Adobe Photoshop is the most powerful image editing program on the market. Many photographers and imagers have spent years learning the ins and outs of Photoshop; plugins are time saving devices that can expand the features of Photoshop and other image editing applications. Many of these plugins are used for image editing, correcting enhancing and adding special effects to images. A large number of quality plugins are available free for download. Others can be purchased in graphics packages or as special effects extras. Some plugins are grouped together into sets that work together. An example of one type of plugin bundle would be software such as Portrait Professional. This software uses plugins to enhance skin tones and color automatically.
Photoshop plugins can be grouped into categories depending on the use and type of effect.
- Special Effects - These plugins create effects that take an image and either distorts the image to something completely different or effects that enhance sections of the image according to a particular value. (Highlights, colors or tonal ranges)
- Image Editing - Plugins to speed up the editing process. Some of the more common of these would be contrast enhancers, color correctors, black and white conversion plugins, contrast enhancers and many other plugins that can be used to reduce the time in image correction.
- Sets - Bundled plugins that work together to enhance images for a specific purpose. Portrait enhancing packages and architectural packages fall into this category.
- Unusual/Scientific - These plugins are used for converting arrays algorhythms into 3D images.
Before downloading be sure to read the specifications and information on what system the plugin was designed for and the different applications that will be compatible with the plugin device.
