Buying actions / presets

[Livin The Dream]

I have bought a few actions in the past, got some gatsby, Ascough plus a few random ones that I do use from time to time. How many of you integrate these into your workflow and what are worth their salt? Have been looking at the totally rad actions and presets last few days, probably end up trialling them but would be interested to hear others experience of what's worth the money.

 

[Nikon_Nick]

To be honest, ive never actually used 'paid for' actions. I normally download the free ones that I like the look of, then modify them to my own liking

 

[Livin The Dream]

I have been quite tight in the past but the Gatsby ones are very good to help speeden up workflow whilst retouching. I hate paying for software but have been doing that more and more with PS CC and Lightroom. I guess it's a time thing for me.

 

[Nikon_Nick]

No thats fair enough. I like a lot of the Gatsby actions (or the results of at least), I just dont want to pay for them. I download a free one that gives a similar look, click on record, tweak it and stop recording. I then have my own free actions I can apply to my shots, and the only extra time ive taken is the initial 'tweaking' time taken after download

 

[Livin The Dream]

So I have downloaded a few freebies and have been tweaking here and there.

A question for anyone that has their own presets, maybe a wedding snapper: At what point do you add your preset into your workflow? Most of the LR presets seem to work best with RAW files, however, if you begin by making your first round of edits to bring them up to the point of adding your preset, presumably if your preset has tweaks to any of the sliders in the 'basic' tab there may not be the latitude left if you add the preset? Would it be best to save a copy as a TIFF of all the files to bring the values to zero and then add the preset, or am I over thinking this?