1-Megapixel makeover with Topaz Studio

So here I was on my holiday break from work going through an accumulation of data on my external hard drive (projects, data, images, etc.) when I came across this March, 1999, 1-megapixel photo of a Southern California mountain wildfire, taken with a Kodak DC265. Dramatic shot, but in its original state it is very overexposed and (of course) a bit soft:

(Note: All images are reduced in size for quicker web display.)

I didn’t want to just delete (or continue ignoring) this image for another two decades, so I launched Topaz Studio to see what it could do to salvage the scene. Topaz Studio offers presets for everything from basic image correction to dramatic reinterpretation.

You can get Topaz Studio for FREE and make use of its basic settings, after which you can purchase and add on Pro Adjustments for additional functionality. Any and all Topaz software is always discounted on the Plugs ‘n Pixels website, whether Topaz is running a seasonal special or not.

Here is my washed out image as it appears Topaz Studio, using one of the Landscape presets called “A Basic Correction”, seen at left. Already things are looking better, even without making any additional adjustments to the elements of the preset that display at right:

Under Basic Adjustment on the right side of the interface I simply lowered the Exposure slider to compensate for the original image’s washed-out look, and immediately got this result!

That was incredibly easy and didn’t require any special skill, knowledge, training or additional image editing software (Topaz Studio is a standalone app). Here’s how this result looks full-frame:

That’s amazing! It looks like a Dutch Master painting. A single click of a preset and a simple push of a slider made a deletion-worthy outtake a definite keeper. Besides the obvious color enhancement, notice the enhanced detail of the power lines in the lower left corner as compared to the original image, where they are barely visible.

All done, right? Never, when there are many more presets to explore!

Here is an enhanced version of the original, though not as dramatic as above, which I then used as a base for further treatment in Topaz Studio:

Poking through the various presets and performing only a single click on random ones, I got the following totally different looks. Of course the possibilities are endless:

That last one reminds me of some Hollywood blockbuster or even a Hubble Space Telescope shot!

If you haven’t tried it already, be sure to grab Topaz Studio and see what it does to your own images.

You can get Topaz Studio for FREE and make use of its basic settings, after which you can purchase and add on Pro Adjustments for additional functionality. Any and all Topaz software is always discounted on the Plugs ‘n Pixels website, whether Topaz is running a seasonal special or not.