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PHOTO EDITING & IMAGE EFFECTS

Easily add blockbuster-worthy effects and looks to your photos with Optics. The toolbox, created by Academy Award-winning effects artists, delivers Hollywood film-quality lighting and lens effects, curated film looks, and realistic particle creation to photographers and digital artists.

Highlights include over 180 filters and 1000s of gorgeous presets in 10 categories: Color, Diffusion/Blurs, Film Lab, Grads/Tints, Image, Lens/Distort, Light, Render, Stylize, and Particle Illusion.

Optics is available as a plugin for Adobe Photoshop & Lightroom and a standalone application.

New! Boris FX Hub

Meet the Boris FX Hub. It's your home for downloading, installing, and licensing Boris FX tools. Get ready for a seamless, user-friendly experience.

  • Dive into free trials for any of our products
  • Easily install and license the Boris FX Suite or select software
  • Activate or deactivate licenses without the fuss
  • Stay up-to-date on the latest versions of our products
  • Direct connections to dedicated training and support

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New for 2024   

  • 8 Filters: Atmospheric Glow, Magic Sharp, Orbs, Prism, S_PrismLens, Smoke and Fog, Super LED, and S_UltraGrain
  • Particle Illusion: Adds masking, trails, gradient presets, 3D deflectors, force turbulence, and more
  • More Presets: 100+ professionally designed and curated presets

Particle Illusion Update   

Particle Illusion adds even more creative features to elevate motion graphics workflows.

  • Emit particles from masks
  • Add artistic flair to animations with particle trails
  • Easily update particle colors with an enhanced gradient editor and presets
  • Add organic motion using force object direction turbulence
  • Create faster with dozens of usability improvements

 
 

FAST AND CREATIVE PHOTO MANIPULATION

 
 

Optics features a robust layer-based compositing interface and powerful, flexible masking tools. Tackle everything from simple photo editing to full image manipulations to designing and generating custom assets and graphics.

The Best Lighting Effects   

Explore the largest collection of procedural lens flares, lighting, gobos, and particle effects for photography. Just say no to stock footage elements. Quickly design, edit, and save your own libraries of presets of favorites with Optics.

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


Artist Tested. Hollywood Proven.

Optics gives you access to the same plugins and filters regularly used on the most popular films and TV series with the addition of top tools from the Boris FX Suite.

Add Lens Flares, Light Rays, Ultra Zap (lightning), UltraGlow, Light Leaks, and many more effects from our Emmy Award-winning Sapphire collection, or retouch skin easily with Continuum’s Beauty Studio.


Stunning Particle Creation

The Particle Illusion category is a fast and easy-to-use particle engine that creates unique effects and elements.

Particle Illusion features 1700+ particle presets to enhance photo editing, including Smoke, Fire, Water, Sparkles, Explosions, Dust, Sci-Fi, and more. Learn more about Particle Illusion.

You can also create and export cinemagraphs — photo animations — using Optics in Photoshop, Lightroom, or the standalone application.

Get started with cinemagraphs. Watch Now


Physical Camera Characteristics

Optics is the only Photoshop plugin that emulates the physical characteristics of optical camera filters, whether it’s historical film stocks, color grading, or lens and diffusion effects.

Add beauty and depth to your digital images with diffusion filters like Mist, Fog, Net, Halo, and more.


Packed with Effect Presets 

  • 600+ film stocks and film looks
  • 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
  • Exchange masks with Photoshop

Monthly Subscription

$9/month * Cancel anytime
Plugin for Photoshop, Lightroom or standalone application
Always up to date with automatic monthly billing
Never miss an upgrade with a subscription

Perpetual License

$149
Plugin for Photoshop, Lightroom or standalone application
Includes 12 months of free upgrades and support
Single upfront payment

TECH/SPECS

Product:

Release Number

Optics 2024

2024.0

Requirements:

  • macOS: 10.14 or higher
  • Windows: Windows 10 or higher on x64

Hardware:

Recommended Hardware:

  • Processor: Intel or AMD processor
  • Memory: 2GB of RAM (8GB or more recommended)
  • Disk: High-speed disk array or SSD storage. 1GB of available disk space for caching and temporary files

Graphics Card:

  • NVIDIA GTX 460 or better
  • AMD Radeon 57xx series or better
  • OpenGL 2.1 capable graphics card
  • OpenCL 1.1 capable graphic card
  • 1GB of graphics memory

Licensing options:

  • Nodelocked license
  • Licenses both the Photoshop/Lightroom plug-in and standalone

Host Applications:

  • Adobe Photoshop CC and up (64 Bit Only)
  • Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018 and up (Non-app store version)
  • Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic

Architecture:

  • Color management using ICC profiles
  • Exchangeable Image File Format (Exif)
  • Camera RAW, TIFF, PNG, JPEG as well as Kodak Cineon and DPX file formats
  • Mac Retina Display Support
  • 8, 16, 32 bit image processing
  • Multi-processor acceleration
  • GPU acceleration
  • Multi-processor support

OPTICS AMBASSADORS

"The lens flares and light rays effects are amazing and very useful in so many situations."

Daniel Cheong | Photographer



"I always use Optics particles, lens flares, light, optical filters, and color grading tools. It simply helps you create more than you ever thought you could."

Dalia | Macro Photographer



"It’s an easy-to-learn package with lots of presets and good adaptability. And, above all, layering/adding effects on top of each other makes it so much more than a filter plugin."

Draco Rubio | Fine Art Photographer



"The amount of flare customization in Optics is unbelievable. I’ve only scratched the surface."

Jesse Feyereisen | Toy Photographer



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