShapeShifter creates shapes and objects with refracting glass
edges, 3D light sources on beveled metallic surfaces, soft, curved and
lit Web buttons, and text. Resulting elements carry their masks with
them, which makes compositing a snap.
KPT Orb-It explodes a source image into thousands of spheres with
variations in size, density, and realistic 3D lighting. Produce fields of
bubbles, raindrops, and giant lenses, incredible text effects, and
mind-boggling distortions.
KPT FiberOptix creates anything from furry text, to green shag
carpet, pink plastic silly string, and lush creeping vines. Every strand
and fiber is a true 3D object. Masks are generated from the 3D data,
enabling easy compositing.
KPT Blurrrr is a professional suite of filters including the classic
zoom, spin, and other indispensable blurs updated with real-time
previews, pro-precision 64-bit color, and 128-bit math with new
algorithms and variations.
KPT FraxPlorer is the new, definitive Fractal Explorer featuring
real-time fly-throughs, 1000% larger previews, and never-before-seen
fractal styles.
View Images Created with KPT 5
System Requirements:
Windows: Pentium 166 MHz (or compatible) or faster, Windows 95/98/NT4,
Photoshop 3/4/5 or 100% compatible host, 32MB RAM, 50MB free hard disk
space, 24-bit color video, color monitor, CD-ROM drive. Recommended:
Pentium 266 MHz or faster, 64MB RAM or greater.
Macintosh:
PowerPC based Macintosh, MacOS 7.6.1 or later, Photoshop 3/4/5 or 100%
compatible host, 32MB RAM, 50MB hard disk space, 24-bit color video, color
monitor, CD-ROM drive. Recommended: 64MB host application RAM or
greater.
Pricing and Availability:
KPT5 will be available through national retail outlets, in catalogs, and direct
from MetaCreations this fall at an SRP of US $199. Upgrades to registered
users of KPT will be available for US $99.
About MetaCreations
MetaCreations Corporation, founded in 1987, designs and develops
award-winning desktop software tools and enabling technologies for creating
and manipulating 2D and 3D digital images and Web content. MetaCreations
offers a complete product line of graphics software for both professional users
and consumers, and its products are available in more than 70 countries. The
company is headquartered in Santa Barbara County, California, and has
development centers in Scotts Valley, Calif., and Princeton, N.J., as well
as an
International Operations Center in Dublin, Ireland. MetaCreations can be
reached on the World Wide Web at www.metacreations.com.
Contact:
Dorothy Eckel, MetaCreations Corp.
805/566-6464
deckel@metacreations.com
Teresa Bridwell, MetaCreations Corp.
805/566-6274
teresab@metacreations.com
