Photography | Photo Editing and Photoshop Plug-Ins
© 2009 Wazari Wazir | Photoshop Texture Editing
© 2009 Wazari Wazir | Artistic Photoshop Editing
I just wanted to write a little bit about Photography and image editing software. At the moment I don’t use any Photoshop Plug-Ins, Action or Preset. All my editing were done from scratch in Photoshop. My editing sometimes can take hours just to complete one single artwork like a portrait of my son above with texture added.
Maybe to some people they think I’m wasting my time but the truth is I’ve a lot of time to play around and I don’t need to rush because there were no client waiting for me to finished my job, but if I were doing any commercial job in the future like shoot casual portrait for client, I might be thinking about using Photoshop Plug-Ins, Action or Preset, read on if you wanted to know why.
The number one reason why most professional photographers who shoot commercial like wedding or portrait work use Photoshop Plug-Ins is because they want to speed up their workflow, they wanted to save their precious times and in fact some of them send the files to other company to do the editing for them like Colorati Professional Image Manipulation company to edit their picture, so that they can do other things instead of editing.
Some people may called it like “cheating” but I don’t look it that way, I think they are smart, why should they spend hours of their precious times editing picture when they can use that times to promote their business, do marketing, meet more potential client and also they can spent more time with their family.
Off course these service are not cheap, but then again if you value your time and your client time so that you can deliver the artwork or the album on time to the clients, then these service is priceless. They have a group of professional retoucher to do their job fast, if one is sick, other people can do the job, just imagine what will happen if you do all the editing yourself and suddenly you got sick, and have no mood to do the editing, what will happen to the client picture, I believe it will be delayed and your reputation as a professional photographer will be in jeopardy. Time is money here and f you loose one customer, I believe you will also loose another potential customers.
There are other ways to speed up your workflow or editing other than using professional retouching company, maybe at your place at the moment there is no company that offer such service or they are but still new or unreliable. So what you can do to speed up your workflow, enter Photoshop Plug-Ins, Action or Preset. These things really can speed up the workflow, off course you can get the same result with Photoshop alone but it may take thirty minute to get the result where else it will only take a minute or less with Photoshop Plug-Ins.
Don’t be surprise if some of the top ten wedding photographer in the world use Photoshop Plug-Ins, Action or Preset to do their editing, to speed up their workflow. If you don’t believe me, just read their blog and you will get the answer, that’s why their picture have constant look and feel because they use the same workflow time and time again.
Professional photographers value their time, client just wanted to get their album on time, they really don’t want to know which software you are using, which plug-ins you are using, as long as the end result is great and suit their taste, nothing else matters. Photoshop Plug-Ins are not cheap, they are quite expensive but you will save a lot of times and you only need to buy it once and you can use it for as long as you like and if there is an update, they will only charge you a minimal fee.
Among the top Photoshop Plug-Ins that professional Photographers use are Totally RAD, Kubota Image Tools, One on One Software and Nik Software among others. Some of you might be familiar with one of these software while some of you might already use one of these. Like I said before I’ve never use any of this Plug-Ins software, just not yet.
Whether you want to use Photoshop Plug-Ins or not is up to you, some photographer still prefer to do the editing on their own, just with Photoshop alone without the aid of additional Plug-ins and I believe some photographers are very good with photoshop and I believe also that some photographers are not really good with photoshop, they are great at taking pictures but just don’t have the expertise to do the editing on their own and I believe Plug-Ins can help them speed up their workflow. The main thing here is to save a lot of times so that we can spent it on other important things like marketing for an example.
It’s up to you but for me, up until this day, I still do the editing the old school way, one at a time, no need to rush because like I said before I’ve no client calling me in the middle of the night wanted to know when they can pick up their album. Its about working smart and not working hard. The question that might linger in your mind, will I ever used Photoshop Plug-ins in the future, the answer is, yes I will if I’ve decided that I should spent more time shooting and have fun with my family instead of spending hours and hours looking at my computer screen, the time will come.
*To those of you who have the luxury of time just like me to play around with Photoshop in your spare times and need to know how I do my editing , then you can take a look at one of my Photoshop eBook like Master of Colors. Just hit the banner below and you will get the answer.
