Linda

[oops]
New extended Lens Pro III plug-in for Photoshop from Panopticum has new original interface. It's amusing really.
Nevertheless, the plug-in is huge on my opinion. It's maybe for professionals or advanced hobbyists. There are enormous number of adjustable optical parameters.
But if you know what do you want, the result will be magnificent. I'm sure. Try to download demo from author's site

http://www.adobefx.com/products/photoshop/lenspro3.html
or
http://www.panopticum.com

Erik

Despite the difficulties I had getting a working serial (see other thread on Lenspro: the guy was on a holiday weekend after weeks of intense programming), I am Very impressed by Panopticum LensPro3.

LensPro3 is, in my opinion, worthy of being included in Kai's Powertools, which says a lot. It combines the playfulness of Kai's psychodeliric genius with his sound knowledge of coding.
When using the particles system, it asks a lot from your system. On my PII800 with 512SDRam, it needs time to calculate. But up to now, it hasn't crashed one single time.

I admit that it's perhaps not the most useful of plugins, but like Oscar Wilde wrote, there are too many useful things nowadays. And therefore I can recommend as a gift to the child that lives in all of us, and that is all too often neglected by the grown up with his/her silly frowns.

No more hesitations here. O, and the Engraver they sell is quite good too.

Lee

Erik - I have been considering LensPro2 or Eye Candy4000 as they both have some simular effects that I'm looking for (glass, plastic etc). Have you used EC4? If so, how does it compare to LP2? From what I can tell owning them both would be a little redundent. My problem is that I have not used either one and don'd have enough experience using PS to be a good judge which one is better. I have already bought some plug-ins that I thought would be useful and they were DOGS....(he said in capital letters)! You know what they say about a fool and his money.

Lee

Lee,

http://www.alienskin.com and http://www.flamingpear.com/ also have some interesting plugins you might want to look at.

Lee

G,

I've been to both those sites. Thanks.

As a matter of fact, I got Super Blade Pro from Flamingpear. Have not used it much, however, except to play around with it. It's a good filter, just not exactly what I was looking for.

L

What are your experiences with Super Blade Pro Lee?

To be honest, I tried the demo a few times...I never really liked the program. The results are good, but is it fun to use?...not in my opinion.

See, that's what people sometimes forget; is it important for non-professionals to have the best results or to just to have plain fun?

I think when people like what they are doing, then results will come automatically. Curves, channels, lab mode are too difficult? No problem, that can wait, the interest will come one day.

My advice would be; do everything step by step and ring the alarm bell when you force yourself to do things you don't like. That's why some of us prefer Photoshop while others prefer other 2D image software

Erik

Lee, it all depends on what you would like to do with them (I personally see plugins as additions to do things Photoshop cannot, or can but with lots of tricky work).

My first suggestion is to try out the demos if they're available.

Personally, I'm not really a fan of Eyecandy (I only tried out the demo, and got some plugins from the series in Fireworks). In my opinion (whoo...I'm careful here!!!) Kai's Powertools 5 and 6 are the best of all times. They are still available, but since Corel bought them, they are slowly disappearing from the scene. I like LensPro and for me, it's worth $60. But it's not a plugin you can use every day. In fact: none are that useful. I also love the Engraver Panopticum made, although there may well be better plugins for that.

Some people like games, I like plugins. Simple as that.

Bizarre is that when I started, I was obsessed by plugins because of the quick oooh's and aaahhh's, but then I nearly forgot about them as Photoshop became more important. And one can do a lot in it, believe me!

And then, plugins started to capture my attention again. Now that I passed an "only Photoshop" year, I can use them even better as I can decide where and when and to what extent I want to apply them.
Gaussian is right: they should be fun. Even for professionals. Fun, and also, if possible, mind-boggling. And imo, EyeCandy misses a bit of spice. But there are others who just love these filters.

I also like the Redfield plugins (he's got some free ones, and some you can buy for a very acceptable price). I have both LatticeXP and Yama2000.

Then you have some freewares like Extensis' Photobevel solo.

So if I may say so: grab Photobevel solo and the two free redfields. If you like the free ones, you may want to buy the two shareware ones that I also bought. And if you want to spend money on plugins, and you like the more spectacular ones (like I do), the try out KPT5 and/or KPT6. With 5 you get KPT3 for free (do custom install: they're on the cd).
If you're more into photography, checkout Gaussian's thread on powerretouching, or AutoFX mystical light.


Hope this helps...
This was done with KPT5 OrbIt. Yet, I applied the filter to a duplicate layer of the background, used blend modes and applied a layer mask to free the face from the plugin effect. Plugins don't replace these Photoshop basics. But they do add fun and ooohhh's and aaahhh's.

Lee

G,

Some background here. I was forced into semi-early retirement a few years ago because of a medical problem. I got so bored, however, that I recently started teaching myself PS to go along with my photography background. I was a professional advertising photographer back in Atl. (before the days of digital photography, unfortunately).

Anyway, I started a little business here in Phx. to keep myself busy as being ?retired? for me sucked. I?m too hyper for that. I need to be productive everyday. So, with that in mind, I am mainly interested in plug-ins that I can use making fancy text (where appropriate) in promotional flyers and altering photos etc. I can do much of the stuff I want to do now in PS myself but I spend too much time doing it because I am not a working professional (using PS). I don?t do it often enough to get really good at it. It is also really frustrating when I spend a lot of time learning something the first time through tuts and, because I don't use it frequently, I find that two weeks later I forgot what I learned.

So, with that background, to answer your question. Super Blade Pro is a good plug-in. I have only used it to create fancy type once and, you?re right ? I didn?t think it was fun to use either. To me it was a utility not a toy. Some plug-ins are just fun as you mentioned. Others are simply tools to accomplish some task quickly. If I had it to do over again I would not have bought SBP. It just doesn?t do enough of what I thought I would use it for. I find I spent way too much time fooling with all those sliders and still not getting exactly what I wanted out of the program. ~sigh~

Erik,

I have LatticeXP from Redfield, too. I seem to be going down the same road you did except on a quicker timetable. I started getting into PS 6 months ago and immediately decided I needed some plug-ins without having a clue what the hell I was doing (or buying). I wasted a lot of money in that phase of my learning. Then, for three months, I ONLY used PS to do what I wanted to do. Like I said above, however, I found myself quickly forgetting too much of what I learned. I loved the learning process but it?s frustrating when you don?t remember much of what you worked so hard to accomplish. Now, however, in the third ?trimester? here (for lack of something else to call it), I am back looking for a few GOOD plug-ins. I don?t like trying too many demos as after you install and uninstall programs too often you end up corrupting your operating system. So I am trying to pick and choose carefully without using too many demos.

One plug-in that I did get and absolutely love is Knockout 2. This thing is amazing and I use it all the time. I got it before I learned about the extract tool in PS. I still don?t have any experience with that tool because I spent money for KO and I?ll be damned if I?m going to shelve it now just because I learned that PS may be able to do the same thing. KO does make that task easy and fast, however, I?ll say that. That alone, for me anyway, is worth the money.

Anyway, this is getting too long. Sorry. I just started running my mouth and ended up writing another War and Peace here.

Thanks to both of you again for the input and guidence. [righton]

L

Erik

No problem. It's always good to have an idea who the person behind the postings is.

'bout forgetting: that's normal. Our education makes that we try to memorize everything, and with PS that simply is too much. But little by little, things starts to build up, and before you know it, you start doing things automatically. I mean: you look at the result and you work with PS like you draw with a pencil or choose a lens for your camera.

If you don't mind, then please tell a bit about the pkugins you really don't like. It may be very interesting to know the "which and why".

Lee

Hey Erik,

To answer your plug-in question. Keep in mind, these were bought before I knew squat about PS. I decided I wanted to learn PS and before I knew how to open the program I started buying a few plug-ins that looked promising. Most of them were all pretty inexpensive programs but it was still a big mistake.

Alien Skin Image Doctor was the first. This is actually a pretty good PI but had I waited I would have seen that PS7 does same thing with the Healing and Patch Tool. PS6 didn?t have those and I was basing my purchase on what I knew of PS6 (which was not much you understand).

I also got Amphisoft. Some interesting effects filters but with what I?m using PS for it turned out to be a waste of money as I don?t need those for real estate photography.

DCspecial ? all things you can do in PS.

Redfield ? Jama 3d, Lattice Composer and Seamless workshop. These are okay, I guess, but nothing I need in the kind of work I do.

AutoFX ? this one was free but, once again, something you can do in PS so it?s just one more plug-in I don?t use and that makes PS take longer to load. I finally deleted it.

I mentioned Knockout 2 in the other post. GREAT program. Maybe not at the retail price of $349 (or something close to that). I got it for $99 through a friend who purchased a Wacom tablet and that was one of the specials offered by Wacom. He had no use for KO but I did so he got it for me and I paid him back). If you separate things from the background often then this is as good as it gets. It even does a good job with difficult things like smoke, shadows and glass. At $99 it?s a must have if you need that kind of thing.

As I do promotional flyers I use the type tool frequently and that?s why I was considering Eye Candy or Lens Pro. They both seem to do a good job of making glass, plastic, chrome type effects and if one of them did it well it would save me time.

And secondly, I?m also interested in some of these because many of them are things that I can?t do with Elements 2. I had planned on having PS7 by now but can?t afford the "price of admission" at the moment. Being forced into early retirement put a pinch on my monitory situation and $600 +/- is a bit steep. Something about paying the mortgage and utilities first which doesn?t leave much discretionary spending ability. That's also been a frustration when learning in many of the tuts I have found. They get to a step where I have to open the channels pallet (or one the the many other things not found it Elements) and I have to stop learning as I don't have that option in my current program.

Oh, well. Life goes on, doesn't it?

L