TopazLab’s Topaz Adjust 3 Mini Review

Rick Sammon blogged about how much fun he was having with Topaz Adjust, so I decided to check it out for myself.

Topazlabs has a bunch of plug-ins for Photoshop that can be purchased individually or as a bundle, which are very reasonably priced. 30 Day evaluation copies are available with no limits or watermarking, so you get the full function of the plug-ins to test to your hearts content. Topaz Adjust is pretty easy to use, all you have to do is open your photo in Photoshop and select Topaz –> Topaz Adjust 3 from the Filter menu and you are on your way.
On the left side of the filter window are 20+ presets to choose from, some are more useful than others (“to each his own” applies here). Some of the presets give the photos an HDR/ToneMapped appearance, by bringing out the details in the photos, others give the photo a more cartoon looks by removing the details. Once you select the preset that you like you can fine tune it even more. If you are not having fun yet you aren’t even trying.

I found I had the most fun running sports photos through Topaz, but there is not end to the fun you can have with this product. Best of all its only $49, a price that can fit into almost any budget. The photo at the top of this post was rendered using the Psychedelic preset (one of my favorites). You can see more examples of what I have done with Topaz Adjust 3 here in my Sports Art Gallery on SmugMug.