Topaz Adjust 4 and Bundle Discount Ending
Just a heads up that the 20% Topaz Adjust 4 release discount for Topaz Adjust and the bundle will be ending soon. Although Adjust 4 was a free upgrade for previous Adjust owners, if you've never tried Topaz Adjust before now is a great time to do so. Check it out here:
Topaz Adjust - Easily Make Your Photos Pop
Use the coupon code NEWADJUST for 20% off either Topaz Adjust or the Plug-in Bundle. This coupon code expires on 3/15/10.
Let me know if you have any questions about Adjust or our products!
Topaz ReMask 2 Sneak Peek
Much has been said about Topaz ReMask, but now there's one more thing to talk about: ReMask is about to become faster, easier, and prettier right in front of your eyes. We've been working Topaz ReMask v2, which includes a user interface for easier and more intuitive use - and even enhances the already high masking speed and mask quality of the original.
Just to give you an little sneak peek of what it will eventually look like, here's a shot of the current alpha user interface:
Topaz ReMask 2 screenshot
(note that this may undergo significant changes by the actual release of ReMask 2)
The overall workflow will be like this:
- Paint the KEEP (green), CUT (red), and PROCESS (blue) areas with a combination of fill tools and brush tools.
- Hit the process button. The mask immediately updates right there in the user interface.
- Refine the mask if you wish by specifying more parts of the image to keep or remove. Refinement much easier because you can see exactly what you're doing right there on the screen.
Extremely simple, highly intuitive, and still blazing fast - just the way masking should be. Here are a couple of other cool features in the new version:
- Vastly improved and specialized hair masking algorithms.
- Saves result to a layer mask in Photoshop if you have one enabled on the layer, or just cuts image out of its background if you don't.
- Four views that show all aspects of your mask at all times for the utmost control over your final result.
- Undo/Redo functionality and full keyboard shortcut support.
- Highly improved memory management - uses own memory instead of sharing Photoshop's memory. This makes it a little faster and a lot stabler than original ReMask.
Personally, when I tried using the new version of ReMask for the first time, I was actually extremely surprised by how easy it was to use. Astronomical props go to our developers for releasing a completely redesigned and reworked product in such little time. This is not a little minor update, this is practically an entirely new product - looks like it, feels like it, and works like it. I usually don't like to gush catchphrases but I was sincerely blown away by the difference between the new and old ReMask - it's simply amazing. PSP and Elements will also be supported by ReMask 2 in addition to Photoshop.
Despite all these improvements, we really appreciate our early adopters and would therefore like to offer ReMask v2 when it's released as a completely free upgrade for existing customers of ReMask v1. Your support and feedback is what makes the constant improvement of our products possible.
Thanks again! ReMask 2 is scheduled for a mid-November release, so you don't have too long to wait.
What is Boost?
Topaz products that have to do with detail manipulation often have a peculiar setting labeled "Boost", which is the source of some confusion among photographers.
Adjust Boost slider
Detail boost slider
A frequently asked question is...
"How is adjusting the Boost setting different than just adjusting the Strength setting?"
Adjusting the regular detail strength setting proportionally enhances all the details in the image. Adjusting the Boost setting disproportionally enhances the weaker details.
Basically, setting the boost higher means that the weaker and less contrasty details will be heavily enhanced. The weaker the details the heavier the enhancement on that detail. So while a strong and well-defined image detail will still be affected by the boost setting, the weaker details are affected a lot more. The opposite also holds true: setting the boost to a negative setting means that the weaker and less contrasty details will be disproportionally reduced.
On the other hand, the regular strength setting just linearly increases and decreases detail no matter how strong it is. This preserves the original relative detail strengths.
This is why the boost slider often seems to create a much heavier effect than the regular strength setting: giving all the less obvious details more definition can sometimes produce an overwhelming effect. Still, it's useful to know what the Boost parameter is doing to your pixels.
Pro Tip: Guys, don't touch the Boost slider when post-processing a photograph of your girlfriend or wife. Ever!
Inside Topaz Detail
Working at a software company means that I'm more than familiar with phrases like "advanced technology" and "breakthrough algorithms"... sometimes too familiar! Although these are actually decent descriptions, sometimes it's nice to know exactly how the software works in order to be able to use it most effectively, instead of just knowing that it's "advanced".
Now, this is immediately relevant because we just released Topaz Detail, a plug-in that specializes in detail enhancement without halos. It does use pretty new technology - for example, a detail enhancement product that doesn't create halos would have been impossible to develop just a year ago.
So immediately people emailed us wanting to know how it worked. One of the more common questions was why we implemented a pre-processing technique only in Topaz Detail rather than our other software. Well, the answer is so simple that it can be related in haiku form:
Internal splitting
Precise size-based enhancement
Topaz Detail rocks!
I know that probably answered all your questions. Here's a more complex answer anyways, manifested in a delightful blue diagram:
Topaz Detail flow. Click for larger. (You may have to scroll right)
Click on the diagram for a larger and more voluptuous version. I'll walk you through the internal steps that Detail takes from start to finish.
1. First, you have your original image. You now access Topaz Detail and appreciate the fine aesthetics of the pre-processing screen.
2. Pre-processing starts. Topaz Detail separates your image into one based on chrominance (color information) and one based on luminance (grayscale information). These will undergo different processing methods and will be affected by different sliders.
3. The luminance information is further internally broken down into three detail layers based on size, and a base layer. Manipulating these four layers make up the bulk of the detail enhancement functionality of the software. After this step, pre-processing ends and the Topaz Detail user interface pops up. (This is also the portion of pre-processing that runs the slowest... probably because it has the most advanced breakthrough technological algorithms.)
4. The user adjusts the large, medium, and small detail sizes, and each individual detail layer is affected appropriately. If you like, you can see what each of the four individual layers looks like. To see the base layer by itself, turn the large, medium, and small sliders to 0. To see each individual detail size layer, drag that particular one all the way to the right and set the contrast to 0 (which will switch the base layer to neutral gray).
5. The luminance layer is re-combined with the adjusted small, medium, and large detail layers as well as the base layer.
6. Highlight and shadow protection, as set by the user, is applied to the luma layer.
7. The internal luma and chroma layers are re-combined to form your startlingly good final processed image.
Steps 5, 6, and 7 take no time at all. This means that, although there can be a sometimes annoying wait for the initial pre-processing stage, there will be no actual waiting after that. All adjustments are made instantaneously after the necessary initial pre-processing.
This is the complete internal workflow that Detail uses. Now that you know, it becomes quite obvious how it can sharpen and enhance detail without creating any halos - simply because it doesn't really "sharpen"! All it does is increase the intensity of the appropriate detail layer, which gives a sharpening effect without any of the negative artifacts normally associated with sharpening or detail enhancement.