This past week, I attended a couple of webinars put on by Topaz Labs that featured some of their plug-in software for Adobe Photoshop.
The first webinar was hosted by Nichole Paschal, a Topaz representative, and it featured B&W effect plug-in and Adjust. Topaz Adjust allows you to make Pseudo HDR pictures without having to compile several different exposures into one. Once installed, the plug-in is easy to jump into and use in your normal work flow for photography. The interface is fairly easy to grasp with multiple presets and many sections with individual sliders. Watching someone’s work flow can be informative because there is always more than one way to do something in Adobe Photoshop, and you can benefit from knowing more about how to use Adobe Photoshop. I have already been introduced to Topaz Adjust about a year ago, and so far, it has been a great Adobe Photoshop plug-in.
The second webinar was hosted by an established photographer, Joel Wolfson. He demonstrated a new plug-in for Topaz called Star Effects. This plug-in allowed Joel to amplify lighting effects with ease. As I mentioned before, watching someone’s work flow can be more informative than expected. I watched Joel copy a layer mask to another layer and invert it with some hotkey movements that I had previously been unaware of.
The webinars are only an hour and are well worth it, especially when the event is free! They also have software giveaways for random people in the webinar, and everyone gets a discount code! Check out the Topaz Labs site for more information about their products, or check out their YouTube channel to re-watch a previous webinar.
(Source: Skynet Solutions)
By Clint Smith