Topaz Labs Blog

Adjust 5 Workflow Tips

Posted on 30. Nov, 2011 by Ashley Robinson in Tips, Tricks & Tutorials

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1. Before jumping into Adjust, one of the most important things you can do is to make sure that you have a clean image. This means eliminating noise or artifacts before making any kind of color or detail adjustments…just to make sure that the image is clean. Use your Topaz DeNoise plug-ins to do this. This is going to make your final results better. See workflow tip #11 (below) for more details.

2. Presets go a long way. You can significantly cut processing time and effort by starting out with presets. Scroll through the presets to preview the affect in the preview window and see what you’re getting before you select it. Customize your look. Use the sliders in the tool panel to individually adjust settings and customize the effect to fit your image. Create presets for your favorite looks. Be sure to save any settings that you create as a new preset in your My Collection preset category.

Adaptive Exposure is key.
The Adaptive Exposure tab allows you to add more localized contrast to your image, rescue detail from blown out highlights or blocked up shadows and adjust basic contrast and brightness. Adjustments made here enhance flat images and result in more texture detail and depth throughout your image.

3. Delicate balance of Adaptive Exposure and Regions is key to getting well-balanced color, detail and exposure. However, a significantly high value for both of these sliders (adaptive exposure and regions) can produce grungy and sometimes harsher-looking effects in image color and detail. Adjusting both of these sliders incrementally will produce the best results.

4. Regions. The Regions slider determines how your Adaptive Exposure selection is disbursed across your image.  The value of the Regions slider determines how many regions to divide your image to. Increase the regions in your image you will produce more variations of color, detail and the appearance of depth. What’s unique about Adjust’s Regions is that even as you increase the amount of Regions, Adjust blends the boundaries of those Regions so that you can not detect where one ends and the next begins. So let’s take a closer look at Regions in action so we can see just how they work.

Click here to learn more about Regions.

5. Reveal lost detail using the Highlights and Shadows sliders. Increasing Highlights slider will balance brightness and reveal previously obscured detail in highlight areas. Increasing the Shadow slider will balance shadowed areas and reveal previously obscured detail in shadow areas. These work in conjunction with the Adaptive Exposure slider. The higher the value of the Adaptive Exposure the wider range of control you will have with the Highlights and Shadows sliders.

6. Process Details Independently – Processes exposure and details adjustments separately. By default you may often see more crunchy, gritty, noise-like effects when working with the Adaptive Exposure sliders. Enabling the PDI will still give you that instant pop but it will also help eliminate these grungy effects and render smoother effects…especially in areas like sky and water.

Click here to learn more about processing details independently here.

7. Selective Adjustments.
Selective Adjustments allow you more control and flexibility over your image adjustments. Here are a few ways that you can achieve selective control over adjustments in your image.

• a. Adjust’s Selective Brush. The 4-in-one tool allows you to selectively Dodge, Burn, Smooth and Brush Out (remove) adjustments. The Brush Out tool is great for eliminating harsh effects on skin, in skies or anywhere else that the applied effect is harshly affecting your image. When it comes to using the Brush Out option, you won’t always want to brush out all of the effect – the key is to just tone it down. So be sure to use the Opacity slider to control how much of the effect is applied or brushed out. The Opacity slider controls how opaque your adjustments become. The higher the value the more effect that will be removed.
• b. Make a selection in your image using Photoshop’s Quick Selection or Marquee tools before opening Adjust. Then the adjustments that you make in Adjust will be applied to the selected area only.
• c. Layers + Layer Masks. You can create two layers in Photoshop and apply two different effects to each layer. Then simply add a layer mask to the top layer, select a black brush (be sure to adjust your brush characteristics) then brush in/out the areas that you want to blend.

8. Transparency Control. Sometimes you may find that the overall effect is too strong or overpowers your image. The Transparency slider, similar to Photoshop’s Opactiy slider, controls the effect strength. You can add as much or as little effect as you’d like to your image.

9. Sky Enhancement. Often the effects applied to your main image subject and structures can be too harsh for the sky (and often water). So when adjusting the sky it is often best to process it separately from the rest of your image. The best way to do this is:

• a. Duplicate your original image layer in Photoshop.
• b. Select the bottom layer and invoke Adjust.
• c. Make your adjustments – focusing on the field and then click OK to process.

• d. Select the duplicated layer and invoke Adjust again. Make your adjustments, but this time focus on the sky.
• e. Once your adjustments are made to your second layer, click OK to process and save back to Photoshop.

• f. Back in Photoshop you will click on the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of your Layers palette (it is the icon with the circle inside of the rectangle). This will add a Layer Mask to your sky layer.

• g. Select a brush tool and set the brush color to black and then begin to brush through the field. This will bring in the field area from the bottom layer blending the two images.

Click here to learn more about sky enhancement techniques.

10. Detail. The Detail Boost slider can be a great way to enhance fine/small details in your image, but be sure not to over-apply it. Doing so can lead to unwanted, noise-like enhancements.

11. Noise. The noise tab is not a substitute for noise reduction software, however it is a great way to clean up any noise or artifacts that are introduced into your image from the other adjustments made within Adjust. If you do find the need to use the tools in Adjust’s Noise tab then be sure to do this as the last step in your workflow before processing your image. This is also great for cleaning up areas of skin and sky in your image. Also, over applying the noise reduction can smooth your image too much and result in a loss of detail, so be sure not to over-apply it.

Click here to learn more about the Adjust noise tool vs. the Topaz DeNoise program.

12. Snap Shots. Snap allows you to take a “snapshot” of a group of settings….like a temporary preset. And then you can use the Prev/Next button to scroll through the snapshots you’ve taken. You can take up to 99 snap shots. This allows you to compare the way various combination settings will impact your image without losing them.

13. Apply Button. The Apply button allows you to stack multiple effects/presets during the same workflow. This can significantly increase your productivity while using Adjust, as well as speed up your workflow. Keep in mind that the Apply button is permanent. Once you click it, your changes up to that point are applied and can not be undone. You would need to Cancel (exit) the program and open it back up. Clicking Apply will also eliminate previous snapshots.

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