In case you missed all of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, you still have time to capitalize on Topaz Labs Holiday Sale!
If you’ve visited this site before, you know that I LOVE Topaz Labs photo editing software products! Their products have saved me more hours than I can count in the photo editing process and some of their presets even help stimulate new ideas.
The discount applies to any one of their 17 different products, or you can get the entire suite (highly recommended).
Topaz Labs products come with pre-loaded presets, but also allow you total control to just start from scratch or edit any preset you may start with.
Bitchin’.
Favorite Topaz Labs Products
Clarity: this isn’t just a simple clarity slider like you find in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw. This one allows you to control contrast at the micro, low, medium and high levels without getting artificial artifacts – as well as mask out areas of the image where you don’t want the effect applied. Works as a plug-in to Photoshop or Lightroom.
Detail: crystal clear sharpness without noise. I especially like this product for macro shots of flowers or foliage, or fur and feathers on critters. Want to see every last detail of that Bald Eagle feather? Here ya go. Works as a plug-in to Photoshop or Lightroom.
Impression: awesome for converting photos to a variety of different painterly effects or drawings. Watercolors, oils, Monet, charcoal drawings – no problem. Works as a stand alone or as a plug-in.
Adjust: this is an older product and one that I’m just starting to use. It has an amazing technology called “adaptive exposure” that I still can’t really wrap my head around, but it evens out shadows and highlights without getting artificial looking or noisy. Certainly not like just moving the highlights and shadows sliders. Also allows for adjustments to color and detail. Works as a plug-in to Photoshop or Lightroom.
Glow: one of the newer products and one that’s easy to go “over the top” with. Yes, you can add electrifying effects to photos and make them otherworldly. I find it a cool program to use as a subtle way to bump up color or other smoothing effects when you dial it waaaay down. The fur and feather presets are my typical starting point, even if the image I’m applying it to doesn’t have fur or feathers. Neon can be a ton of fun, too 🙂
Simplify: I like this one for creating painterly effects, too. I gave a tutorial about how I used it to create surreal forest effects recently. Works as a plug-in to Photoshop or Lightroom.
Restyle: want to mess around with color palates? This is the product for you! Another program that comes with a ton of presets (some you’d never think of on your own) that can also be tweaked to taste. Comes as a stand alone program or works as a plug-in.
Remask: the easiest mask selection tool I have found thus far for making composites. Hands down.
Star Effects: just did a tutorial about a sneaky little trick in this product that makes adding realistic star effects to images a snap. Works as a plug-in.
Texture Effects: this is a brand new product and one of my all time favorites – for real! You can not only add textures, but you can create double exposures with ease – especially since it’s ridiculously easy to add your own texture files (or any other file, for that matter). I wrote a post about Texture Effects recently and will probably write a quick tutorial about how to do double exposures with it soon. It comes with a boat load of high resolution textures, dust and scratches, and other assets, so it’s a monster download! Another unique feature – you can create your own presets and share with the Topaz community – as well as download other people’s presets if you want to. Works as a stand alone or plug-in.
This is just a sampling of what’s available from Topaz – they have 17 different products currently available. I also appreciate that any future updates to their products are FREE rather than asking you to pay for an upgrade. Any new products are offered at a discount to those who’ve purchased from them in the past.
Topaz offers a 30 day free trial if you want to try before you buy. Or go ahead, take advantage of the Topaz Labs holiday sale and buy it now to save 35% 🙂