Topaz Labs Photoshop Plug-In Bundle Features
- Adjust - optimizes exposure, colour and detail strength for dynamic, HDR-style images
- DeNoise - removes noise, colour noise and banding while recovering and preserving image detail
- B&W effects - create traditional and stylized looks with the most versatile tool for B&W Enhancement
- ReMask - fast and easy masks and cutouts for background replacement and selective adjustments
- Lens Effects - create bokeh, vignettes, colour tone balance, motion blur and more after the shot
- Detail - selectively control 3 levels of image detail without creating halos or edge artefacts
- Simplify - create digital art and painting effects in your images for a wide range of artistic enhancements
- Clean - smoothing and edge stylising for creating smooth, flawless skin and curly, vectorized effects
- InFocus - sharpens and refines to improve image quality and reverse minor instances of blur
- DeJPEG - eliminates jpeg compression artefacts and restores optimal JPEG image integrity
Adjust 5: When opening Adjust 5, it automatically creates a new layer in Photoshop, an option which can be disabled if preferred. Your image is automatically adjusted to the last settings, pressing Reset All will give your your original image. On the left hand side of the screen is the preset panel and preview area. The presets are categorised, with some being much stronger than others. You can also save your own presets in the My Collection area.
The main area of the screen can be split so you can see before and after images next to each other. On the right hand side is the preview navigator, this can be zoomed in so you can look at an area of your image in full size. You can also choose to view the histogram here as well. Further down there is undo, redo and snap. Snap allows you to take a shot of the image as it looks, then when you make further edits, you can take another snap to then compare them.
Further down we reach the three set workflow, which includes global and local adjustments, as well as finishing touches. Global adjustments includes adaptive exposure, details, colour, noise and curve tool, all of which will be applied to the whole image. Local adjustments lets you brush out an effect in certain areas of the image. To help do this, edge aware detects the edges, so as not to run into the area of the image you want to retain. This is useful for editing landscapes, for example, where you may want to edit the land, but not the sky. When saving your own preset, the local adjustments are not saved, as it is unlikely they will be usable on other pictures.
Next is finishing touches, with options including diffusion, grain, transparency, warmth, border, vignette and tone. The border can be set to any colour, including using a dropper to select a colour from your image. You will also find transparency, which reduces the overall effect of all the edits you have made.
Lastly we come to Apply, Reset All and I Feel Lucky. Apply takes your current settings and uses this as the new base image. I Feel Lucky chooses completely random settings, it was rare that it created anything particularly good.
Topaz Labs Photoshop Plug-In Bundle Verdict
The Topaz Labs bundle of plug-ins has something for everyone, basics for quick adjustments (presets) and lots of further editing tools for more advanced users. The plug-ins aren't generally something you can open and use straight away, to get better results it's advisable to read the tutorials and watch the videos on the YouTube site. If you are completely new to Photoshop, you may struggle to use one or two of the plug-ins, but again, the tutorials will help. (ephotozine.com)
