Free plugins

I just ran across these free plugins while looking for photo enlargement software. Click here to go to onOne Software's website. At the bottom of their list of programs are three free downloads: one for Adobe Camera Raw presets, one for Lightroom presets, and a third for a lite version of PhotoTools 2.0. I have tried a few of the presets and filters so far and found a few cool effects, although truthfully I don't see myself using most of them.

I have used a few of onOne's filters in the past and, as mentioned above, found some that are useful. Most don't have much appeal for me. I have tried Genuine Fractals and was very impressed by what it could do. But, being a poor student I only downloaded the trial version, which left watermarks all over my photos.

After using some of these, it seems that you could really get the same effect by putting together an action set in PS and not paying for the plugin. I guess that is the point, right? They do it for you so you don't have to spend all your time recording actions for each and every effect you want.

Shooting in low light

I ran across this article in shooting in low light and thought it was helpful. Enjoy.
Useful Tips for Shooting in Low Light Situations--The Photo Argus

Noise Reduction Plugin

I haven't had much experience in the past with Photoshop plugins, but necessity drove me to the web recently and I found a tool that I don't think that I could be without in the future. While organizing photos recently I came across an image scanned from a slide captured six or seven years ago that I hadn't been able to do much with. I decided to try one last time to save the image before throwing it out and came up with a finished product that I was somewhat happy with. One of the biggest problems, however, was the noise in the photo from the poor scan. I used the noise reduction tool in PS, but wasn't happy with the loss of detail in the mountain. So, after a web search I found Nik Software's Dfine noise reduction plugin and am amazed by what it can do. The photos below show the image before and after using Dfine 2.0.













Without noise reduction













With Dfine 2.0









Detail of mountain with and without Dfine (without on left)

Blogger's restrictions on the size of uploaded photos may make it difficult to see the difference, but when viewing it full size the difference is noticeable. This gets me excited to check out Nik's other plugins.

Nik Software Website: www.niksoftware.com