Any discussion or Kai's Power Tools (KPT) — a collection of texture and special-effects plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop — must begin with its unusual, sometimes bizarre, but always extravagant interface. This is one of the few pieces of software to violate Macintosh interface standards and get away with it; buttons dim when you're not using them instead of when they’re inapplicable; you adjust settings by clicking on marbles and dragging words rather than using slider bars or entering numeric values. In fact, the only familiar Macintosh element is the pop-up menu.
Divergent Dialog Boxes
In KPT 3.0, the interface is more lavish and outrageous than ever, but it has also become distressingly inconsistent, with three varieties of dialog boxes. (Because KPT consists of Photoshop filters, MetaTools [formerly HSG Software] must present all filter options in dialog boxes.) The 4 core filters use one type of dialog box... Two dialog box variations — which go unexplained in the printed documentation — present the other 14 filters... These divergent dialog boxes differ in their previews, pop-up menus, and some options. MetaTools considers the new dialog boxes an improvement over KPT 2.1's single-shot commands, which offered no options, but 3.0’s desultory variations are needlessly confusing and even irritating.
Improved Core Filters
KPT's most important filters have always been Texture Explorer, which lets you define random mathematical patterns, and Gradient Designer, the best tool I've used for creating gradations. Both are now significantly more robust. Texture Explorer generates infinite patterns that can fill any area without repeating, eliminating the schematic look associated with tile patterns. You can also scale, rotate, and position patterns. Texture Explorer and Gradient Designer let you view thumbnails of saved patterns and gradients, rather than simply select them by name. And you can change color brightness and contrast, blur color transitions, and adjust other characteristics with realtime feedback. These filters have always been a joy to use, and in KPT 3 they are faster and more powerful.
Version 3 also has two new core filters, Interform and Spheroid Designer. Interform lets you blend two parent patterns to form new offspring; you can favor one pattern or set both in motion, resulting in a continuous stream of possible offspring. You can even save a QuickTime movie of the mingling parents (although it's unlikely Photoshop artists will find much use for this). Spheroid Designer lets you create colored spheres, shine up to four lights on them, vary their colors and surface textures, and control their convexity. This filter has more limited uses than Texture Explorer or Gradient Designer (how many variations on sphere art does the world need?), but it’s inarguably comprehensive.
Lots of Little Filters
Though they lack hard-copy documentation, the remaining filters have been enhanced. The familiar Glass Lens and Page Curl filters offer more-reliable controls, 3D Stereo Noise creates color stereograms, and a new Planar Tiling filter repeats images at various sizes and angles. Other plug-ins arrange repeating images in rotating, concentric shapes and kaleidoscopic patterns. These filters permit a wider range of variations and better previewing than their predecessors.
The F/X filters are useful — you can blur images, trace edges, add noise, and apply other pixel convolutions — but their implementation leaves something to be desired. The filters are listed in the awkward Lens F/X dialog box, which looks like an abstract map of the United States with knobs protruding from it... The good news is that you can switch between F/X filters without closing the dialog box; the bad news is that its design is labor intensive (you change values by dragging the knobs rather than by entering numbers from the keyboard), and the previews can be inaccurate (the effect is applied only to a detail in the image, without regard for pixels outside the preview),
The Last Word
KPT 3.0 is more capable, powerful, and speedy than previous versions. Its also harder to use, a problem aggravated by the inadequate printed documentation. (The built-in help is good but lacks much-needed figures and doesn't let you experiment with filters as you read.) KPT remains the most innovative plug-in suite available for Photoshop; I just wish MetaTools had given a little more thought to what drew us to the Mac in the first place — ease of learning and ease of use.
McClelland, Deke. (February 1996). Kai's Power Tools 3.0. Macworld. (pg. 57).
MetaTools, Inc.
Applications
out of 10 (2 votes)
50 / 
2015-08-13 / 
869106a79e6d4d695e68590a7044f317f515399a / 
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KPT_3.img_.sit
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
Basilisk II
