Photoshop Add Ons

Hey Gang,

While doing some tutorials I ran into one that required an add on filter that I did not have.

The only add-on I have at this point is Eye Candy. Other than that the only 'extra' I've added is a thing called Ultra Sharpen Lite. I see, however, that there are about a million other possible add-ons.

I'm wondering then what everyone considers the 'core set' of add ons. I'm prolly still eons away from needing them. But I'm curious as to what they are.

Thanks - and Cheers!

ABSOLUTELY THE MOST IMPORTANT CONCEPT TO UNDERSTAND IN PHOTOSHOP:
90% of your work in Photoshop is about efficiently creating accurate selections. Most of the rest is gravy.

Concentrate on learning every possible way to make accurate selections—marquees, lassos, color range selctions, paths, channels, (there are many others). Learn why Adjustment Layers can make creating selections easier. Practice and experiment so that you get to the point where you can look at an image, decide what you want to do, and intuitively know which selection methods (sometimes alone, often in combination) will most easily isolate an image area you want to further manipulate. Once you get really good at this, the rest of your learning will be exponentially accelerated.

---

Become best friends with Google, and learn how to search effectively for techniques you want to learn about. Invest in Photoshop books. Ask for 'em for birthdays, Xmas, etc. You can never have too many.

Learn Photoshop's native filters and functions the best you can.

Find tutorials that deeply explore one aspect—say, for example, Displacement Maps (try working through Mark Zebra's Displace Tutorial). Then, look for others on that native function. Then look for tutorials on something else. Work through them.

Experiment, read, search, read, study, experiment, practice, undo, redo, experiment, practice, practice, read, take a ride on your bike, read, study and experiment some more.

When you get a good handle on what Photoshop—and your mastery of it—can do, when you're motivated, you'll search out the plugin authors' websites, and read up on their software, and be better able to decide what will work for you.
Bottom line is to try to avoid Whiz!Bang! effects-for-effects sake. Just because you have a bazillion plugins is never an excuse to use them just because you can. The mark of a Photoshop savant is to create iamges that don't look overly affected by canned visual trickery. As soon as someone sees an obvious use of Twirl or Mosaic, you are instantly branded an amateur. This is not to say, however, that these things can't be used with aplomb. Learning discernment and discretion is as much a part of establishing good style sense and is easily as important as learning how to create a dead-perfect clipping path.

I say again: Learn as much as you can about the incredibly powerful capabilities of native Photoshop. It's a foundation you must lay in before you can truly understand why, and when, to tap into the power of 3rd-party plugins.

And just in case Utopian left out anything from his lecture:

[QUOTE]Posted by Utopian23 some months ago:

Start by reading the manual and doing the exercises using the sample images provided on the CD. Carefully inspect the Quick Reference card and keep it handy, referring to it often. Between the manual and the Q.R. card, make a strong effort to learn the PROPER names of the tools and various palette navigation and their icons. Click and Control-Click [Right-click on PC] on EVERYTHING, paying particular attention to tiny little triangles in the palettes. Control-Clicking will usually reveal drop-down, fly-out and contextual menus that will allow you quick access to commands, functions and tools.

EXPERIMENT! Use your own motivation to learn some things on your own before asking about every little thing, or you'll make enemies here—and anywhere else—quickly. Until you put in the effort to learn proper names for things and do some work on your own, you won't be able to ask meaningful questions. The learning curve is steep, and you WILL have to do a lot of work on your own, but it's worth it.

Look at the main page of this site for tutorials that you can work through. Make friends with Google and learn how to do focused searches for Photoshop-related techniques. Start a search string with "Photoshop tutorial" and after that fill in whatever you want to learn about and you'll find tens-of-thousands of results. It's a valuable resource that we all use.

DO NOT concern yourself with acquiring 3rd-party plug-ins until you have a fairly strong understanding of the application, you'll only be cheating yourself and the results you get will look like every other hack amateur on the planet. Plug-ins are terrific, but you gotta know how, why and when to use them, and in what measure. Effects for effects' sake only make you look more like an amateur, and not like an expert.
[/QUOTE]

*saves new rant in case of future references*

Ooh...that was a good one too, !mo0chie!

At least my position on these matters is consistent.

Experiment is the best thing any one of us could say.

People don't seem to grasp this - they think that photoshop, just like playing a musical instrument or being able to paint or draw, can be learned wiht a few pointers or maybe some sort of a tutorial that carries you from point A, your starting point, to point B, your destination.

This is untrue. There ain't nothing like learning how to do it through trial and error because you end up developing a sixth sense on what is good and bad. You learn how to do it through Knowing how to do it, not knowing what to do (i.e. knowing how to draw, rather than knowing the steps, i.e. draw a circle, draw 2 lines, etc.)

There is no substitute. Just play around with the damn thing.

There is no substitute. Just play around with the damn thing

Now that I can understand.. lol..

Thanks everybody. ;)

I've actually done quite a bit of playing with it already. And in fact, have done a heck of a lot of the exercises on this site. I also feel pretty comfortable with the tools.

I watched over 20 hours of QuickTime tutorials over at Lynda.com which is really what those are about IMHO. Ironically, however, I'd say that's about how long it took to cover them all. Man this thing has a lot of buttons (aka features).

Also, I'm not new to graphic creation. Only graphic creation in Photoshop. I've always done everything in Fireworks. And I'm very happy with that program but there is one big drawback to it. There are very few tutorials on how to use it, and as a result kinda by default I think I've always stuck to basic shapes when designing things for the web. Mostly just solid flat color images.

I've just grown tired of that though. I mentioned this in another thread, but I want to be able to create cool graphics like the header at this site.

http://kloobik.com/index1.htm

Just to point out one.

So, anyway - now I am playing with it. I'm doing the tutorials and I can make a nice round ball. Good lord, I can make plastic text that glows.' And Jayzus, ya outta see me do chrome! :D

Somehow I'm still waiting for that second step though. The one where all this stuff starts mentally transfering so that I can create the things "I" want to create. Where it kinda feels like you're riding a bike.

I guess to get there though I'm just gonna have to keep on making 3D balls though and as supahsekzy said "just play with the damn thing." lol

Thanks for your patience though - and yer help.

With God as my witness I'm gonna get there.. :rolleyes: