Photoblog

This is an image that I processed using Photoshop CC, Topaz B&W Effects and Topaz Denoise. It is called “Tribute” as it is part of the Beisheim Center in Berlin, a tribute to American Art Deco architecture. I will start this review with a bit of background information. I am a long time user of various Topaz plugins. The first ever Photoshop plugin that I used was Topaz Denoise , which is still part of my current workflow (I remember at that point I was not even using Photoshop but Gimp and it was quite a struggle to make Topaz plugins working inside it). Later on, during the period when i was experimenting with HDR, I was a happy user of Topaz Adjust and Topaz Details. Now most of my work is in black and white, so I had explore more or less all the conversions techniques, from simple Film&Filter, to more complicated channel mixer techniques in Photoshop and more sophisticated plugins like Topaz B&W  Effects and Nik Silver Efex.   Also, it is ...

I am writing this review having in mind that Topaz is offering a half price discount for one of their best products: Topaz Denoise. You can downloaded as a free trial for 30 days from Topaz Labs page:  Topaz Denoise . The product is now 39.99$ instead of 79.99$ with the coupon code “mardenoise” (type it without quotes), until the end of March. I would mention that I really appreciate that Topaz guys do not have differentiated prices for European and US customers like other vendors (making European customers paying about 40% more for the same stuff). So, what is Topaz Denoise? It is a plugin for Photoshop CS, Elements, Lightroom, Aperture, IrfanView (and I even managed to use it within Gimp with some emulator couple of years ago before entering into Photoshop world). It is the first noise removal plugin that I use and the only one that is part of my workflow at the moment and that has been constantly part of it in the last 2 years). Despite some attempts to try other si...

This is the tutorial that I wrote for 1X some time ago. The plan was to photograph a famous building while paying homage to the well-known architect who designed it. Everything was perfect, except for the stark, uninteresting sky. Don’t let a barren, blue sky ruin your otherwise flawless image. Here’s what to do, before and after you take the photo. Turning Torso, the tallest building in Scandinavia, is a famous architectural landmark in Malmö, Sweden. Renowned architect, structural engineer and sculptor Santiago Calatrava designed it, and it was inspired by his own marble sculpture of a human form called “Twisting Torso”. The spiraling, residential skyscraper is fully powered by locally produced renewable energy, and it twists a complete 90 degrees clockwise from top to bottom. I live in Copenhagen, Denmark, and because Malmö is just on the other side of Øresund Bridge, I was inclined to include Turning Torso in my long-term photo project “Geometry in Motio...

Ever since installing CC 2015 I started having problems with the Healing Brush tool. Once an essential tool in my workflow, used especially for correcting out the sensor dust spots, I noticed that the tool seemed broken in the Mac version of CC 2015. Carmen was complaining too on her Windows version. I was in the situation to keep a CC 2014 as well on a different OS on my machine and use it for dust spots. After many complains especially from retouches who are highly dependent on this tool, Adobe released an update. However the update is not working automatically but required a small trick, described in 5 simple steps on https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/enable-non-realtime-healing-brush.html  Install the Photoshop CC 2015.0.1 update. Use Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac OS) to create a plain text file. Type the text LegacyHealingBrush 1 into the text file. Save the file as PSUserConfig.txt to your Photoshop settings folder: Windows: [...