Listening to the Voices in My Head

Once again, I tried Topaz Labs. They have come out with "New and improved" versions of their AI software. I coughed up the money, and 'renewed' my yearly plan (not going to renew it again, for reasons that will follow.) But I was willing to give it another shot.

I loaded an Olympus ORF file into Topaz DeNoise. It did ok, but left the image kind of dull and flat. So, I closed that, and opened Topaz Sharpen AI, opened the same ORF file. It does have a rudimentary denoise function. But the finished results again were lacking.

To use the Topaz software, you need to open them in another program, adjust exposure, then use one Topaz plugin after another. And although you can get good results, the Sharpen AI takes a long time (6 minutes).

On1 NoNoise 23: opened the same Olympus ORF file in NoNoise. Not only was I able to remove the noise, but I could also sharpen the image at the same time. And it was finished in about 30 seconds. If I want to have even more editing, I could open file in On1PhotoRaw, get it all done in about a minute.

On1 for the win, again.

It seems that after all these years of buying TopazLabs/Topaz software for photoediting, paying a premium price for "Lifetime updates", the owners of the company have decided to go the subscription model. They sent out a smarmy email, with a link to a lackluster blog post from "Eric" as to why they were doing this. I don't care. Every one of my purchases came with the "Lifetime updates" in the contract.

This isn't a case like with Slysoft, who just changed their name, and invalidated everyone's current lifetime updates (IMO, it was like if Ford changed their name to Cord, and then told everyone who just bought their extended warranties they were no longer valid, because Ford didn't exist anymore). Topaz and Topaz Labs are still being owned and operated by the same people. Also, the claim of a better product? Seriously, for what I paid, I could use On1 PhotoRaw and Photoshop and get the same results without using Topaz.

So, why do I use Topaz products? The LIFE TIME UPDATES is why. That is what they contracted with me for, and that is what they're trying to reneg on.

Can anyone say "Class Action Lawsuit"?

Now that Lightroom has gone subscription only, no longer offering a stand alone, many people are looking for alternatives again.

So far, I find AlienSkin Exposure 3, On1 Photo Raw, and Topaz Studio to be the strongest contenders. Exposure 3 and On1 have a feature that Topaz doesn't at this time. The ability to have different versions, virtual copies, of the same image, with different edits, without filling your HDD with multiple image files.

On1 had more tools/Effects than AlienSkin, but AlienSkin works faster on older computers, or with machine with only 16gb of memory.

All three have plugins that work with CS6 (there is a way to get them to work with CS5. Download trial version of Photoshop CC, install On1/Alienskin/Topaz, and then copy/paste the plugins from the CC plugin folder to CS5 plugin folder. If you get any error message about a specific DLL missing, copy it from the Photoshop CC directory into the CS5 directory. Nothing says you have to uninstall the CC trial version, so leave it there to install updates)

My personal favorite is On1 Photo Raw, followed very closely by AlienSkin Exposure 3. I do like editing my RAW photos with these two, and then in Photoshop, using the Topaz Studio/Labs plugs to add extras.