Topaz's New Photo Editor
Topaz Labs long known for their highly regarded Photoshop and Lightroom plugins has released a new photo editor called Topaz Studio. Best of all it is FREE – well sort of free. Currently you can download the full version and give it a try. To see a video on what it’s all about you can follow this LINK
When I said it was sort of free I need to explain that Topaz Studio currently contains 24 adjustments which can be used to enhance your photos. Only 10 will ultimately be free. The other 14 adjustments are part of the Adjustment Pro Pack series of adjustments. While all function initially the Adjustment Pro Pack adjustments will cease to function after 30 days. After that you can buy the Adjustment Pro Pack or only buy the adjustments you like as they are for sale individually.
Topaz says on their Topaz Studio website that this is just the beginning and there will be future additions to Topaz Studio and to make this even better they will never charge for these enhancements. In other words enhancements to the program will be free for the life of the program. BUT, if you look carefully at the wording on the home page and dig around on the website you will find that all will not be free.
Updates to the Topaz Studio program that make it work with the latest operating systems, as a plugin to the latest version of programs such as Photoshop, as well as enhancements to the user interface will be free. It’s not clear but they may also add more free adjustments. However, in the future they will add adjustments to the Adjustments Pro Pack which will not be free. If you want any of them you will have to pay.
So what’s free? The free adjustments are actually pretty impressive. Here are the adjustments that will be free. Basic Adjustment, Blurs, Brightness Contrast, Color Overlay, Dual Tone, Film Grain, Image Layer, Posterize, Tone Curves, and Vignette. Of these perhaps the most fun to play with will be Image Layer and Posterize. Image Layer allows you to combine multiple photos to create a single image. Posterize allows you to take a photo and convert it into something resembling a painting.
The Adjustment Pro Pack includes Black and White, Dehaze, Reduce Noise, Precision Contrast, Sharpen and nine others. To find out what each of these adjustments do you can go to Topaz Studio home page by following this link.
As you scroll down the page there is a list of the 10 free adjustments and each contains a link to a video showing what the adjustment does. Scroll further down and you find a similar list for the 14 adjustments that are part of the Adjustments Pro Pack.
Topaz Studio also contains a masking tool which can be applied separately to each adjustment layer to give you much more flexibility and it is part of the free version. There are several masking tools available, they can be combined, and each allows you to choose to which areas of your photo you want to apply an adjustment.
Some of you like myself already own some of Topaz’s tools so you might ask what about me? Well unfortunately I’m still trying to find the answer to that question. Topaz Studio does have a Plug-ins menu selection and this is where all the Topaz tools you already own will reside. It does appear that there is some overlap.
So how much is this all going to cost? First of all the program with 10 adjustments is free. The 14 additional adjustments that are part of the Adjustments Pro Pack will work for 30 days giving you a chance to see if you want all or any of them. If you want the Adjustments Pro Pack and you already own some of Topaz’s tools then it will cost you $70. According to the email I received this price is good through May 30, 2017. If you don’t own any Topaz tools then it will cost $137.50 and I could not find when this promotional price will end. Eventually the full retail price will be $274.87. The cost of future Adjustment Pro Pack modules is anyone’s guess.
As you might expect as the moderator of the Photo Enhancement SIG I just had to download and try it. While this is a feature rich program and I have not had time to dig into all it can do, I did like what I saw. When you first open the program you are presented with presets. There are not that many but there is a promise of more in the future which may or may not be free.
The Basic Adjustment reminds of Adobe Camera Raw lite. The Reduce Noise adjustment tool worked well. The user interface is pretty slick. It allows you to see your adjustments in real time and offers several ways to see your results compared to the original photo. It’s also relatively intuitive making it easy to use.
I watched several of the videos available for Topaz Studio and it is clear that this program has a lot of nice features. Is it a replacement for Photoshop or Lightroom? Probably not. But if want a nice photo editor for free then it’s worth a look. In my opinion the Image Layer adjustment feature in the free version makes this a worthy program even if it didn’t do anything else. However, it does much more even if you don’t buy the Adjustment Pro Pack. If you have any interest at all in working on your photos then I highly recommend this program. You have nothing to lose. I plan to demonstrate it at a future Photo Enhancement SIG meeting.
