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PS Plugin filters-advice & discussion

Ross Stockwell

New member
Hello -- my first post here -- this not a RAW-centric posting (but neither is is jpeg-focused) -- so if this item needs to be moved elsewhere - feel free ....

Anyway - I am interested in any opinions/advice regarding the major sets of PS effects plugins available. (eg Alien Skin, Auto EFX, Nik, Power Retouche etc...). Also any links to existing, 'quality' discussions comparing these would be useful (to me ;)

I realize one needs to dabble with any of them to see if they are useful to individual needs, but I'd appreciate hearing about others' experiences, preferences and recomendations using these, either singly or in combination.

some specifics will help -
What are the 'best' edge or frame plugins & why?
What creative filter sets seem to give the most mileage?

thanks in advance
 

Michael Tapes

OPF Administrator/Moderator
Ross,

This is really a personal decision. All the ones you have listed are quite good, as are the ones from PhotoKit (PixelGenius). Most have free trials and it is up to you to figure out what you re looking for and what criteria you set for your work and your tools. I would suggest a simple google search on each set to find a host of information about each.

HTH
 

Ross Stockwell

New member
thanks and clarification

Thanks Micheal & Kjeld for your replies to my post --

I think my (confusing) question is driven by somthing like 'How do I know what I do not know?'

As I said, I realize I need to do my own research and evaluation of the various filter options available. The respective websites are reasonably descriptive about their products and features. I need to determine the look/feel of what they offer as well as separate out the marketing hype. No one else can do that for me ;)

All that aside, I am curious to know if, in actual use and practice, there are any 'undocumented' usablity features/issues (criteria/impact on workflow) that one would want to be aware of as part of an evaluation of these.

OR - are they so similar in usablity/features (or subsequent workflow) that no meaningful distinction between them can be made on that basis?

I will look in the 'craigs actions' - thanks for the link.
 

Michael Tapes

OPF Administrator/Moderator
PhotoKit sharpener, is considered by many to be the holy grail of sharpening. I am presently using it will very pleasing results. But there are many ways to sharpen, and one size does not necessarily fit all..
 

jmr063

New member
I think AlienSkin, for the money, is an outstanding plugin. It offers a great deal of tweaking after a certain type of film is selected - give it a try. I think if you want just straight b/w conversion Convert to Black and White Pro is wonderful, as well.
 

Peter Mendelson

New member
I agree with Jeff about AlienSkin Exposure. It definitely add a nice film-like look to some of my images, and is very tweakable.

Another favorite of mine are Kevin Kubota's artistic action packs (see www.kubotaworkshops.com). Although primarily targeted at wedding photographers, I use them all the time on photos taken of family and friends and get fantastic results.

Peter
 

John Ferguson

New member
Try FocalBlade

IMHO, FocalBlade www.thepluginsite.com is the best sharpener on the planet (have tried them all). It has sliders for both black and white halos that allow you to completely eliminate the halos yet still sharpen aggressively. Has settings for either print or screen that add nice pop to your prints. Has a free trial version available that will allow you to see the results but watermark the final image. Has a batch (they call it stealth) mode that will work in actions. I have developed several presets for FocalBlade and would be happy to share them with anyone who wants to give them a try. The companion program, Color Washer, isn't bad either for fixing white balance issues.
 

Peter Mendelson

New member
Hi John - I sent you an email about your presets. Have you compared FocalBlade to Photokit Sharpener? I have FocalBlade, Photokit Sharpener, FocusMagic, and a Fred Miranda plug-in for the Canon 5D and need to spend more time comparing them and learning how to use them. The 5D doesn't seem to need much sharpening.

Thanks,

Peter
 

David Bostock

New member
Peter Mendelson said:
Hi John - I sent you an email about your presets. Have you compared FocalBlade to Photokit Sharpener? I have FocalBlade, Photokit Sharpener, FocusMagic, and a Fred Miranda plug-in for the Canon 5D and need to spend more time comparing them and learning how to use them. The 5D doesn't seem to need much sharpening.

Thanks,

Peter

Peter, I have both Focal Blade and Photokit. I use them both depending on the circumstances. FocalBlade is my choice for capture sharpening and final sharpening when reducing for the web. Photokit is spectacular for its output sharpening for prints. I've tried Photokit for capture sharpening, but I find it's a bit more destructive than I would like--hard to describe and I compare it to FocalBlade at 200%, and I prefer FocalBlade's results for capture.

A qualification--if I need to reduce noise in the image, shot at a higher ISO for instance, then I'll use NoiseNinja and set its sharpening settings to accomplish the capture sharpening stage as well.

YMMV...those are my preferences...
Cheers,
 

David Bostock

New member
Ross Stockwell said:
I am interested in any opinions/advice regarding the major sets of PS effects plugins available. (eg Alien Skin, Auto EFX, Nik, Power Retouche etc...).

Ross,

FWIW...all of the plugins you've mentioned as well as the others mentioned in this thread are high quality additions to Photoshop. Some will argue that you can create the same effects with Photoshop's existing functionality, however it generally is a bit more cumbersome. So for convenience, these plugins are great.

In order to choose, you'll need to determine what exactly you want to accomplish--sharpening, noise reduction, color/white balance, convert to B&W, other special effects...then as has been mentioned, download the trials and play around with them.

I purchased the Power Retouche set of plugins a couple of years ago. I use them all the time for white balance, increasing black level, subtle saturation levels, a very powerful and clean highlight/shadow tool, and an excellent B&W conversion tool. They provide regular free updates...the recent update to the Contrast tool is excellent--B&W contrast, Warm Contrast, Cool Contrast, Color contrasts...

Again, I selected this toolset by downloading the trials. So, download away, have some fun, and if you have any specific questions about one of the plugins, I am sure someone on this great forum will have the answer.

Cheers,
 

Peter Mendelson

New member
Hi David, would you mind sharing your settings for capture sharpening and web sharpening using FocalBlade? I too, have found that Photokit capture sharpening appears to be too destructive.

For print sharpening I just rely on Qimage's automatic sharpening.

Thanks,

Peter
 

David Bostock

New member
Peter Mendelson said:
Hi David, would you mind sharing your settings for capture sharpening and web sharpening using FocalBlade? I too, have found that Photokit capture sharpening appears to be too destructive.

For print sharpening I just rely on Qimage's automatic sharpening.

Thanks,

Peter

Sure,

I'll post them when I get home...

Cheers,
 
Last edited:

David Bostock

New member
Peter Mendelson said:
Hi David, would you mind sharing your settings for capture sharpening and web sharpening using FocalBlade? I too, have found that Photokit capture sharpening appears to be too destructive.

For print sharpening I just rely on Qimage's automatic sharpening.

Thanks,

Peter

I have capture settings for two cameras, the 1DsII, and the 350D:

1DsII
Edges Tab: Sharpen 20, Radius 0, Method Gaussian, Compensate checked
Surface Tab: Sharpen 120, Soften 0, Radius 0, Method Gussian, Compensate checked
Fix Tab: Everything set to 0

350D
Edges Tab: Sharpen 80, Radius .3, Method Gaussian, Compensate checked
Surface Tab: Sharpen 57, Soften 0, Radius .3, Method Gussian, Compensate checked
Fix Tab: Everything set to 0

When saving for the Web, I apply the following as my starting point after I've resized (somewhere between 720 and 512 on the longest side):
Edges Tab: Sharpen 10, Radius 0, Method Gaussian, Compensate checked
Surface Tab: Sharpen 64, Soften 0, Radius 0, Method Gussian, Compensate checked
Fix Tab: Everything set to 0

Keep in mind that I use thes as my starting points and season to taste. For most images these settings are fine, but each image varies. For what it's worth, each image is affected by many factors: quality of lens (I use L Primes), Lens Aperture, ISO...to name a few, so you will need to find settings that work best for you and your environment. Still, I have found these are good starting points..

Cheers,
 

Ross Stockwell

New member
David/All

Thanks for your responses to my original post -- these opinions and leads/links to various filter/plugin sets are quite useful. I very much respect (and learn a lot from) those more experienced. Keep those cards and letters coming .... :)

To clarify - I currently use Pixel Genius plugins (Color 2.0, PhotoKit and PK sharpener). Being of 'dim mind' I has taken me a lot of time 12-18 months) to experiment with these - but I seem now to be using them with greater skill and happy results. My only quibble with these is that since they return their effects as layers (product feature) the size of my image file balloons quite quickly and can be a problem if I combine a lot of effects.


I recently bought the The Power Retouche tools - (based on enthusiastic opinions found in verious on-line discussion boards - like this one) and am finding them really useful or BW conversion as well as tone/contrast adjusts. These seem to work quite differently than similar tools in PS - but still much to learn .... So far my observation with these is that they are quite dynamic and small changes in settings have some big effects on the tonal range of the image - usually messing up my prior highlight/shadow set points. So from a workflow point of view I am now applying these filter sets before using PS levels to set my high/low limits. Does this make sense? any usage/workflow suggestions?

Thanks in advance ...
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Ross Stockwell said:
David/All

Thanks for your responses to my original post -- these opinions and leads/links to various filter/plugin sets are quite useful. I very much respect (and learn a lot from) those more experienced. Keep those cards and letters coming .... :)

To clarify - I currently use Pixel Genius plugins (Color 2.0, PhotoKit and PK sharpener). Being of 'dim mind' I has taken me a lot of time 12-18 months) to experiment with these - but I seem now to be using them with greater skill and happy results. My only quibble with these is that since they return their effects as layers (product feature) the size of my image file balloons quite quickly and can be a problem if I combine a lot of effects.


I recently bought the The Power Retouche tools - (based on enthusiastic opinions found in verious on-line discussion boards - like this one) and am finding them really useful or BW conversion as well as tone/contrast adjusts. These seem to work quite differently than similar tools in PS - but still much to learn .... So far my observation with these is that they are quite dynamic and small changes in settings have some big effects on the tonal range of the image - usually messing up my prior highlight/shadow set points. So from a workflow point of view I am now applying these filter sets before using PS levels to set my high/low limits. Does this make sense? any usage/workflow suggestions?

Thanks in advance ...

Ross,

The high and low limits of your images dynamic range are based on the light received at the time of capture and the Firmware by which the iso distributed the information.

What you have is what you have! I do not see any logic to doing filter manipulations for B&W conversion before setting black and white points.

One issue you have to deal with is that each color to which you assign artificially higher or lower tonal values, to appear brighter or a lower tone, distorts the histogram for that color.

Asher
 

Ross Stockwell

New member
Asher

Thanks for your comments -- esp regardling the 'logic' part - or lack of it;) of what I was referring to.

To clarify - what I was doing is setting the black and white points as a first step and then applying, say the Power Retouche BW Studio filter on a separate/duplicate layer. I'd get the image just the the way I liked it - then hit 'apply'. What I noticed then is the PSC2 histogram (that previously had been optimized) was skewed, often quite dramatically so the my white/black points (usually the black point) were no longer at the end points of the distribution.

SO - because I am still learning - I get confused as to whether to reset the white/black points ('reoptimize') or leave it alone. If I reset them then it impacts the image - if I leave them alone am I compromising the potential of the image -say for printing? (e.g., what was prviously 'black' would now print as a 'gray')

Clearly I am confused about this - likely over thinking or missing something - if you ar anyone can set me straight - I'd appreciate it. ;)
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Ross Stockwell said:
Asher

Thanks for your comments -- esp regardling the 'logic' part - or lack of it;) of what I was referring to...........

SO - because I am still learning - I get confused as to whether to reset the white/black points ('reoptimize') or leave it alone. If I reset them then it impacts the image - if I leave them alone am I compromising the potential of the image -say for printing? (e.g., what was prviously 'black' would now print as a 'gray').....

Ross,

It would be great for you to post the actual histograms and the images. In any case, when you use a program that assigns new luminosity values to colors, the overall distribution of tone invariable changes, unless you match each change by corresponding decrease in other channel(s) for each point in the RGB histogram. Mostly you don't! So the histogram may change remarkably. You might have reassigned a blue value to be white and thus remove a dark tone altogether.

Have you actually printed the image after optimimum correction? If not do it. They should match.

If you have a good monitor, you should be able to print whatever you see on the screen (within the limits of your printer's ability to print dark tones).

In some perfect color images, even before any changes to B&W, there are NO data at all in the histogram in cetain ranges of tone. If you want those dark tones, you must either maintain or create them in your manipulation of some color in Power Retouche or other tone assigning program.

Asher
 
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