I am not a videographer. I don't even consider myself to be an Adobe pro. So, when I found out I won the digieffects plug-in at the last meeting, I was a little nervous. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised. I'd heard of digieffects but had never used their software before. Just a quick visit to http://digieffects.com/ shows an impressive list of time-saving plug-ins for incredible video programs such as After Effects and Premiere Pro. I could make several blog posts about their products (several of which I tried) but this review is specifically about Damage, a plugin that the company describes as a product "dedicated to making your project look WORSE." It's absolutely perfect for horror videos, theatrical trailers, or special effects.

A great value, the plugin includes four separate effects: Blockade, Interference, Skew and Artifact. Blockade simply renders a video to look lower-quality. Interference gives your video clip a very cool scan line effect. My absolute favorites, however, are Skew (think: ghosting, noise, or other issues you used to see on old analog televisions) and Artifact. Artifact in particular might be the poster-child for "Damage" as it makes the video clip look like it was created from a corrupt file or a damaged piece of film. You can combine these effects over and over to create all kinds of cool videos.

For additional dimension, I recommend applying some of your favorite digital video effects or even basic techniques such as text or blur first, and then adding the Damage effect. Even better, combine them with other digieffects plugins, such as Illuma or Aged Film. There are endless varieties of outcomes you could create!

Along with great products, digieffects provides tutorials, plenty of documentation, video examples, and - my personal favorite - entire .zip files of projects that can be downloaded if you'd like to see layers illustrating how to recreate an effect. (For Damage, I recommend checking out the Cross Bars Overlay or Jumpin' Video projects.)

I will say, this is not a tool for beginners - but that is NOT because of digieffects. Their software is very intuitive and straightforward, easy to install and even easier to use. But to get the most out of it, you will need to know how to use video software. If you have any type of video editing background at all, though, you should be able to catch on very quickly. And there are plenty of online tutorials to help you along the way.

I am still perfecting my first video, which I've created in Premiere with help from Damage. I've found that these effects leave you inspired to create even MORE cool new videos, so there WILL be more projects to come! I will upload a final video once I'm done. In the meantime, I've attached a preview screenshot if you'd like to see one of the Damage effects.