There is a masking feature, which works well, except that you can’t use the bracket keys to control brush size (I usually choose to mask in Photoshop, because it’s easier for me). You can start from scratch, making basic adjustments and then adding dust or scratches, lens leaks, vignettes, borders, and/or textures OR you can start with a filter preset and then adjust everything from there. I love editing with textures, and the new Topaz program, Texture Effects, is giving me a whole new way of approaching the process. It is highly unlikely that we will have a white Christmas, but we are certainly enjoying the pre-Christmas snow!

First, I used Simplify to create more of a painterly look- and then Texture Effects, where I did a “from scratch” edit to bring in a texture that made it look like it was snowing.Īnd now it really does look like we live in a Christmas card! I then took it into Photoshop and applied some Topaz filters. As usual, I couldn’t leave well enough alone, so brought it into Lightroom for some brightening and noise reduction. I did a quick HDR edit in Snapseed and posted it to Facebook. I put on my boots and went out with my warm jacket over my PJ’s and took some photos with my Nikon- but my favorite shot has to be this iPhone panorama. It snowed here a week ago, and parts of town were still covered- but we only had snow left in patches until this morning. As a California transplant who has never lived in snow until the last couple years, I am enchanted by the transformation that takes places overnight. When I woke up this morning, our neighborhood looked like a Christmas card.

Problems with topaz texture effects