Topaz Labs: Topaz Adjust and Topaz DeNoise Reviews

Again, Trey Ratcliff over at Stuck In Custom gave a solid review of these photo tools from topaz labs so...I obliged. I now have both topaz adjust 3 and topaz denoise 3 as plug ins for CS4. First impressions, both are very solid programs. I really enjoy how topaz adjust has some common pre sets and it shows me what my image could look like if I decided to use that preset. I also like having the ability to customize with sliders for various aspects of the picture. The same goes for topaz denoise. There are some common presets depending on what you are looking for. I used both programs to do final touches on my the rose I posted with my photomatix pro review. All in all, Topaz Labs produces great photo editing tools, period.

Just a side note, when it came to noise reduction software a few things swayed my choice. First, I'm using Photoshop CS4 64bit on Windows 7 64 bit...believe it or not, this setup isn't fully supported by all software yet! My big choices were Topaz DeNoise, Neat Image, Noise Ninja, and Noiseware. In the end I decided to go with DeNoise because it is the BEST at getting rid of noise, period. It may not be the fastest, but it does use the best algorithm for noise reduction. Some say that it may over process but I haven't seen it so far.

New HDR software

HDR photography is something that at first glance I hated. It looks fake, surreal, and way too edited for my initial liking, however, the more I see GOOD HDR photography the more I love it. Check out Trey Ratcliff's blog for amazing HDR http://www.stuckincustoms.com/. Upon his recommendation I just got Photomatix pro3 and topaz adjust...hopefully noiseware pro will be coming soon. Although I havn't really jumped into these programs yet, at first glance they seem very easy to use and should be very helpful in my HDR progression.