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 ...

This post was written on the way back home, after couple of hours in Korsør, Denmark, the place where the Great Belt bridge starts its journey to Fyn Island. We took an early train in a windy Sunday morning, hoping to get some dramatic seascapes featuring the bridge or its surroundings. The forecast was looking good: clouds, no rain, wind around 30 km/h, some sun only in the afternoon. Around 4 km of walking between the train station and the wild beach adjacent to the bridge. We arrived there and a very nice scene revealed in front of our eyes: some nets, probably placed by fishermen on some wooden poles and a foggy horizon, covering the island of Fyn. Birds were seating on the wind poles, not bothered by the wind. Some heavy and black clouds on the sky were marching fast in front of us. The water was wild and foamy, hitting with strength the bridge pillars. The wind seems strong but not too strong to be a problem. Ideal condition for long exposure photograp...

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...