'Hmmm...I Just Might Like Topaz BW Effects MORE Than Nik SilverEfex Pro'

I like the presets...I find the UI a bit ugly but workable. Not liking the kludgy way you have to connect it to Lightroom but the effects are pretty cool. They have a 30% off sale going until the 28th
 
Agree with dixeyk. I bought it because I could not afford Silver Efex Pro, which seems to be preferred by most people, but I hate having to open each file, one by one, in LR, then having the B&W effects close as soon as I hit OK, having to do the whole thing again for the next black and white image. But it does do a good job once the clunky interface is got through.

I do indeed remember the Iron Lungs. I don't know what I feared most when I was a kid growing up in the early fifties, the iron lung or the polio injections at Dr. Fitzgerald's office. (Needles weren't as "micro" as they have since become.)
 
I think the Topaz products are very nice. The only problem I have is because I don't have Photoshop but use them as plugins with IrfanView so it's a bit clunky but I've got used to it. I tried the Nik products - the Mac version crippled Aperture since it hogs the GPU on the Mac - apparently a well known bug - and the Windows version installs a licence-checking agent that played havoc with Windows 7 (YMMV of course). So I gave up on those fairly quickly!
 
Topaz has some nice products and shouldn't be overlooked. I prefer Silver Efex but I want to also recommend Snapseed (also Nik), the B&W feature shares some of SFX features including selective adjustments and it is very cheap.
 
Back
Top