Plug in madness?

[falcon7]

<p>I've enhanced by PS Elements with one great plug in -- a curve plug-in that basically emulates full photoshop and Onone essentials--whose fractal technology seems excellent for upsizing. However, my head is spinning now since I've just been looking around the internet at other plug-ins and there seems to be thousands of them. The plug-in phenomenon seems even more wacky than the photo equipment-camera bodies, lenses, accessories, etc., etc. madness. I understand that it's a lot easier to create a plug-in than a new camera body line, but I'm hesitant to even researching the various plug ins because I'm afraid I'll spend more time reviewing them than the purported time I would save in using them. Does anyone have a plug-in 'philosophy' other than just ignoring them?</p>

[howard_m]

<p>it's like surfing internet forums; you can waste zillions of hours looking & playing. Get a couple that do what you have a need for and forget the rest unless/until you have a need. I only have a couple of plugins like Topaz, Noise. </p>

[py-photography]

<p>Like Howard said, you could spend the rest of you life trying out the various plugins.<br>

I have noiseware for high ISO noise leave the rest to other people with more time.</p>

[tom_mann1]

<p>Sorry, but my opinion is a vehement 180 degrees from the fellow who said that plugins were time wasters. </p>

<p>Personally, they save me huge ammts of time and/or make the results better that if I tried accomplishing the same thing with the built-in PS tools. Examples of plugins that I use regularly include:<br>

Asiva Select<br>

Color Mechanic Pro<br>

Focus Magic<br>

Neat Image<br>

Nik Color Efx Pro & Viveza<br>

OnOne's Mask Pro<br>

Power Retouche Pro Anti-aliasing, Histogram repair & a few others<br>

Tiffen Dfx - only on fairly rare occasions for special efx<br>

Topaz Denoise, Detail, JPG clean, Enlarge<br>

etc.</p>

<p>Notice that the above filters are specifically designed for, or can be toned down to produce, photo-realistic effects, not fantasy or "creative" efx. At least that's the way I use them. There are thousands of filters out there to produce the latter type of efx, but that's not the type of photography I do.</p>

<p>Each individual has to go through a long selection, learning and evaluation process w.r.t . plugins, but once you find a good set, their use will likely save you enormous amounts of time.</p>

<p>Cheers,</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

[johnlewell]

<p>Alan, I'm in agreement with Tom on this one. Plug-ins really do add value to your image editor, especially if you're using a relatively low-cost host like Adobe Elements or Paint Shop Pro Photo X2.<br>

If you want to browse all this stuff painlessly, I've put together some pages that contain both standalone programs and plug-ins (clearly indicated). It's at: <a href="http://www.photosoftwarenews.com/">PhotoSoftwareNews.com</a>. Just click on the Products page.</p>

[dane_strom]

<p>I've been through a number of plugins now and, though I've recently been doing all my post-processing within Camera Raw, the one plugin I've been returning to regularly for some time now is Nik's Color Efex Pro. There's really enough in there to keep you busy a long time, a really useful collection of tools. The graduated ND filter that's included is worth it for that alone... Viveza is also a very useful plugin. If you're looking to get started with just one plugin (that's essentially a big toolbox of plugins), check out Color Efex Pro.</p>

<p>Another strategy to help you decide: be sure and download the free demo version. Most plugins have one.</p>