nikonbill's 2025 images when possible

[nikonbill]

They do some neat stuff after dark - here is peerless with lanterns at the cover edges

 

[nikonbill]

They throw dried sawdust in the firebox turn the lights out and pull a load, this puts on a neat fire show (I kind of captured it) it was dark

 

[nikonbill]

We visited a place called Meadow brook gourds, they were getting ready for their sunflower festival

 

[nikonbill]

 

[nikonbill]

 

[nikonbill]

From a recent trip

 

[nikonbill]

The blue ridge parkway near Asheville NC, early evening

 

[nikonbill]

Not a great photo, had my auto ISO off and didn't realize it.. made my best save in post There were a few of these Tennessee warblers just having a ball on the other side of a stream near Pelham AL

 

[nikonbill]

Another shot from the parkway, a more natural edit/exposure (I like it better) the shadows were rolling fast

 

[nikonbill]

Our local fall leaves, Scenic Vista trail @ Kings gap

 

[nikonbill]

Interesting experiment, it had been some time since opening Topaz AI and I was processing my super underexposed Tennessee warbler shots so I though I'd give it a shot on these tough ones. There was an offer to "update" to the new Topaz Photo (apparently a whole new program) it said at no cost (for now I'm sure). It looks a lot the same but seems to work very differently, over baking seemed not present and I could not seem to "duplicate" or get close to the same results. For info I used Topaz as a plugin for this test.

File processed but without denoise or sharpening in Affinity

After Topaz photo denoise then sharpen no adjustments to what the program suggested

I'll be playing with this more, the cost looks high for new users and not sure what the cost to me will be (when time to renew in the spring)

 

[Clovishound]

When I bought Topaz a couple years ago, you got "free" updates for a year. After that it was $99 per year for Photo AI. I haven't updated after the first year. I have issues with tiling on many of my photos. There seemed to be no fix available at the time. I would gladly pay an upgrade fee, if I knew they had the problem fixed, but would hate to pay for upgrade and have the same issue. As I understand, most folks don't have this issue, although it's a known problem, and Topaz couldn't tell why I had it. The stand alone products didn't seem to suffer from this. Since the standalone products aren't updated, they won't process my Z8 RAW files. I have to edit in LR and then use Denoise and/or Sharpen. It works, but is clumsy.

I really like Topaz, and wouldn't want to be without, but I would like to be able to consistently use the Photo AI, as it's one and done.

 

[nikonbill]

Well it "looks" like they are going to a subscription based service. Since I had a current subscription (just as you mention above) they said I could download it free (my sub will renew in the spring).

I had followed your issues (I think you are using light room/ps) that was unacceptable. I was just tinkering with "super-focus V2" I don't know if they are going to screw it up but wow its amazing at the moment. You may want to do a trial of a one mouth deal to see if they fixed your issue.

Keep in mind I have not moved any settings in these experiments, here is an example of denoise/sharpen/super focus on some tree fungus (its a low ISO image)

With

Without (and no denoise or sharpening with Affinity)

Edit note: I see after posting the Topaz version has some weird "artifacts" in the bark, I only excluded the out of focus area on the right. This would be solved in making a better "selection" to super focus (the tree bark was out of focus in this shot).

 

[nikonbill]

Here is an edit with just the focal point "super focused" probably the way its intended