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The Orphanage Releases Free Plug-Ins for Adobe After Effects

San Francisco, CA, August 3, 2004 — The Orphanage, Inc., whose recent visual effects efforts include Fox’s “The Day After Tomorrow” and Revolution Studios’ “Hellboy,” announced today the release of a key piece of its visual effects technology to the public. Called eLin, the software consists of a suite of plug-ins and scripts for Adobe After Effects 6.5 that allow compositors to work in the expanded photographic color space of film. eLin is free of charge for non-commercial use.

eLin is ideal for 3D compositing because it addresses challenges such as motion blur, depth of field, glows, and basic transformations that appear when you combine 2D and 3D imagery. eLin’s technology takes the built-in After Effects features to the next level—creating more photographic results from the tools After Effects users are already familiar with, even other third-party effects. With support for industry-standard Cineon film scans as well as Industrial Light + Magic’s open source EXR file format, eLin integrates well with any production pipeline.

“We created eLin to work more organically with film and other High Dynamic Range material,” said Stu Maschwitz, Orphanage CTO, “but we now use it on every project, from A-list movies to commercials.”

“eLin completely changes everything in After Effects and the way I will look at compositing in it forever,” said Joe Pavlo, Visual Effects Supervisor for HBO’s Rome. “I thought I would only be getting this from Shake for a long time to come.”

“One of the principal challenges in using After Effects for high-end work is its lack of floating-point color support,” elaborated Maschwitz. “eLin cheats floating-point performance out of After Effects’ 16 bits-per-channel mode, effectively promoting every basic After Effects function to HDR. Even third-party plug-ins gain a color performance advantage with eLin.”

Pricing and Availability

eLin supports Adobe After Effects, version 6.5, and is available for commercial use for $499 (USD) through Red Giant Software, www.redgiantsoftware.com. Multiple and site license discounts can be requested.

The software can also be obtained free of charge for non-commercial use. Fully functional downloads, with no watermarking or restrictions, are available at www.redgiantsoftware.com/elin.html.

About The Orphanage

Founded by former Industrial Light + Magic visual effects artists Jonathan Rothbart, Stuart Maschwitz and Scott Stewart, The Orphanage is focused on high-end VFX services and animation for features and broadcast, original motion picture and television production, and digital filmmaking technology development and licensing.

The Orphanage is well-known for its Magic Bullet family of digital cinema products including Magic Bullet Suite and Magic Bullet Editors, sold through Red Giant Software. eLin marks the first time that The Orphanage has released proprietary visual effects technology to the public.

About Red Giant Software

Red Giant Software LLC (www.redgiantsoftware.com) is a San Francisco-based company that develops professional tools for digital video production. Products are available as plug-ins for popular video editing and effects applications including After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Motion, Premiere Pro, and Avid. All tools are based on production-proven technology developed by visual effects veterans.

All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.