Photoshop Plugins Question

[chrish]

Hi

I spent all afternoon trying to find out about PS plugins and effects. There are hundreds! I would like to know which are the most popular ones and which offer quality effects/filters/adjustments/funtions which are worth investing some time in.

I lfound the Andromeda Filters and AlienSkin Plugins really amazing. But there's so many others and I have no clue which ones are worth checking out...

So, which are the main PS plugins which are a must have for every pixel pusher

Thanks

Chris

[AppleCider]

I don't know about "must haves," because that's a matter of personal style and what you do with Photoshop, but here are some I've found useful:

Flaming Pear's SuperBladePro. They have other plug-ins worth looking at, and you can download demos that are actually useful (work normally but have a time limit)

Procreate's KTP Effects. (Warning: Procreate's site is a nightmare). Speaking of KTP, that's the latest version. You can find KTP 3, 5 & 6 which have other effects. Just do a Google search, or search on ebay.

The Plugin Site is lesser known, but has a variety of very good plugins for reasonable prices, plus Photo Galaxy, a series of CDs with photos & textures.

Personally the plugins I like best and use most have nothing to do with image effects. Boxtop Software has a variety of plugins dedicated to scrunching down web graphics. On most images they do a better job than Photoshop's Save for Web. My web graphics would be larger if it weren't for PhotoGIF and ProJPEG.

Finally, since you've done searches, you may already know about http://www.freephotoshop.com/ which has a very comprehensive list and reviews of plugins, freeware, shareware and commercial.

[chrish]

Thanks Apple

Actually the page you mention is what made me ask the question here, cos I was overwhelmed and thought: jeez, I'll need a week to read all these reviews...lol

I'll check those out, thanks, any more tips from satisfied users are most welcome.

Actually, by KTP (your link doesn't work) do you mean Kai's Power Tools? I've been searching for those and it seems the company does not exist anymore. I counldn't find any way to download or purchase and I spent 2 hours in Google on that

Thanks!

Sorry for posting in the wrong forum...n00b mistake

Chris

[AppleCider]

Ack, you're right...wrong url for the KPT (yes, that's Kai's Power Tools, which was unfortunately bought by Corel, and now morphed into Procreate, a division of Corel). Corrected above, but for your convenience, here's the url: http://www.procreate.com Click on KPT Effects. That's the latest verson.

As for KPT 5, as far as I know you can buy it at any one of these You should also check ebay; that's where I got KPT 6 for a LOT less than retail

[theKeeper]

AC...
freephotoshop.com -- great site thanks. Didn't know about that one.

I agree with AC chrish. Plugins are a very specific and kind of personal thing. The best freeware ones i've seen though are from Greg Scherno, and the best ones to buy IMO are the Dreamsuite Series sets.

Both of those are mentioned on the filters/plugins page of the site i mentioned above.

[chrish]

Thanks

Google didn't come up with anything on Greg Scherno, could you give me a pointer please?

I'll have a look at the Dreamsuite ones. I've been at this for 3 days now and find a lot of stuff thanks to you helpful folk. Plugins can really do a lot for a beginner like me. Sure, everything can be drawn from hand, but I find that using plugins for effects gets me there quicke, and afterwards I can still decide whether I'd like try and create everything from scratch just using PS...then again, it's own Filters could also be viewed as plugins...no? Lol

Just to add some fun to this thread. Here's the flower image I've used throughout the weekend to test all the different things I found. It used to be a simple yellow margerita and I used PS hue/saturation, plus filters for shadow, colours, sky, lightning and then retouching all of the above with soft brushes, patch tool, merging layers, smudge tool... bla bla ...bla...still took me all night to do this, I don't even want to think about doing it all by hand and then deciding I don't really like the way it looks, lol

Chris