If you follow my blog at all, you know that I’m a HUGE fan of Topaz Labs photo editing products. While most photo editing software plug-ins need to work within Photoshop or Lightroom, Topaz Texture Effects works as a plug-in as well as a stand alone program. I personally find their software very easy to use, but there are plenty of free tutorials available on YouTube if you need a little help or would like to get some tips and tricks that may not be as obvious. For example, check out this video tutorial of Topaz Texture Effects basic tour by Mark Johnson:
Mark goes through all of the different layer adjustment options:
- Basic Adjustment
- Split Tone
- Texture
- Borders
- Vignette
- Light Leak
- Edge Exposure
- Edge Blur
- Dust and Scratches
- Diffusion
- Film Grain
- Posterize
- Double Exposure
- Color Overlay
Import Your Own Textures
The cool thing is – you don’t have to settle for one of the 275+ assets that come pre-loaded with the software; you can upload your own assets and use them within the program as well. Mark shows you just how simple it is.
Share With the Online Community
Furthermore, there is an online community that you get instant access to within the program where you can download pre-sets that others have created! If you want to create your own pre-sets from scratch, you can do that too – and share them with the online community with a single click if you wish. Mark shows you how to do that, too.
Fully Customize Your Image
You can edit any layer in the preloaded pre-sets by deleting, changing, or adding different adjustment options to each image. You can add multiple layers of similar adjustments if you’d like; two different light leaks, for example. Since every adjustment comes with a layer mask, you can customize each layer by choosing what parts of the image you want to apply a particular effect to. You don’t even have to start with a pre-set; you can simply open an image in Texture Effects and edit from scratch like I did with this double exposure of Sandhill Cranes and the moon 🙂
Save $20 Thru January
Since Topaz Labs just updated Texture Effects by fixing some minor bugs and adding EVEN MORE textures and assets, they are offering $20 off the software through January 31, 2016! That means you get it for only $49.99 instead of a still bargain price of $69.99.
Like all Topaz Labs products, you can get a FREE 30 day trial on their software and any future updates are always FREE 🙂