Have you tried plug-ins?

[tegan]

I have the viveza plug in from Nik software. I find it very useful and use it almost exclusively after universal adjustments in camera raw.
It is great because you can adjust separate parts of the photo. And if you convert to smart filter first you can go back and modify your adjustments later.

Yes, Viveza is quite fast and handles complex shaped selections extremely well without layers or masks. I have been able to do some adjustments in Viveza that were too complex and time consuming for Photoshop and do it faster with great quality.

Tegan

[tegan]

From Scalespeeder:
I've started to run Noise Ninja with almost every photo I edit(having set up custom profiles for my camera).

I have found that Noiseware Professional in standalone or plug-in is very flexible, adjustable and successful in reducing photo noise.

Tegan

[pslove]

i've used both nik color efex pro 2.0 and digital film tools 55mm v6 and i like the latter alot more than nik. i find my digi tools are alot easier to fine tune and a little bit more intuitive than nik. i tend to use the silver reflector and vignette in digi the most applied as an overlay to get the saturated slightly overexposed look i tend to prefer my photos to have. i also use curvemiester curves 2.0 instead of the standard curves feature in photoshop. i feel like it generally allows for more tweaking especially when i want an edgier look to my photos. i like the individual graphs for rgb, and hsb.

[tirediron]

I think I've got as much invested in plug-ins as in Photoshop itself... I like the Nik products, but I've also run across some good freeware stuff too. I do most of my post work in CaptureFX these days and really only us PS as a support system for [what I consider to be] crtical plug-ins (Which is going to make it realllllllly hard to justify shelling out the for CS4.

[tegan]

I think I've got as much invested in plug-ins as in Photoshop itself... I like the Nik products, but I've also run across some good freeware stuff too. I do most of my post work in CaptureFX these days and really only us PS as a support system for [what I consider to be] crtical plug-ins (Which is going to make it realllllllly hard to justify shelling out the for CS4.

Well, if you are just using the plug-ins, then PaintShop Pro X2 is the cheap approach since that program runs all the plug-ins as well.

Tegan

[mindforge]

At one point, I used the trials for several. Well, I almost always get the trials when I see them.

Noise ninja is great but gives a waxy or painted look to images sometimes. I would rely on instead working with noise. It is pretty cool to play with though.

I also used Nik software and found myself relying on it instead of doing the work myself which can be dangerous if you rely on it for long.

All these plug-ins are just tools to make it easier. It is better if you learn how to do it the real way and use the plug-ins as a hopping off point to learn how to do it yourself. You can create actions that do these plug-ins. Well, kind of. The plug-ins do offer the slide bars that let you control the impact of the design.

All in all though, Noise Ninja and Nik have been the best so far. Noise ninja saved a few pictures that had sentimental value but I would not use it in a professional setting. Nik is awesome to play with but most plug-in's were over the top.

[tirediron]

Well, if you are just using the plug-ins, then PaintShop Pro X2 is the cheap approach since that program runs all the plug-ins as well.

Tegan

That's on my desktop too! Interestingly enough, there are some plug-ins that it doesn't like especially, I can't remember off hand which, but I have found a few (commerical, not freeware) that it choked on.

[tegan]

That's on my desktop too! Interestingly enough, there are some plug-ins that it doesn't like especially, I can't remember off hand which, but I have found a few (commerical, not freeware) that it choked on.

That is often due to the program looking for the plug-in, in the wrong folder.
For a non-PC, I had a program that monitored what files, folders etc. the computer or program was accessing. It was extremely useful for correcting problems such as programs, plug-ins, not working.

Tegan