What is Magic Bullet PhotoLooks?

Magic Bullet PhotoLooks is a plug-in for creating stylized moods and treatments for any type of still media. PhotoLooks is a version of a popular product for video production, Magic Bullet Looks, that has been used by video editors and visual effects artists for many years.

PhotoLooks runs as a plug-in inside Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom and Apple's Aperture. The plug-in works with any image that these host apps can support, such as photographs, illustrations, graphic design work, and imported QuickTime movie frames. PhotoLooks can also be launched as a stand-alone application. See the LooksBuilder & Photoshop page for more info.

One great brand, three great products

There are actually three products under the Magic Bullet Looks brand: PhotoLooks, Looks, and QuickLooks. All three products define the style of your graphic with powerful imaging tools.

• Magic Bullet PhotoLooks is our plug-in package for use inside Photoshop, Aperture and Lightroom. It also works as an external editor called LooksBuilderPL.
• Magic Bullet Looks is the original product and it is very similar to PhotoLooks, except that it is designed to work on video or film by working in conjunction with video applications like After Effects and Final Cut Pro. To learn about Looks, visit our website: Magic Bullet Looks Product Page.
• Magic Bullet QuickLooks is a simplified version of Looks that also works with video applications. To learn about QuickLooks, visit our website: Magic Bullet QuickLooks Product Page.

What is a 'Look'?

PhotoLooks applies and edits the color design, or 'Look', of your photograph or still graphic. The plug-in goes beyond traditional color correction tools to incorporate a wide variety of tools that, when used in combination, can create outstanding color changes for your image. For instance, make a dim blue shot appear as if it was shot at sundown. Or emulate shutter streaking effects for a film-like effect.

A 'Look' is a set of color choices that combine to create a distinct color appearance. For instance, you can choose a preset that changes the color to warmer tones and adds diffusion to an image, this changes the colors to make the image seem warm and sunny. Most people associate warm and sunny with the feeling of summer, freedom and this makes the image have a more pleasant mood. Conversely, if you choose a preset that makes the image bluer and customize the colors to feel cold and dark, the photograph can feel distant or lonely like being alone on winter's day.

To create a Look, you will typically start with a Look preset from the Looks Quick Drawer. Tools are added to the Tool Chain when a Look preset is applied. Since a Look is built from these individual tools, you can make changes to your color design using the Tools Quick Drawer.

LooksBuilder - A Revolutionary Interface

Throughout this PhotoLooks manual, we will talk about the 'LooksBuilder'. The LooksBuilder is the interface that totally redefines how color treatments are handled. It is also the cutting edge interface that you will use to create your color looks. This is a new concept in color design, and LooksBuilder is the backbone of anything you do in PhotoLooks.

PhotoLooks is designed to make changing the color and mood of an image both simple and fast. We support the highest bit depth possible with PhotoLooks, including 32-bit floating point images. For images that run in standard 8-bit or 16-bit mode, PhotoLooks automatically and transparently upconverts the image to floating point format, performs all calculations with the highest precision, and then returns the video to the import format. This guarantees the highest fidelity for your final output.

Some of the terrific features include:

• Powerful Render Engine: PhotoLooks supports full 32-bit floating-point rendering for the highest quality output. The output of the plug-in will offer equivalent results, but with float-capable programs you can work with the high-dynamic range imagery produced by Looks.
• 102 Look Presets: PhotoLooks features 102 editable color presets that you can use on your projects. These presets have been divided into individual categories to make searching and browsing easier. The categories include: Basic, Black and White Tints, Diffusion, Horror, Music Videos, Popular Film, Popular TV, Special Effects, Stock Emulation, and Tints/Grads. To preview our different 'Looks', go to the Looks Preset Gallery page.
• Better Color Management: With version 1.5, PhotoLooks has improved and optimized color management. The color appearance matches any other color managed application, such as Photoshop, Lightroom or Aperture, extremely closely. As a plug-in, PhotoLooks 1.5 does a better job of pixel-to-pixel color managing between itself and its host application.
• Powerful Tools for Color Design: The LooksBuilder interface offers 36 tools for a large variety of options for tweaking your color design. The tools range from standard color correction tools like Lift/Gamma/Gain to advanced effects like Shutter Streak, Star Filter and Edge Defocus. See the Tool Area page for more info.
• Look Theater: A unique preview mode is built into the top navigation bar of LooksBuilder. Click the Preview button to begin an interactive slide show that shows the Look presets applied to your image The slide show applies each preset from the Look Library for a few seconds at a time, or can be paused and moved forward manually. See the Look Theater page for more info.