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 week I have been invited to try a brand new plugin from Topaz labs: Clarity. In a world of photographic plugins clearly dominated by Nik Software/Google (both quality and price wise as most photographers would consider), it is good when some competition spices up the things. And Topaz Labs is an interesting competitor for Google, providing a large range of photographic plugins covering almost every area of image editing. I have installed Clarity, with some ideas in mind, based on the description that I received “quick and easy to enhance contrast and color without degrading the image with halos or artifacts”. The program is very easy to use. The interface is simple and self-explaining, letting aside some minor bugs that probably their development team is working at as we speak. There are only few presets available at the moment (some categories are empty, but we expect to see some predefined presets in those soon) but as with any plugin, I suggest starting from the scratch, pl...