First Exposure: Design|House Suite Volume 1

Before I begin, I owe an apology to Andy Armstrong, the creative force behind design|house, and the rest of the people involved in these Windows/Mac Photoshop-compatible tools. Andy, I apologize for taking so long in preparing this review, but you have to accept some responsibility also. When you shipped me the design|house DVD and I unzipped the folders, I was intimidated by the 2.2GB of actions, brushes, shapes, styles, high-resolution backgrounds, wallpapers, textures, digital mats and textures that were included. So I set it aside for a while.

When I decided to attack it again, I went first to the design|house website (www.getdesignhouse.com) for some background. There I found an array of tutorials that got me over my fears and doubts. I highly recommend them to anyone thinking about purchasing the design|house Suite Volume 1 DVD. While I can describe the contents, tell you how really easy they are to use, and show you some possibilities for using them, the video tutorials will show them in action in more detail than the printed page permits.

Included in the design|house collection are the following: 40+ actions, 20 styles, 25 12 x 12-inch 300dpi backgrounds, 72 12 x 12-inch 300dpi mottled backgrounds, 15 300dpi cards and cardstock, 64 custom shapes, 26 digital mats, 59 brushes, 96 300dpi photo textures, 26 300dpi handmade textures and folds, 252 12 x 12-inch 300dpi wallpapers and a collection of photo objects with transparent backgrounds.

These are collected into five ZIP files on the DVD. A separate file (installation.txt) gives instructions for unzipping and installing the collection. Some of the unzipped folders, such as the backgrounds and textures, contain JPEGs that you access while you are working in Photoshop. These need to go somewhere where you can find them when you need them. Exactly where is left up to you.

Other unzipped folders, such as the actions, brushes, custom shapes and styles contain files that must be loaded into Photoshop from the Actions palette or by using the Preset Manager, so it’s necessary to keep track of where you unzipped these folders. Once I had unzipped all of the folders, I opened Photoshop CS3 to load these files.

When you follow the instructions, the design|house actions load as a separate collection in the Actions palette. However, the brushes, the custom shapes and the styles append themselves to the default list in their respective palettes. I would have much preferred that they just show up in the list at the bottom of the drop-down menu you access from the upper right tool in each palette. That way you could load them when you need them and not have them visible when they are not in use. I also felt that the process of loading them in their respective palettes took me more time than I thought it should have, because I ended up having to search through the unzipped folders to find the files that I needed.

Once you have everything installed and organized, the fun begins. Portrait, wedding, event, senior and even commercial photographers will find useful tools in the design|house collection.

Portrait photographers, for example, will probably find themselves using the design|house actions more than any other part of the collection. There are several actions to punch up contrast, others to convert to monochrome, many options to colorize to sepia and a wide range of other tints, a couple of vignette actions and even an eye sharpener action.
All of the actions push their effect to the max. Many stop part way through so that you can adjust their effect to your liking while the action runs. All the ones I tried leave the action on a separate layer so you can adjust it or lower its opacity when the action has completed. I liked the fact that the effects were overdone and I could back them off if I felt they were too much. This is much quicker than trying to figure out how to make them stronger.

Portrait photographers are sure to find a favorite among the 40+ design|house actions. My favorite, Hodgysoft, will appeal not only to portrait photographers, but wedding, event and commercial photographers alike. The Hodgysoft action produces one of the most beautiful softening effects I have ever seen. When the action runs, it pauses at two points to give you complete control over the effect. Again I recommend viewing the Hodgysoft workflow tutorial on the design|house website, which includes some hints on how to use the Photoshop History brush, the last step in the Hodgysoft action, to bring back some sharpness in important areas.

Still, it is really difficult to pick just one favorite. I used several vignette actions, including one of my own creation, but found myself using the included design|house square and oval vignette actions most of the time. I continued using them because they allowed me to adjust the size of the vignette during one step of the action and the contrast and value of the vignette, from white to black, during another. Like the other tools in the suite, the vignette tools are well designed and intuitive to use.
High school senior photographers will add sales by including some portraits enhanced with design|house “monkeys” actions to their portfolios. The 12 monkeys provide repeatable cross-processing actions that you can adjust from way over the top to just quirky enough to appeal to both the senior and the parents.

Wedding and event photographers have all the tools available along with high resolution backgrounds suitable for album pages. The design|house styles are really useful when designing album pages also. After adding an image to the design|house page background, one click adds a white border, or a drop shadow, or both.

Any photographer who makes prints will find a use for the 26 digital mats in the design|house collection. The mats allow you to almost instantly create rough or sloppy borders around images. When you use them as a mask to erase away the background of the main image, you can add a new textured background by selecting one of the 122 possibilities that are available. The background possibilities are endless since you can adjust the size, shape, hue, saturation, contrast and brightness of each one.
The 59 brushes included in the collection don’t overlap with the Photoshop brushes. Instead, the design|house brushes include abstract shapes, branches, leaves, splatters, drops and more. Brushes can be used not only as brushes, but also as erasers, burning and dodging tools, again opening up a huge range of creative options.

The more I work with the design|house Suite Volume 1, the more I see the enormous potential for creative expression that it opens for photographers of almost any specialty. I recommend you visit the design|house website (www.getdesignhouse.com), view the tutorials, and see how the software can inspire you and help you grow your business. Don’t be intimidated as I initially was by the number and range of tools that are included. Install them and put them to work for you.

The design|house Suite Volume 1 is available for download from the design|house website for $399. You can also purchase the 40+ actions without the rest of the Suite for $199.       

Stan Sholik is a contributing writer for NewsWatch Feature Service. He is also a commercial photographer with over 30 years of large format studio and location experience.