Those creative geniuses at Alien Skin software have done it again!
   This is Xenofex which, much like their highly-acclaimed Eye Candy software, is a set of PhotoShop plug-ins which do some truly amazing things.
   What makes Alien Skin's products so special is that they are so easy to use. A click here, a click there, and you have a dynamite graphic effect that will truly liven up your whole web page.
   Consider, for example, the flag on the left. It was done in Xenofex in about three minutes. To make it work as an animated .gif file, we created three different flags and then sent them to Auto f/x's Universal Animator. A super original, custom animation in three minutes? Pretty easy.
   All in all, there are 16 filters in Xenofex. Installation is a snap and so is using the filters. They come with lots of pre-configured options and, once you play with those for a little while, you'll be able to make your own adjustments very, very easily.
   Other than the flag, among my favorite filters are stain – which lets you simulate a coffee or other liquid stain on a "piece of paper;" distress – with which you can make broken up type and other objects and crumple – that lets you make "notes" and other things on a piece of paper which looks like it has been crumpled up and thrown away, only to be flattened out again.
   There are constellations, baked earth and one called stamper.
   Stamper is rather unique: it fills your image with miniture times which can be the original image you used or any other image you happen to have. Really rather sensational.
  With all these interesting filters, it is easy to overlook the one you'll use the most: rounded rectangle. As you can see from the very useful interface above, you can make lots of different kinds of rounded rectanges with ease. All you do is draw a rectange in Photoshop with your mask tool, click on Xenofex, and you're ready to go.  You can also save your own effects so you can use them over again,
   Before leaving you to contact Alien Skin and buy Xenofex as soon as you can (it is a lot of fun to play with, too!), I do want to mention the manual. It is clear, concise and tells you what you need to know to get maximum use out of Xenofex. Whoever wrote it for Alien Skin did a veryt good job which should be followed by other software houses.
   Xenofex is a really electrifying program. And its cool. Very, very cool.

   Link to the Alien Skin web site.