Question for Topaz users

[PixieDust32]

What's Topaz?





Thanks

 

[Evad]

I've heard a lot about Topaz. Can anyone post a 'before' and 'after' picture or two?

before

after

before

After

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

What's really fun is to use it on your 'throwaway' shots - the ones that weren't all that good, had bad lighting, too underexposed, blown highlights, etc...and see if you can turn them into something cool. Here's some that I never bothered to process or upload to my galleries before, that turned into something interesting with some Topaz work:
Now I too need to decide if I should just grab the Adjust, or go for the bundle. I've already got a decent noise reduction program I've used for years, so I haven't decided yet.

I could see myself having a lot of fun with this program since I have lots of 'throwaway' photos!

One more question for anyone who knows...If I download the trial, will I still be able to then go to the site Dcanoli posted and use the discount coupon?

 

[Gdad]

Great examples all- I'll add a few. (I am running Topaz Adjust on 4GB Ram just fine BTW...)

Simplify

Psychedelic

There is also a long running discussion thread on Topaz here:

http://www.nikoncafe.com/vforums/showthread.php?t=191053

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

Great examples all- I'll add a few. (I am running Topaz Adjust on 4GB Ram just fine BTW...)

Simplify

Psychedelic

There is also a long running discussion thread on Topaz here:

http://www.nikoncafe.com/vforums/showthread.php?t=191053

OMG your photos are so beautiful I'm drooling all over my computer! I think I'll just bite the bullet and buy it already! Thanks for posting that link too!

 

[Anne's Family]

Anne,

Have you been watching the Picture of the Day thread? Jeff (GDAD) posts them all the time.

Oh, yes. Look at it everyday. Just haven't really seen the "before" shots. That's where I heard about it in the first place. Love it. Now if I can just get around to affording a camera over $150 like I always buy.

 

[zackiedawg]

I actually didn't bother to upload a lot of my 'befores' because they weren't pics I thought were very good to begin with! I've got a few - where the shot may not have been too bad, but the skies were blah that day, or the contrast was nasty causing blown skies or shadows.

Here's a few before and afters from the ones I posted earlier:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

 

[PhotobearSam]

These are so beautiful...Thanks everyone for turning me onto this Topaz program...I will get DH to download the trial and then do the purchase for me tomorrow...


Thanks a bunch


Keep the pics coming everyone...love to see them

 

[WillowBelle]

I am far from a pro Topaz user. Here is one I posted in the POTD thread.

This is after (using the Spicify adjust)

Before (straight out of the camera/resized):

 

[zackiedawg]

Aah...nice to see you're experimenting with the other Topaz settings now! Spicify can be one of the cool ones when you really want the colors to pop, but still maintain the somewhat realistic slightly HDR look. I probably use 'dramatic', 'enhance contrast', 'spicify', and 'vibrance' the most. Every once in a while, I try a 'psychadelic'.

And moving those sliders around in each of the tabs can really increase or decrease the various effects quite a bit...either boosting a 'spicify' to look almost as wild as 'dramatic', or toning down a 'dramatic' to look a little more realistic.

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

Great site and good review AND they have a discount code for purchase...

http://www.stuckincustoms.com/topaz-adjust-review/

Dcanoli, do you know if I download the trial elsewhere, will I still be allowed to use the coupon at the site you specified for the whole program?

 

[WillowBelle]

Yes, Justin, I'm starting to tone it down a bit . I have done some other photos that were as you (?) termed 'throw away' pictures.

To me, the area that I live in is a great big yawner when it comes to things to photograph. I can't wait to go on vacation to FL next month and put my new camera to use and then add a bit of topaz to some and see what my end results are.

 

[WillowBelle]

Dcanoli, do you know if I download the trial elsewhere, will I still be allowed to use the coupon at the site you specified for the whole program?

I bit the bullet and purchased the package. They have added another add-on to the bundle (Clean 2) so the price is now $129. I was able to use the coupon that Dcanoli linked to for the whole thing, for a grand total of $116.

 

[GrillMouster]

I've never tried Topaz, but many of the images I've seen from it suffer from bad halos (glowing edges, especially around buildings and trees that extend above the horizon). I notice this type of halo effect when too much midtone contrast is applied, as in the Clarity slider in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw.

Is Topaz a stand-alone program or is it a plug-in for Photoshop or Lightroom? Is there a slider to dial back the effect to get rid of the halos?

 

[zackiedawg]

Is Topaz a stand-alone program or is it a plug-in for Photoshop or Lightroom? Is there a slider to dial back the effect to get rid of the halos?

It is a plug in - only I believe - but yes, there are quite a few sliders actually for adjusting various settings within exposure, color, noise, and detail.

That look you are referring to is often referred to as the 'Topaz' look - it stands out for being extremely processed, colorful, vibrant, HDR-looking, and almost plastic or painted. While it can be a cool effect, it's a bit over the top for some.

But you can also do very mellow adjustments to contrast, shadow, highlight, detail, color, saturation, etc within the Topaz program, and they don't have to be that noticeable or different from other post-processing programs. It's all in personal taste and how much you want to push your photos - and whether you are pursuing realism or artistic license.

As an example, this shot was run through Topaz with extremely mellow adjustments, mostly just to bring up the shadows and brightness and boost the saturation a bit, lost from using an 8-stop filter:

Not too extreme, right?

Or this...which was definitely using a lot more processing, and really pushing to recover color and detail from a severe underexposed shot...this one pushes to the line of realism vs. art...but still I don't think it went into the halos and outlines yet:

And here's one of the extreme shots - what would typically be thought of as the 'Topaz look':

So there is a lot of leeway to how you use it, and there are 4-5 sliders on each of 4 different tabs all to fine tune any of the 20 or so preset modes - allowing you to customize the level of processing applied to however mild or wild you want.

 

[Code]

That look you are referring to is often referred to as the 'Topaz' look - it stands out for being extremely processed, colorful, vibrant, HDR-looking, and almost plastic or painted.

Anyone else as sick of seeing the overdone Topaz look as I am? Chime in!!

 

[WillowBelle]

Anyone else as sick of seeing the overdone Topaz look as I am? Chime in!!

I know, speaking for myself, that part of the overdone look that I have been adding is just from excitement of having a software that does it so easily. I'm trying to teach myself how to tone it down a bit .

As for looking at others pictures, I like them both ways. I think that some of the more subtle pictures are fantastic as well as the overdone ones. I think it depends on what the subject is.

I have a bit of inner-struggle going on. Is it taking away from the art of photography to overload the photo, or does it sometimes add to the effect of what you would like to photograph but can't because it isn't really what you see......

 

[zackiedawg]

Code, I definitely count myself as one who declared that I was sick of the look, and even disliked it. I've been equally tired of seeing all the overcooked HDRs. Things definitely come in waves, and those two are trends du jour.

At the same time, when I downloaded the free trial, I wanted to try out the software in many different ways - to see whether it might be a useful plug in for the long term, and also to see how wild and how mild I could make various photos. So I threw in some of the heavy overcooked ones too - just to try them out. Some worked and came out kind of cool - some didn't. Like Belle mentioned, the newness was also a factor - just wanting to try something you hadn't tried before.

The way I've been finding myself using Topaz the most has been in two distinct ways: 1. For photos that were decent, that I wanted to do some recovery or touch up on, I use it very mildly, just playing with the sliders as needed to boost color, saturation, exposure, shadow recovery, or highlight recovery. Like in the first shot. 2. For photos that were complete junk - throwaways, badly underexposed or blown out, that I might have otherwise deleted...I try hitting them with Topaz to see if anything recoverable can be dragged out of them. Sometimes the only way is to go full extreme, but then sometimes I've gotten some surprisingly usable, fun results. Sort of like the 'extreme' style that you and I are getting tired of seeing so much of...but in rare cases, if the original was completely unprintable unusable junk, then I can completely understand using the Topaz style to full effect.

I tend to not like it as much when someone posts a completely lovely original, then bakes it to the extreme. Every once in a while...fine...but certainly like HDR it really did get around and became overkill!

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

Anyone else as sick of seeing the overdone Topaz look as I am? Chime in!!

No way! I love it! A lot of them look just like how it appeared to my naked eye, but I couldn't capture it in camera that way. The ones that don't look 'real' are the more cartoonish ones. But hey, it's all art.