I finally tried some of the Topaz filters, and it looks as if I am going to have to buy some.  Should have done this long ago.  Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 here.  Regards.  (Yes, the noise is intentional.)

BEWARE!! I started with "try some of the Topaz filters" followed shortly by "looks as if I am going to have to buy some".   Now at the point when I should have said "I'll buy the bundle and make it easy on myself". They do what it says on the can - especially if effects are built up in small steps.

John Ponting wrote:BEWARE!! I started with "try some of the Topaz filters" followed shortly by "looks as if I am going to have to buy some". Now at the point when I should have said "I'll buy the bundle and make it easy on myself". They do what it says on the can - especially if effects are built up in small steps.Ha-ha, I was wondering if that would happen to me.  Thanks for the advice!

Better late than never.  I got the suite last year and find myself using Denoise, Detail, Clarity, and BW Efffects quite a bit and probably in that order. Denoise sort of revolutionized my attitude toward my creaking D90.  It does such a nice job cleaning up the images, I no longer feel constrained by my aging sensor.  I like how easy it is to adjust the presets so I can get the precise effect I am after.  Enjoy!

I've read so many good things about Topaz.  Just wondering how well it works with Lightroom.

Brev00 wrote:Better late than never. I got the suite last year and find myself using Denoise, Detail, Clarity, and BW Efffects quite a bit and probably in that order. Denoise sort of revolutionized my attitude toward my creaking D90. It does such a nice job cleaning up the images, I no longer feel constrained by my aging sensor. I like how easy it is to adjust the presets so I can get the precise effect I am after. Enjoy!Well said, Brev00.

DeNoise was the key for me to start trusting the use of "higher than usual" ISO settings to keep the shutter speeds up. This was with D300 and D90 NEFs. Although the images were not so great-looking OOC, I knew that they would clean up very nicely with DeNoise.I haven't edited any NEFs from my D7100 yet, but I hear that noise from that sensor clean up even better than those from the D300 / D90 sensors.Wayne

dwa1 wrote:DeNoise was the key for me to start trusting the use of "higher than usual" ISO settings to keep the shutter speeds up. This was with D300 and D90 NEFs. Although the images were not so great-looking OOC, I knew that they would clean up very nicely with DeNoise.I haven't edited any NEFs from my D7100 yet, but I hear that noise from that sensor clean up even better than those from the D300 / D90 sensors.WayneGood comment, Wayne.  Thank you!

Been using Topaz for years.  Just buy the bundle, you're going to want all of them anyway!

... I have the whole bundle, but only use Detail and Denoise... occasionally Clarity. Use D & D on every photo- the presets are perfect.... They download under Filters in PS Elements. Couldn't be simpler, and couldn't be better.

I just purchased the whole bundle. It started with downloading the 30-day trial to test out DeNoise and some of the other filters. I use Topaz from LightRoom, either calling up individual filters, or through Topaz' front-end photoFXlab. At first, I was confused by the workflow for the whole package, but then I found this reference chartSuggested Topaz Workflowon Darcy With Topaz' Flickr channel. I'm very happy with the polish I can get on my good photos and I can often save photos that have problems.

azguy wrote:dwa1 wrote:DeNoise was the key for me to start trusting the use of "higher than usual" ISO settings to keep the shutter speeds up. This was with D300 and D90 NEFs. Although the images were not so great-looking OOC, I knew that they would clean up very nicely with DeNoise.I haven't edited any NEFs from my D7100 yet, but I hear that noise from that sensor clean up even better than those from the D300 / D90 sensors.WayneGood comment, Wayne. Thank you!John,Another plug-in that I use in CS5 is NIK Viveza - Color Control Points (like those in CNX2).http://www.google.com/nikcollection/products/viveza/Hope this helps,Wayne

My issue with Topaz is that when using through lightroom, the TIF it generates has lost all of it's exif info. I rarely use Denoise because of this, and I just checked and it happens with Detail, even with a newly downloaded version of fusion express. Is everyone here also losing their exif? It's a long standing issue that was brought up by many people on their forum and it seems it was never fixed. I use the PC version btw; I don't know if it's OS specific.

Gollan wrote:I just purchased the whole bundle. It started with downloading the 30-day trial to test out DeNoise and some of the other filters. I use Topaz from LightRoom, either calling up individual filters, or through Topaz' front-end photoFXlab. At first, I was confused by the workflow for the whole package, but then I found this reference chartSuggested Topaz Workflowon Darcy With Topaz' Flickr channel. I'm very happy with the polish I can get on my good photos and I can often save photos that have problems.Great comment!  I'll look at the link!  Thanks.

wildlifr wrote:My issue with Topaz is that when using through lightroom, the TIF it generates has lost all of it's exif info. I rarely use Denoise because of this, and I just checked and it happens with Detail, even with a newly downloaded version of fusion express. Is everyone here also losing their exif? It's a long standing issue that was brought up by many people on their forum and it seems it was never fixed. I use the PC version btw; I don't know if it's OS specific.Mmm, went back and looked at the image I posted above and the EFIX is there, and shows here.  At least the EXIF I am expecting, don't know if the full set is still there.  Using Windows 8.1 on a PC with CS6.

It looks like if I edit a jpg, all exif is retained. If I edit a tif, I lose ISO, aperture and shutter speed.

azguy wrote:wildlifr wrote:My issue with Topaz is that when using through lightroom, the TIF it generates has lost all of it's exif info. I rarely use Denoise because of this, and I just checked and it happens with Detail, even with a newly downloaded version of fusion express. Is everyone here also losing their exif? It's a long standing issue that was brought up by many people on their forum and it seems it was never fixed. I use the PC version btw; I don't know if it's OS specific.Mmm, went back and looked at the image I posted above and the EFIX is there, and shows here. At least the EXIF I am expecting, don't know if the full set is still there. Using Windows 8.1 on a PC with CS6.Here is what I've been getting every time I try to use denoise or detail (I've had denoise for about a year) on a tif.

wildlifr wrote:My issue with Topaz is that when using through lightroom, the TIF it generates has lost all of it's exif info. I rarely use Denoise because of this, and I just checked and it happens with Detail, even with a newly downloaded version of fusion express. Is everyone here also losing their exif? It's a long standing issue that was brought up by many people on their forum and it seems it was never fixed. I use the PC version btw; I don't know if it's OS specific.I haven't noticed this issue (I will be checking), but in thethread on the Topaz Labs Forumsthey say that using photoFXlab avoids the issue and that they are working on a new version of Fusion Express that - presumably - will fix it.

Have you contacted Topaz? They respond to my inquiries quickly and personally.

Gollan wrote:wildlifr wrote:My issue with Topaz is that when using through lightroom, the TIF it generates has lost all of it's exif info. I rarely use Denoise because of this, and I just checked and it happens with Detail, even with a newly downloaded version of fusion express. Is everyone here also losing their exif? It's a long standing issue that was brought up by many people on their forum and it seems it was never fixed. I use the PC version btw; I don't know if it's OS specific.I haven't noticed this issue (I will be checking), but in thethread on the Topaz Labs Forumsthey say that using photoFXlab avoids the issue and that they are working on a new version of Fusion Express that - presumably - will fix it.Thanks. Good info, especially regarding photoFXlab. I had checked back there so many times and saw no further posts that I gave up. There are quite a few new posts, so that's some good news.