Adobe's Photoshop is the pre-eminent photo editor for professionals and advanced amateurs alike. In fact, it's achieved that rare status of being both a product trade name and a verb, "Photoshopped," is to photo editing what "Googled" is to web searching.
Yet as powerful as Photoshop is, there is a rich universe of software plug-ins that can deliver specialized features to add even more capabilities to the program. Think of Photoshop as the jack-of-all-trades and the plug-ins as the master of one. These programs are typically aimed at Photoshop CS users, although some work with the more consumer-friendly Photoshop Elements as well. Adobe's Lightroom and Apple's Aperture are also supported, giving them even greater versatility. Here's our pick of some plug-ins you should be playing with.
Nik Software HDR Efex Pro: High dynamic range photography (HDR) has been enjoying a renewed bout of enthusiasm among photographers and Nik Software's HDR Efex Pro ($140) can deliver a range of HDR effects to images. It uses the company's intuitive U Point technology for making precise adjustments to photos—including to contrast, shadow, and saturation. It can combine several images to create an HDR image or transform a single exposure.
If you're in need of a quick fix, the software supports a number of pre-sets that enhance images with a single click. You can also create your own custom presets if you prefer. Additional presets can also be downloaded from Nik Software in the event you're looking for a few more creative options.
Nik Software Dfine 2.0: Noise is the bane of almost every photographer. That grainy look that can rear its head in low-light environments can be purged using Nik's Dfine 2.0 plug-in. Dfine 2.0 will analyze your photo to measure the noise (this can be done manually or automatically) and help you identify trouble spots. Then, using the program's tools, you can eliminate the noise. You'll have several options for eliminating noise - from the whole image, from select portions of the photo using Photoshop's brush tool or from individual color ranges in a photo.
Dfine 2.0 retails for $70 and also works as a plug-in for Lightroom and Aperture.
onOne FocalPoint 2: Available for both Photoshop CS and Photoshop Elements, onOne's FocalPoint 2 ($140) transforms your computer into a lens kit, after the fact. FocalPoint lets you mimic photographic effects like selective focus and tilt-shift that are normally achieved by using different lenses on a d-SLR.
A "FocusBug" drag-and-drop tool lets you blur portions of the photo while you drag the Bug's legs out to define the edges and amount of blur. You can preview the Bug's changes in real time and even adjust it in 3D. You can use multiple FocusBugs in a photo, blurring and highlighting multiple points in an image. If bugs make you squeamish, use the brush tool to "paint" focus or blur on specific portions of a photo. If you need to make quick adjustments, there is a library of presets to simulate a variety of looks.
onOne PhotoTune 3.0: Making color adjustments can be a painstaking process. onOne's PhotoTune 3.0 ($140) transforms the process using a step-by-step wizard that walks you through the steps to a color-corrected image. New for version 3.0 is a SkinTune control for enhancing skin tones in portraits with one-click. There's also a general one-click color correction tool dubbed "eye-fidelity" which uses technology developed by software maker immense to make instant fixes to your photos.
PhotoTune can be used as a "smart filter" in Photoshop, so that fixes to an image appear as a layer and don't harm or alter the original image file.
In addition to correcting colors, you can use PhotoTune to turn color photos into black-and-whites, with tonal adjustments tools to fine-tune your work. If you're the hands-on type, a new user-interface lets you have access to tone, color, detail and SkinTune controls to make more complicated tweaks. This $140 plug-in works with both Photoshop CS and Photoshop Elements in addition to Lightroom and Apple's Aperture.
Tiffen Digital Filter Suite (Dfx): Lens filters can take ordinary images and inject them with dramatic flare. But if you don't have a bag brimming with these optical enhancers, you can use software to mimic the effect. Tiffen (which manufacturers the good old fashion glass filters) has a plug-in that lets users access a library of over 2,000 filter effects from 113 individual filters in both Photoshop and Aperture. These filter effects can be applied to images individually or in batches. They can also be layered, so you can apply more than one to a single image to get a very unusual effect. There's ample to experiment with.
In addition to juicing your images with creative filter fare Dfx can crop, rotate and scale images non-destructively as well as make color adjustments and red-eye removal. It supports color management using ICC profiles so creative professionals can be confident their output is print-ready. Tiffen Dfx Version 2 will set you back about $300.
DxO Optics Pro: Another tool for repairing images, DxO's Optics Pro distinguishes itself in part by offering optical corrections to fix known flaws created by camera lenses (yes, even the best lenses can screw up on occasion). Drawing on a constantly-updated library of lens and camera types, Optics Pro recognizes and adjusts for common flaws either automatically or manually.
The plug-in also features a RAW image file converter to process photos using the same library of cameras. Thanks to that library, you can apply a variety of color renderings to RAW images - either from the camera you're shooting with or with another brand. Other corrections include local or global (i.e. the entire photo) exposure and contrast correction, denoising, and color controls. It also has a fairly clever dust-removal tool that lets you pinpoint a spot of dust on an image and apply a correction across an entire batch of photos taken at the same time (on the assumption that the dust will show up on those photos too). Dust removal can also purge other unwanted items from photos such as antennas or wires.
Optics Pro is on version 6.5 and costs about $130.
