Pixiq

Photography filters have always been a way to spend more time playing than you need …or want to. Digital filters or presets are even worst. Believe me…

I remember when, back in the eighties, I first played with Cokin range of filters. I would spend hours trying to find out what to do with them… until I grew tired of all those strange effects and, in fact, their limitations.

Then, with computers and software for photography editing, we discovered new filters – well, you can call them presets or what you want… - and we all played with the Photoshop and other programs selection of filters, until we grew, again, tired of them. When was it that you last played with Photoshop filters beyond the regular ones?

So I’ve not been using filters very much. I do have my regular ND’s, my Vario ND, my polarizer that I carry in my bag, and I do use the smart sharpen in Photoshop or the Lightroom equivalent, but I don’t use filters. Well, I didn’t. Until recently I was convinced to try Topaz Labs filters.

Now, I am not saying filters are the Holy Grail of photography editing, but I’ve discovered two things: they can be fun to use and they can spare you some editing time, once you get past the initial “wow factor” and get to grips with the filters you feel most comfortable with, and tame them to your own needs. Yes, you can change everything to your content, and although that does mean that you can spend hours just doing that, some interesting work is bound to come out from that experience.

I’ve used filters in Lightroom – hey, the ND grad there is just great, as Paul Harcourt Davies uses to write  in his column here, and I can testify – but Topaz Labs Adjust 4 is like having a big box of colour pencils with all shades against the guy that only has a six pencil collection.

Even without changing parameters, the basic presets from Topaz Adjust 4 are just mind-boggling. That’s somehow what I want to show with this chart based upon a picture of my older son.

There are some 35 presets ready for you to explore in Adjust 4. Not all of them will be usable with all images and not all of them will be a favourite for different people, but you can bet there’s enough for changing the way you look at your images. In fact one thing I’ve learned from Topaz Labs Adjust 4 is that many people is using the program to make the fantastic imagery we see around, Whether you just fine tune some aspects or go for the whole changing options the program gives you (check my chart, which shows some), there’s a lot to play with. Give it a try as there’s a demo you can download and explore for some days. I bet you’ll not resist buying the program afterwards.