Educate me on buying PS actions

So I am a relative newcomer to PP in general. I have PSE 9. I have been trying over the last few months to educate myself: learning to shoot in RAW and adjust prior to working in PS; bought and using several good books and working through learning all sorts of processes, etc. Even with work and family obligations, I am still trying to put in 10+ hours a week practicing and learning. But being someone who is somewhat experienced in photography but a newcomer to digital PP, there is a lot to digest....

...and so the past few days I have been looking at some companies' PS actions they sell. I hate to admit it, but the ease of using some of them looks awfully tempting. There are certain results that I have spent hours trying to obtain in one pic, and then I find PS actions available for sale that will do the same thing = BAM! instantly.

I can already anticipate the argument against buying and using these kinds of actions--using purchased PS actions takes away the learning benefit of making yourself do something the "hard" way yourself. My other hobby is music (I play guitar and keys in a band), and I am always dissuading people from taking the easy road learning certain skills, because it will pay off in the long run. However, as someone who is not a professional photographer, and who gets semi-regular requests from family and friends to shoot senior pics, family portraits, etc., these actions look awfully tempting, especially in light of the fact that I have my "main" job, family obligations, etc.

So, please educate me on these. Absolutely, horribly evil and should not do? Dirty little secret that lots of people use? Something in between?

Have you tried any of the free actions like those available on deviantart.com ? Using them can give you a feel for what is available and you might find you like using them, or the novelty might wear off.

Unless you find one you cant live without. Never buy them. There are far too many of them given away for free.

As mentionel already Deviant art is a great resorce. And there are plenty of other places. Just google, actions for Elements, as not all photoshop actions will work in elements.

There is another place to get them that I kind of keep up with. She makes sure they work in elements as well as full photoshop.... http://www.thecoffeesh​opblog.com/

There definatley is something to learning how to do it. But for me there is no stigma to useing them. I think it is far smarter to save the time and get another client in that it is to be able to brag you did it all, but no time for anything else.

You say you play keys, so.... think of it this way. Do you construct every sound that you play on the keyboard? Or do you use some of the presets? How many of the presets have you customized to your liking? Same as actions. Sure you can do it your self. Or use what is available to you. Or make something work more to your liking. But all everybody sees/hears is the final product. They could not possibly care less how you came up with that sound/image. They just care that they like it or not. Other musicians/photographer​s may wonder, but I'm sure you didnt create the music just to please other musicians.

Mark1 wrote in post #14447368
You say you play keys, so.... think of it this way. Do you construct every sound that you play on the keyboard? Or do you use some of the presets? How many of the presets have you customized to your liking? Same as actions. Sure you can do it your self. Or use what is available to you. Or make something work more to your liking. But all everybody sees/hears is the final product. They could not possibly care less how you came up with that sound. Only that they like it or not. Other musicians may wonder, but I'm sure you didnt create the music just to please other musicians.

That is precisely one of the things I was thinking of when I typed that. And don't tell anyone, but on synths, I am a huge preset junky. But I will tell people that you can't really learn about synthesis until you program patches yourself.

Really helpful to know about the free ones. All I had found so far were pay sites.

plawren53202 wrote in post #14447376
But I will tell people that you can't really learn about synthesis until you program patches yourself.

Its helpful to know, if you plan on building synth sounds. But if you are just looking to play, all bets are off. Build what you can, use the preset, or modify the preset... its all fair game. And in fact, none of the options are really "cheating".