What's New in Optics 2022

Particles for photo editing: Particle Illusion is a fast and easy-to-use particle generator to create photoreal effects and unlimited creative elements. Features thousands of particle presets and assets to enhance photo editing including smoke, fire, water, sparkles, explosions, dust, sci-fi, and more.

Improved performance on Macs: Native Apple M1 support and Metal GPU acceleration deliver significant render speed increases.

Emmy Award-winning VFX: Adds more creative effects from the Boris FX Sapphire collection including UltraZap (superhero/sci-fi lightning effects), UltraGlow (smooth and slick glows), Emboss_Glass, Warp_Waves (lens/distortion effects), and more. 

Improved alpha and masking workflows: Move layer masks between Photoshop and Optics for flexible compositing and layering. Masking tools, lighting effects, and render generators can now process and export alpha for unlimited asset creation.

Beauty and portrait retouching tools: The Beauty Studio filter (from Boris FX Continuum collection) reduces blemishes, wrinkles, and pores for skin smoothing and digital makeup. The Pin Warp tool warps and reshapes faces or body parts using interactive pin controls.

2000+ more presets: Includes film stocks and movie looks, lens flares, gobo/light patterns, and tons of Particle Illusion presets.

Improved user interface: Streamlined look, compact sliders, and ability to customize and import/export workspaces.

Particles for photo editing: Particle Illusion is a fast and easy-to-use particle generator to create photoreal effects and unlimited creative elements. Features thousands of particle presets and assets to enhance photo editing including smoke, fire, water, sparkles, explosions, dust, sci-fi, and more.

Improved performance on Macs: Native Apple M1 support and Metal GPU acceleration deliver significant render speed increases.

Emmy Award-winning VFX: Adds more creative effects from the Boris FX Sapphire collection including UltraZap (superhero/sci-fi lightning effects), UltraGlow (smooth and slick glows), Emboss_Glass, Warp_Waves (lens/distortion effects), and more. 

Improved alpha and masking workflows: Move layer masks between Photoshop and Optics for flexible compositing and layering. Masking tools, lighting effects, and render generators can now process and export alpha for unlimited asset creation.

Beauty and portrait retouching tools: The Beauty Studio filter (from Boris FX Continuum collection) reduces blemishes, wrinkles, and pores for skin smoothing and digital makeup. The Pin Warp tool warps and reshapes faces or body parts using interactive pin controls.

2000+ more presets: Includes film stocks and movie looks, lens flares, gobo/light patterns, and tons of Particle Illusion presets.

Improved user interface: Streamlined look, compact sliders, and ability to customize and import/export workspaces.

Overview

The definitive tool box for image editing and photo based visual effects. Created by Academy Award-winning effects artists, Optics brings Hollywood film quality lighting and lens effects, curated film looks, and realistic particle creation tools to photographers.

174 unique filters and 1000’s of creative imaging presets in 10 categories: Color , Diffusion/Blurs , Film Lab , Grads/Tints , Image , Lens/Distort , Light , Render , Stylize , and new Particle Illusion

Optics is a plugin for Adobe Photoshop & Lightroom and a standalone application. Available on macOS and Windows.

Particles for Photo Editing  

New! Optics now includes the Particle Illusion category. A fast and easy-to-use particle engine designed to create photoreal effects and unlimited creative elements.

Featuring 1700+ particle presets to enhance your photo editing including: Smoke, Fire, Water, Sparkles, Explosions, Dust, Sci-Fi, and many more.

Unlimited creativity. For full control, launch the Particle Illusion interface to design custom emitters or to access advanced features like Forces, Deflectors, and Fluid Dynamics.

Featuring a robust layer-based compositing interface and powerfully flexible masking tools, Optics can be used for simple photo editing, full image manipulations, or to design and generate creative assets and graphics. Add a lighting effect in just one click or combine unlimited masks and filters to design your own look.

The Best Lighting Effects  

Explore the largest collection of procedural lens flares, lighting, gobos, and particle effects for photography. Why use stock footage elements when you can design, edit, and save your own libraries of presets and favorites?

Combine and build your own library of presets and favorites. Everything in Optics is procedural for creative control.

Trusted By Pro VFX Artists

Optics features plugins and filters regularly used on famous films and television shows. Top tools from the Boris FX Suite are included in Optics to help produce professional looking images.

Includes Lens Flares, Light Rays, Ultra Zap (lightning), UltraGlow, Light Leaks, and many more from the popular Boris FX Sapphire collection and Continuum’s Beauty Studio.

Physical Camera Qualities 

Whether it is historical film stocks, color grading, or lens and diffusion effects, Optics is the only Photoshop filter designed to emulate the physical characteristics of optical camera filters.

Add beauty and depth to your digital images with diffusion filters like Mist, Fog, Net, Halo, and more. New Beauty Studio filter simplifies detail separation techniques for subtle skin retouching!

Packed with Effect Presets

600+ historical film stocks and film looks including color grades from famous Hollywood films

126 optical lens flare presets from Boris FX Sapphire

800+ Gobo lighting patterns

1700+ particle presets including Abstracts, Dust, Smoke, Fire, and more

Masking and Paint Tools

Optics features powerful masking and paint tools to replace backgrounds, isolate effects, or fix and touch up pixels.

EZ Mask with gestural stroke based masking

Gradient, Spot, Path, Snap, Selection, and Paint mask types

Combine multiple masks using blend modes

Paint, clone, and blur with support for Wacom tablets

Explore Graphic Design

Apply Optics to text to create stunning graphics and inspired style frames. Optics also includes multiple generator and texture effects to design unique backgrounds and graphic elements.

Learn how to use Optics to create stylized graphic backgrounds