To Kubota or Not to Kubota?

I recently received some promotional materials from AsukaBook, and included was some information about Kubota Image Tools. Of course the images look beautiful, and the website has many more examples – with before and after pictures – of various actions.

But all these action packs get me to thinking – how many do I need? I really do love Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 and Alien Skin Exposure 2.0. They allow me to make quick adjustments to a photo, I can edit each individual filter for more control, and I can combine various filters on one image to get very cool, unique effects. So how different could I make my images look with yet another set of actions/filters? And should I just spend time with Photoshop creating my own actions rather than money on more and more software?

The professor who taught my Photoshop class used his own laptop with the overhead projector, and he had a million plug-ins. He said that we could play around with Photoshop and try to figure out the effects ourselves, but he would much rather pay the money for a “quick fix” and spend more time and energy shooting.

Of course, either route requires “playing around” – even armed with tons of filters and actions, it takes time to figure out which combinations look good with which images. And in the end, most people don’t want cookie-cutter images that look like everyone else’s. So as I toy with the idea of Kubota, I’m still dedicated to learning a little something new about Photoshop every day.