Digital Anarchy Announces Beauty Box 2.0

Press release from Digital Anarchy:

San Francisco, CA — Digital Anarchy [1] announced Beauty Box 2.0, a significant update of its award-winning skin retouching product. Version 2.0 gives an amazing speed increase by using OpenCL, a new technology that runs on ATI and Nvidia cards. The new product also introduces a new smoothing algorithm that improves automatic masking, and adds shine removal for hot spots on skin areas. Host app support now includes Final Cut Pro X, and support for OpenFX applications is in development.

"Beauty Box is almost magical,” said Bill Evans, producer for Radiant Records. “We didn't have time to properly light our scene, and the artists didn't look like themselves. Options were slim and costly. With Beauty Box, we were able to solve the problem the same afternoon we downloaded it. The facial tracking really works, the skin-tone algorithms are pretty natural, and the interface is simple. I'm still amazed." [Project: Steve Morse & Sarah Spencer promotional video.]

Since 2008, Beauty Box Video has been a critical tool for dealing with skin and makeup problems that HD and 4K reveal. HD shows so much detail that often viewers see flaws that weren’t visible in SD. Beauty Box 2.0 solves this problem by giving actors and models an incredible makeover in post-production, using state-of-the-art face detection and smoothing algorithms that preserve important details and the natural skin texture. The Beauty Box algorithm has been redeveloped to take advantage of OpenCL technology, which increases its rendering speed on all host applications, operating systems and video cards.

“Our biggest request has been for increased speed, and this 2.0 release delivers on that,“ said Jim Tierney, President of Digital Anarchy. “Beauty Box is now about 300% faster on most video cards. The best part is that it’s as great as ever at producing subtle skin smoothing that looks beautifully realistic. You get the same high quality rendering that won Beauty Box all the awards and accolades, like Videomaker’s Plugin of the Year and Event DV’s Best of NAB.”

Here is a rundown of the great new features:

• Faster Rendering: A complete rewrite of the skin-smoothing algorithm means Beauty Box is up to 300% faster on ATI and NVIDIA cards.
• Shine Removal:Get rid of hot spots caused by shiny skin and bright lights! This feature dramatically reduces the effect of poor lighting conditions.
• Better Masking: The skin tone mask algorithm has been improved for a better automatic mask.
• Support for Final Cut Pro X: Beauty Box now fully supports Final Cut Pro X, along with earlier versions of FCP.
• Better Performance in Premiere Pro:The new algorithm brings improved stability and speed in Premiere Pro.
• More Host Apps Coming Soon: Support for OpenFX host apps like Sony Vegas Pro, Assimilate Scratch, and Nuke will be available in Q2 2012. Avid support available in Q3 2012.

Pricing and Availability
Beauty Box Video 2.0 is regularly priced at $199 USD, but will be on sale for $139 USD until June 1st, 2012. Upgrades are priced at $59 (reg. $89) until June 1st, 2012.

Beauty Box Video runs in After Effects 7.0–CS6, Final Cut Pro X, Final Cut Pro 7, and Premiere Pro CS4–CS6. The product runs on Macintosh 10.5–10.8, Windows XP–7 and Vista 32- or 64-bit systems. Demo filters and samples are available at www.digitalanarchy.com [2]. Customers should contact Digital Anarchy at sales@digitalanarchy.com [3] with update questions.