COMMUNITY SHADERS ADDONS

Basically, use as many as you can. Each one available on Nexusmods is fairly self explanatory, but I will cover the more confusing ones in additional depth.

First off, remember to load each addon after the CS master so they overwrite it--especially important for Grass Lighting (which will break your grass if it is overwritten by anything)

EXPERIMENTAL ADDONS

All experimental addons are currently available on the community shaders discord server (linked on a button on the nexus page) in its forum channel. Each addon has its own page on the forums, where you can find the files and discuss each individually.
Its important to note that most indev addons are not compatible with eachother, since they have not merged with the cs master yet, so you will need to choose one to use at a time. (There are a few exceptions)

How do i even install CS???!?!??!?? LIKE HOW MY BRAIN HURTS PLEASE

heres a lil step by step for you. No shame in struggling with installation as it is a pain in the ass

1. Download the cs master from nexus into your mod manager (I recommend mo2)

2. install each addon from nexus and make them overwrite the cs master (make them load after it, so put them below the master)

3. install any experimental addons you want--some use a different master file (simply replace the master from nexus with that one), and let the experimental addon overwrite the other addons

4. (technically can be done later or earlier) install any ENB light mods (yes they work with light limit fix), weather mods, reshade, and kreate

KreatE preset installation

Most kreate presets can be installed as a mod in mo2, but if the file structure is bad, you will need to put the preset folder (the one that contains ImageSpaces, Climates, etc...) in KreatE/Presets, which can be found in your overwrite folder (if using mo2), and you can install it into the kreatE mod file itself if you're using a different manager (*i think*... ive never used vortex or whatever)

Ok but how do i make cs look good????

this is highly up to interpretation, but generally, you can make CS look about as good as ENB if you utilize KreatE and Reshade to their fullest capabilities. There are multiple presets currently available which have presets for both kreate and reshade (skyward, amethyst, naturalis, just to name a few) you can technically mix and match kreate with reshade, but it may not look as intended. 

Regarding weather mods: it is VERY difficult to choose a "best" weather mod as none of them look amazing on their own. Every weather mod benefits from edits in kreate (mostly because they were all built for vanilla or enb so they dont look great with cs but thats deeper than needed). 

Here is a list of weather mods I have tried and how they look to my eyeballs:

NLA (l00ping version) - my favorite currently. Why? NLA has the most consistent and realistic weathers in my opinion, but the biggest selling point for me is that it has very consistent coloring--its very clear and doesnt have any weird tints. Fair warning, NLA is also very dark and desaturated, so if thats not your thing, try another weather (I'm currently developing a KreatE preset for it)

Cathedral - very similar to obsidian, but with a few differences here and there. It also has the 'cathedral meditation' feature, which lets you configure some settings without kreate (but why would you not use kreate????!??) Cathedral seems more comprehensive than obsidian to me. It does have a few odd colors here and there, but is nice if you prefer a fantasy, more saturated look.

Obsidian - Again, very similar to cathedral, but with a few less extra features, and a slightly darker look

NAT Standalone - very comprehensive overhaul of weathers and weather effects. contains a lot of extra stuff which can help replace some vanilla weirdness. Doesn't have many weird tints or colors

NAT.III - very high potential, but kindof broken (without any edits) Nat 3 is made for use with an enb, so it looks wonkey with CS. Naturalis has a kreate preset for nat 3 that looks beautiful, and fixes most--if not all--of its jank. Very consistent colors and soft lighting.

RAID - amazing weather mod for gameplay, with clear visuals and vibrant colors. can look a bit washed out in some scenarios, it has very non-dramatic shadows. 

No matter which weather mod you choose, picking one will fundamentally change how your game looks, but will also dramatically improve the visuals of cs. I suggest trying any weather mod that looks good to you, and testing them with a variety of weathers and times. Once you find one you like, make any edits you want in kreate (and reshade for postprocessing). BUT I'm guessing you would prefer to avoid learning kreate. It is very undocumented and has a bit of a learning curve. Your best alternative is to find a kreate preset that looks good to you--there are multiple available on the CS discord, so shop around and test anything. 

Reshade is amazing for postprocessing. It is ideal for colorgrading, sharpening, blurring, and the like. Although, STAY AWAY from any complex reshade shaders like RTGI or AO. all of these have poor performance and depth issues (render over stuff like fog ew.) 

KreatE essentially lets you edit weather mods in real time, allowing you to configure things like sky color, directional ambient lighting, imagespace settings, volumetric lighting, etc... Kreate is a bit complicated and underdocumented currently, but there are a few presets public on the CS discord. 

But if you would prefer a step-by-step guide on how to make cs work, here you go~

Step by step (basic example)

Before we start, you're probably gonna want to have a lot of visual mods installed along with community shaders. CS only touches rendering, so if you want a complete overhaul (or a small one too!!) you are going to want to install other mods. There are already explanations and guides on most visual mods, so I won't go into depth, but here are a few that I HIGHLY recommend that are not related to CS.

• Lux + derivatives

• ERM

• SMIM   

• EVLAS

• Realistic Water 2 

• Cloudy Skies

• Mists of tamriel

• SRP AIO

This is by far not a complete modlist, but these should serve as a decent base for visuals. 

Now that's covered, we can actually set up cs--for this example I'm going to replicate my personal setup.

First off, you're going to want to download PBR_11 from the "PBR" channel in the community shaders' discord forum page (you might need to scroll up a bit to find the download) Install this file like a mod into your organizer. It contains all of the CS base files so you will not need to download the master from nexus. 

Next you should download every addon for CS from doodlez' nexus page, and let them overwrite PBR, also grab ENB Light to add particle lights to some obects for the light limit fix feature. 

For this example I'm going to use the weather mod NLA - Natural Lighting and Atmospherics for ENB SE, install that and let it win conflicts. 

Next, you should download Reshade and KreatE . When installing reshade you can choose which shaders to download, I would recommend installing all of them, but you can also feed it a preset and it will only install the necessary shaders for that preset. This example uses my reshade: Skyward, so you can use it to pick the shaders if you would prefer to be more organized.

For KreatE, install it as a mod, and install my NLA preset (in the archive page on this site) as a mod as well.

Now you can finaaaally run skyrim :) Shaders take a while to compile on the first launch with community shaders, expect it to take anywhere between 5-10 minutes. This compilation will take much less time after the first run.
Once you're in game, select Skyward as your active preset in reshade and enable performance mode (if you want to make edits to reshade settings, leave performance mode disabled)

Next, open the KreatE menu and select my NLA preset in the presets window (note: each preset only works for one weather mod, you cant use a kreate preset for a weather mod that it was not made for)

Sadly, presets do not yet exist for community shaders, so you will just need to copy my values for now--which only edit grass lighting and PBR (also just only if you want to achieve this look) Feel free to edit to your preference.