After hearing so many accolades from my students, I want to share a few features of my PS Panel and how it helps us in the workflow:

Keeps Us Organized: The Panel provides a better and simpler layer stack.

Speeds Up the Workflow: It streamlines various processes in editing.

Maintains Workflow Focus: It helps keep us on track throughout the editing process.

Utilizes Automation: Many aspects of the workflow are automated by the Panel.

Built-in Video Tutorials: The Panel has built-in Video tutorials, accessed by the touch of a button.

The above might be considered the Panel's "technical" advantages. Additionally, the Panel has numerous time-saving features, such as selecting the right brushes for my editing methods and simplifying the use of adjustment layers, among many others.

The Panel contains 30 functions, many designed for the aforementioned benefits. However, I also want to highlight the creative advantages derived from the Panel as well!

How Can a Plugin Panel Offer Creative Benefits?

The Panel includes functions that encourage photographers to adopt techniques for greater creative control. For instance, I have developed a "drama mitigating" technique that becomes much easier and more effective with the use of my Panel.

Why is this important? Visual Accommodation can be a challenge when editing. We tend to subconsciously normalize everything we see during the editing process, which can lead to unintended results in color and brightness. Our perception of contrast (or drama) in an image can also be affected by this phenomenon. When masking for shape and contrast, we often lean towards overly dramatic results.

My workflow, combined with the Panel, helps us address this issue by allowing us to easily adjust the optimal contrast in specific areas of the image using a slider as we work on each part of the image.

One of the more challenging aspects of my editing workflow is achieving a sufficiently soft mask. We may sometimes struggle to create a smooth transition in the mask, resulting in harshness that does not yield optimal results. This harshness can prompt us to overcompensate by reducing drama more than necessary, which leads to a flatter, less-than-dimensional outcome. In other words, if the mask isn’t smooth, we may "over-mitigate" the depth and contrast to subconsciously “cover up” the rough mask.

My Panel also includes a function that softens the "sculptural" mask (when necessary) and resets the proper brightness in the mask, which is very important. We won’t need to use the mask-softening feature all the time, but it is extremely helpful (and quick!) when we do! 

Check out this short video:

The Panel also incorporates the powerful use of the "Fade Tool" in Photoshop, which has a valuable feature that many users are unaware of; it can be used in either direction! This means that we can make a brush stroke (using my recommended techniques) and then adjust its effect with a slider at the touch of a button. While this is a time-saver, it also helps us mitigate one of the major downsides of Visual Accommodation. This tool can also help us acheive a sufficiently soft mask, which is very important!

It’s important to remember that we often misjudge the effects of our "sculptural" masking and our decisions about contrast. However, the Panel assists us in overcoming these significant subconcious challenges in the editing process.

The Panel also includes several "convenience" features, such as the ability to select one of several ideal brush settings for my workflow. To keep things as simple as possible, I only use one type of brush (with several different settings). The Panel makes it easy to quickly choose a brush with all of the correct settings at the touch of a button.

Also, the Panel completely automates the creation of what I call the "Print Master" file, a duplicate file derived from our big layered creative file. In the past, this had to be done manually, but the Panel makes it much faster and gives us all of the sharpening and retouching layers required in my workflow, with all of the correct tool settings being pre-determined by the Panel.

I'm only mentioning a few of the features of my Panel here, but suffice it to say it has been received very well by my students, and they are able to concentrate more on the creative aspects of the image, rather than the "nuts and bolts" of the technical steps!