Tag Archives: topaz labs

*Topaz End of Year Sale, anything and everything 35% off w/ @topazlabs

by in Photography Apps, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Topaz Super Sale!

Hot on the heels of the Complete Collection Cyber Sale, Topaz Labs is offering anything and everything for 35% off.  If you’ve been waiting to try, grab or buy a Topaz plugin or two, now is an awesome time to do so.  You can find the sale on the Topaz Labs website HERE, and use code “TOPAZ2015” to get 35% off of anything that Topaz offers through the end of the year.

If you’d like to see more about my personal favorites, click the following links to my reviews.  I use many of the Topaz plugins, very often for personal stuff, along with most all my paid projects.

Topaz Adjust (reg $49.99, now $32.49) – the flagship Topaz plugin, and a great companion to high dynamic range photography.

Topaz Clarity (reg $49.99, now $32.49) – My go to for beautiful image definition through contrast without haloing.  Simply awesome. 

Topaz DeNoise (reg $79.99, now $51.99) – In my experience, this has been the best noise reduction plugin, hands down.

Topaz Glow (reg $69.99, now $45.49) – If ever you’ve searched for Fractalius, this is like that, only way better.  Fractalized and beautifully surreal effects.

Topaz Impression  (reg $99.99, now $64.99) – Adding a touch of hand painted flair, or going full blown Picasso, Impression is an awesome multi media simulation software.

Topaz ReMask (reg $69.99, now $45.49) – I might use ReMask more than any other plugin (topaz or otherwise).  If you use a layer based editor like Photoshop, and you’ve ever needed to select something (like oh, I don’t know, HAIR!), save yourself an amazing amount of time and try this out.  

You can try any and all of the Topaz plugins for free.  I really suggest that you do.  Don’t take my word for it.  Download the free trials via Topaz HERE, and give them a go.  If you do want to buy them, and you do so before December 31st, 2015, you can get 35% off using code “TOPAZ2015”!

Share your results with us via our Flickr Group HERE, or find me on the socials;  Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Instagram.  If you’d like to receive my reviews, tutorials and sale posts as I release them, feel free to add your email to the top right of the page here and you’ll get them emailed as soon as they’re posted.  I’m currently working on a couple fun lens reviews along with a full frame vs micro 4/3 sensor comparison which should be showing up soon after the new year.

If you’ve got any questions, fire them off.  Thanks for the read and I hope that all is well, wherever you are.

Happy holidays, and happy shooting,

Tyson

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*Congratulations to Giorgio Lumaconi, our second, semi-annual Flickr Photo Blog Challenge Champion!

by in Photo Blog Challenge and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

bookmark

It came down to a foot race at the end, and Giorgio Lumaconi emerged victorious with his image “bookmark”.  Congratulations to Giorgio and I’ll be in contact to get you your free stuff!

Please visit Giorgio HERE to see more of his work, and to connect, say hi, make friends with, follow… you know.

Thank you so much, to Jimmy and the folks at Alien Skin Software, and Darcy and the team at Topaz Software for generously providing us the ability to give away killer photography software, and to Keri and crew at Lensbaby my friends and hometown lens manufacturing gurus, for the LM10 smartphone, selective focus optic!  All wonderful people and companies, that have always been awesome in their support of me and my blogging adventures.  I chose to contact them while still in my blog infancy because I loved their products.  I choose to continue to buy from, use their wares and shill for them because I know them and how hard they work for and within the greater photographic community, so thank you all.  

Giorgio will also receive a brand new Cascade style wrist strap.  I am working on having these available to purchase very soon and will be an addition to the Garda style wrist straps currently available HERE.

Finally, thank you to Heather and Mat at Mirrorlessons, my partners in crime for these monthly challenges.  We have really enjoyed being able to grow the community through these theme based photo challenges and look forward to continuing to.

If you’re new to the monthly flickr photo blog challenges, visit us on Flickr –

Keep an eye out for our monthly theme threads.  It’s a fun, free way to connect with other photographers worldwide, it can be fun motivation to get out and shoot, and get your photography seen by an ever growing audience. 

Find me on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Instagram . To stay posted on new articles, feel free to add your email address at the top right of the page here.  You’ll get email alerts as new articles are released.

Keep on keepin’ on, and happy shooting.

Tyson

*Choose the Champion of our semi-annual Photo blog challenge winners!

by in Photo Blog Challenge and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

champions round 2

Alright, we have successfully crowned 6 more, monthly challenge winners, and the time has come to choose your overall favorite.  The winner gets free software from Alien Skin and Topaz Labs, an LM-10 smartphone, selective focus optic from Lensbaby and a brand new, yet to be released TRP camera wrist strap that I’ve been working on.  Please vote for your favorite, tell friends, and remember to visit Mirrorlessons HERE as well to vote there too!  This vote will run for a week, and we will tally the total amount of votes between this poll and the poll at Mirrorlessons with the overall winner receiving all the free stuff and title of our second, semi annual champion.

Thanks as always to everyone who has, and continues to contribute to these monthly themes.  Thanks to Heather and Mat from Mirrorlessons for co-hosting all of these cool challenges with me, and helping promote so many cool photographers through these monthly photographic contests.

These challenges are entirely free to enter, and we’ve created them as a way to both provide motivation to get out and shoot with fun new themes each month, and help showcase much of the awesome photography from all of you guys and gals.  All you need to do is find us on Flickr (TRP HERE and Mirrorlessons HERE) to submit your images to the monthly theme threads.  Because we’ve been able to build up steam with it as time has gone on, we have companies that are excited to sponsor these challenges by offering stuff for our semi-annual giveaways.  

Thank you so much to Alien Skin Software, Topaz Labs Software and Lensbaby for being so awesome.  I’ve had the good fortune of working with these three companies for years doing reviews and beta testing and I strongly stand behind them as companies.  Great folks, great products and while I wish my wrist straps would be a cool enough draw, these challenges are so much better because of their gracious gifting so that we can sweeten the pot.

We have 6 wonderful options from the winners of our 6 previous monthly themes.  View all 6, and choose your favorite in the poll at the end.  In chronological order they are as follows…

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*Topaz Adjust, on sale in all its popular image enhancing glory!

by in Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

topaz adjust

What may be seen by many Topaz plugin users as the quintessential Topaz offering, Topaz Adjust is being offered for 50% off through the end of September.  Using coupon code “septadjust” you can get what is probably Topaz most useful and popular plugin for $24.99, or apply the same discount code from the complete collection for a $25 discount!!!  This was the very first plugin from Topaz that I ever bought, I paid full price, and I’m still thrilled with it.  I use many of the Adjust filters as layers in my imagery, and particularly to enhance my HDR interior shots that I use for my grow’d up photography (you can click the above before/after comparison to see what a single click can do).  It is extremely cheap for the power it provides.  It can be used for nice, subtle detail enhancement, full blown surreality or anything in-between.  Visit Topaz Labs website HERE to try or buy this awesome plugin.

*Topaz DeNoise 5, like a fine wine.

by in Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 44 Comments

***UPDATE See the new Topaz DeNoise 6 reviewed and compared to DeNoise 5 HERE***

Smooth, yet refined with an impeccable attention to detail.

Noise has become less and less an issue for digital photographers over the last few years as sensor technology gets better, in camera processing is capable of shouldering more of that load than ever before and digital asset management software/RAW converters are up to the task for much of the noise reduction needs.  Still, with analog to digital information translation, there is an inherent signal:noise issue that can always be further helped by a good noise reduction software.  Add to that, pro-sumer 35mm format models breaching the Medium Format pixel counts, or compact sensors pushing the pixel pitch to near immeasurable dimensions, there is, and will be a need for a manual noise reduction control through post processing.  While Lightroom and Aperture have good noise reduction algorithms, they are the swiss army knife of image processing, giving you many handy tools, but what happens when you need a power tool?  That little Swiss army knife’s mini-saw ain’t gonna cut through that noise riddled log for you, you’ll need a chainsaw.   Enter, Topaz DeNoise5, your powerful, noise reducing chainsaw.  You can download a free trial, or purchase DeNoise.  If interested click HERE to go to Topazlabs.com.  I’ve used Noise Ninja and Nik Define in the past, and I think both of those have just been pushed out of my workflow.  Read on for examples and my take…

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*Brand new, Topaz B&W Effects

by in Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Just released, B&W Effects is a new black and white conversion plugin from Topaz.   One thing I have to say about the Topaz products are that they’re really a great value.  While so many plugins available can run as much or more than the software programs running them, Topaz has created a variety of affordable plugins with compelling skill sets.

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