1036 - Easy Ride II

Today I received an email from Topaz Labs. As a previous customer I was notified of their new Photoshop plugin called “Topaz Detail”. As a very casual user of Topaz Clean and an extremely satisfied user of Topaz Adjust, I have immediately downloaded the plugin and run it now with a 30 days test key. This image was partly made with it, though I may have been rather abusive 🙂

What it Topaz Detail? Well, it’s another one of their contrast manipulating plugins, and this time they unleash some really new technology. Why do I know? Because it’s slow. Real slow. In the beginning. Then it gets fast.

Topaz Detail introduces a lengthy analysis phase. On my laptop (Windows Vista, Core 2 Duo, 2.4 GHz, 4 GB of memory) it takes almost a minute to analyze a 12 megapixel image. Then it displays the image and to the left an assortment of pre-defined effects, just like their other plugins do. Again it is all about local contrast manipulation, and the results are very impressive. Actually they are so impressive that I’ll order the plugin today. There’s no need further thinking about it, I definitely will use it.

I said I’ve abused it, and that’s true, because what I did to an image that would have been OK, even right from the camera, was quite brutal. I strongly suppose that this plugin can do much more subtle things, for instance to landscapes. We’ll probably see more this weekend.

The Song of the Day is “Easy Ride” from Madonna’s 2003 album “American Life”. For me it’s one of her very best albums, so you can imagine my surprise when I found out that Amazon has it only via their marketplace, and at least in the US it seems to have been received with not much love. But, on the other hand, criticism against America was not overly popular at that time 🙂

Hear it on YouTube.