PhotoShop query - Plugins

[sdd]

Hey guys

I am a bit new at this photoshop cs2 thing and can do the basics. Can you tell me if there is a one-click plugin that I can use to quickly correct photos (like the autocorrect feature in MS Photo Manager)

Also, what other type of plugin can you recommend. One that I use is Noise Ninja - which is good if used judiciously.

thanks
sdd

 

[bwana]

Hey guys

I am a bit new at this photoshop cs2 thing and can do the basics. Can you tell me if there is a one-click plugin that I can use to quickly correct photos (like the autocorrect feature in MS Photo Manager)

Also, what other type of plugin can you recommend. One that I use is Noise Ninja - which is good if used judiciously.

thanks
sdd

I'm not sure what the MS Photo manager's autocorrect does but I created an action that first does an Auto Level and then an Auto Contrast.

 

[sdd]

Photo manager's autocorrect function is pretty crude but I must admit it make pictures look very 'pretty' when viewed on a slideshow. (highly saturated and contrasted).

When I use CS2's auto level and contrast feature to do it quickly I don't get the same result.

 

[bwana]

I guess I do most of that stuff outside of PS long before it even there. These days I seem to use PS when I need a little something extra.

 

[zagame]

Regarding photoshop plug-ins

here are a few free ones's listed here http://tutorialblog.org/free-photoshop-plugins/

and you could always try www.good-tutorials.com on fixing images

 

[jab2]

Correction of photos in the PC are a requirement that most non-dedicated photographers have and most want this to be done in a quick and easy way with as little input as possible.

Instead of going to go into a "quick" answer, I want to delve a bit deeper into this.

Why do you need to correct your photos?

For most people this is because they do not understand photography and their equipment. The solution for this is not to send everything through a PC, but to get a grasp of the basics. You know the saying, "Garbage in, garbage out". Fact is one cannot "correct" a poor photo on a PC. It is possible to rescue a photo, because the situation is not repeatable, but the result will at the best be so-so. On the other hand, one can increase the impact of a good photo by skillful post processing, but that cannot be called "correcting" as the OP said, nor can it be done as a batch, and it is not quick in the sense that the OP desire.

In spite of this fact, there are still a market for "automated" software that can take the 400 shots of your holiday and run it through a script to miraculously turn them into award winning shots. So lets say you have this holiday shots, which was not takes under optimum conditions and want to improve them. If one look at the diverse image subjects and lighting situations that appear in one's photos, it must be clear that auto correction will at best have to make some asumptions about the conditions under which the photos were taken and apply corrections which will not be optimum for all photos. It will result in average corrections, a result that will still be poorer than the initial photos if these were taken with the correct technique and some would even be worst off than before correction.

Techniques like sharpening and noise removal are necessary techniques, but even these can be improved by applying them to only certain areas or different amounts to different subject matter, which mean that your photo improvement will be best if evaluated and corrected on an individual basis.

There is thus in my opinion no such thing as a quick correction for photos. You will have to put in some effort if you desire good photos.

 

[sdd]

I admit to not knowing the ins and out of camera settings. I shoot only using the 'auto feature' of my simple point and shoot camera.

@jab2 Even though the pics are composed nicely, they come out slightly overexposed and the colours not that great. My camera is a Panasonic LZ5 which does have OIS. I like richly coloured photos and this camera does not give me that. I noticed that when I use the 'auto correct' feature on MS Photo Manager the colours are vivid.
I appreciate your post but it still does not answer my inital question.

@bwana - I created the action suggested together with a bump on the saturation levels. Thank you.

 

[bwana]

@bwana - I created the action suggested together with a bump on the saturation levels. Thank you.

Glad it helped.

If your camera allows for it try changing the white balance to a setting that better suits the environment.

You might also be able to change a few of the other settings (sharpness, contrast, brightness etc) that the camera uses when it is converting the photo to jpg.

 

[sdd]

Will give it a try when I go home and re-read the Photography for Dummies book that I bought

A bit off thread but I am going to KL and Singapore in two months time - If I were to be looking for a good point and shoot, what would be a good one to buy (R3-4K).

I checked out dpreview.com and various other websites but all I managed to do was to confuse myself more.

I was thinking about getting a Sony H3 or a Canon G9. Any thoughts?

 

[bwana]

A bit off thread but I am going to KL and Singapore in two months time - If I were to be looking for a good point and shoot, what would be a good one to buy (R3-4K).

I checked out dpreview.com and various other websites but all I managed to do was to confuse myself more.

I was thinking about getting a Sony H3 or a Canon G9. Any thoughts?

I'd kill (ok.....mame) for a G9. It has everything I would want in a point and shoot esp RAW.

 

[jab2]

I'd kill (ok.....mame) for a G9. It has everything I would want in a point and shoot esp RAW.

Sure does. Very nice travel camera. A DSLR kit with a few lenses are becoming an no-no with air travel weight allowances.

 

[jab2]

@jab2 Even though the pics are composed nicely, they come out slightly overexposed and the colours not that great. My camera is a Panasonic LZ5 which does have OIS. I like richly coloured photos and this camera does not give me that. I noticed that when I use the 'auto correct' feature on MS Photo Manager the colours are vivid.
I appreciate your post but it still does not answer my inital question.

True, I did not answer your initial question, because I do not believe there are a "one fits all" answer for you.

But let my try and help you to some extend. If you have photos which are relatively equal in light conditions, exposure and poor saturation, you can record an action in CS2 (Look in the Helpfile how) to record what you did on the first photo and then run this action on the others. An action is like a macro, it record all actions as you do them, key strokes, slider positions etc. You will still have to do some manual sorting as the amount of, say saturation increase that you would do on a photo take on a dull overcast day, will make a bright sunny photo look totally over saturated. You can however name actions to whatever you like, so you can record different actions for your different photo situations and preferences, all with a descriptive name. That way you can automate a great part of the work with a single click or run an action in a batch process.

Bwana mentioned RAW in his one post. This is actually the way to go if you want real freedom of control for alterations/corrections, as it works on the RAW data and not on an already lossy compressed file like jpg does. RAW does load your work flow with more steps though.