Hey guys.  Topaz is back with their monthly sale, and this month, it’s Simplify, a plugin that puts a painterly spin on your photos. You can download a free trial, or purchase from Topazlabs HERE, and if you do purchase, use code “MAYSIMP” to get 30% off through May 31st for a sale price of $27.99 (normally $39.99).

If you’ve not yet tried Simplify, download a free trial via the link above, come on in for some more info and insight into this cool plugin and follow along.

Simplify offers photographers a quick way to, well, simplify their images.  By focusing on line and contrast in your image, Simplify instantly alters your image from a photograph into a digital painting, sketch or drawing.  Compatible as a standalone if using Topaz PhotoFX Lab, or as a plugin for Photoshop, Lightroom or Aperture, the Topaz Plugins offer awesomely affordable tools to enhance any photographer’s post processing and vision, and Simplify is no exception.

Starting off with your image opened in Simplify, you can choose from a variety of presets which are grouped into Effects at the upper left of your screen.  Choose from groupings, classified into BuzSim, Detail Removal and Enhancement, Line and Ink, Painting, Sketch or the preset list from Simplify 3 or any user altered, defined and saved presets.

From there, with your broad strokes out of the way, you can start to really fine tune your image.  Along the right hand side of your screen, you have a series of dropdown adjustment menus.  Under Global Adjustments, you can set your Simplify mode to either the Base (alters the image wholly, and based on the preset, will apply the effect to all pixels) or the Edges which will essentially create an outline of your image based on the lines created by contrast within your image.  You can also choose to apply both by way of selecting “Combined” which will apply the effect, along with a hard outline of the edges (akin to many of the Line and Ink presets).  From there, you can tweak and adjust various sliders in the Simplify, Adjust, Edges and Curves drop down menus to suit any particular image.

You can then selectively dodge or burn, smooth or brush out the effect by way of a brush under the Local Adjustments, and finally you can tweak your finishing touches by way of an adjustable vignette, or one of the really powerful tools in this plugin, the Tone sliders which borrow from another of Topaz’ plugins, ReStyle by reassigning tones to different tonal regions within your image.  You can choose to completely alter the color of your shadows or highlights, or simply adjust the intensity of the tonality within these regions.  Very cool.  Finishing up, you can adjust the overall intensity of the effect by adjusting its transparency via the final slider.

After you’ve gone through and adjusted your preset, you can save it by clicking the “+Save” button at the bottom left, under your Effect preset menu bar which will then live, by default, in the “My Collection” Effect group, or you can choose to assign it to a different preset group.

Another fun, effective and affordable plugin from Topaz that I enjoy using quite a bit.  If you have any specific questions, let me know in the comments.  Connect with us and share your images using Simplify on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or tag #trpblography on Instagram.  Feel free to add your email address at the top right of the page here.  You’ll get email alerts as new articles, sales, tutorials and reviews are released here on the blog.

Find, try or buy Simplify HERE, and to save 30% through May 31st, click this link and input “MAYSIMP” at checkout to knock the regular price of $39.99 down to $27.99.

Thanks as always for the read, guys.

Happy shooting,

Tyson