Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers Tutorials
Filters / Using Plug-ins
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Subtitles of the Movie (Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers / Filters / Using Plug-ins)
There are a lot of companies that have developed Plug-ins for Photoshop. These are smaller programs that work in conjunction with Photoshop. For a number of years I found very little use for most Plug-ins knowing that I could get similar results easily in Photoshop. However, the types and quality of Plug-ins has advanced significantly in the past few years and now there are all sorts of Plug-ins available from those that change your image into more of a graphic illustration to those that help technical issues such as Noise Reduction or Sharpening, to those that deal with photographic effects, such as Black and White, or High Dynamic Range, even from a single image. I now find myself turning to some of these Plug-ins on a regular basis because they do an outstanding job and do it faster than I can do it manually in Photoshop. I'm particularly partial to Nik Plug-ins and I'm honored to say that I'm now part of Team Nik. But Imagenomic, Flaming Pear, Topaz Labs, and lots of others offer a huge variety of programs. Most offer free downloads to let you try them and it's definitely worth taking the time to take them for a spin and see which programs you enjoy. I regularly use Plug-ins for converting to black and white, noise reduction, sharpening, and adding impact including adding reflector effects with Color Effects Pro, which has a tremendous variety of effects. After installing Plug-ins they're accessible from the Filters Menu and they work just like a Filter. Let's take a look at Silver Effects Pro. This is a Nik Plug-in that's a fantastic way to turn your images into black and white. The possibilities in Silver Effects Pro are far more extensive and available with a click of a button from Presets and, by the way, it ships with a lot more presets than what you see here, as well as all sorts of controls. I'm not going to go into all of the details since this isn't a Tutorial on Silver Effects Pro, but when you're happy with your results in the Plug-in window you click OK. Nik Plug-ins create a new layer automatically, which is very handy because then you can automatically apply a Layer Mask to it or take advantage of all other Layer features. Plug-ins from other companies may operate differently and you may need to create a copy of the Background Layer for the Plug-in so that you can have the flexibility to reduce the effect after the effect, or use a Layer Mask to control where the effect is applied. And some Plug-ins, including those from Nik, will work as Smart Filters automatically so that once I've turned this image into a Smart Object then I can come up to Filter, Nik Software, Silver Effects Pro, gives you a warning that it's identified that it's a Smart Object and it will now operate as a Smart Filter, it loads the image, we'll say OK, it will process for a minute and then it comes up as a Smart Filter which operates as any other Smart Filter that we've seen before just as part of Photoshop. Plug-ins have added to the power of what we can do in our image editing and are well worth taking the time to check out.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers |
| Author: | Ellen Anon |
| SKU: | 34036 |
| ISBN: | 1-935320-74-2 |
| Release Date: | 2009-09-23 |
| Duration: | 8.5 hrs / 112 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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