A new addition to my Photoshop plugin collection is the linked Photokit.

First, a drawback: the operation is somewhat awkward, as it doesn't integrate itself as a menu in the Filters menu where you would expect it. Instead, it's an automation plugin that you select, after which a small dialog box appears where you choose the effect group and the effect. Only then is this applied. However, the advantages outweigh this: all effects are placed in their own layer. The big advantage of this: they can all be combined well with the image via the transparency setting of the new layer and their strength can be influenced. Another advantage is the strict orientation of the effects toward photographic terms - albeit English terms. If you have problems with that, you might find help in the dictionary from http://contax-users.de/. Also nice about Photokit are the really good sharpening filters - luminance sharpening avoids color artifacts and the high-pass filter offers good variation of the effect through layer transparency. And last but not least: each effect is only one step in the Photoshop history - this makes the history clear and through multiple steps the effects can be well combined into your own more complex actions. Further tests were conducted at Digital Outback and at Luminous Landscape. The price of 49 US dollars is certainly not exactly small, but the tool saves a lot of work and since time is often short even in hobbies, and tedious standard tasks can be handled well by computers, it's a worthwhile addition. Here's the original article.