What Is this new "Clarity" Offering?

Rolling right along here, I’m now wondering if the version of Studio that I’m working with (v1.2.6) is very different from the one in the walkthrough video.

For starters, the video shows “Plugins” as a menu item at the top of the screen, and I am NOT seeing that AT ALL.

Second, the workspace in the walkthrough video has a stack of tools on either side of the image window - and I don’t see that in my version either.

Are things changing that fast?? Where are my plugins!?! Where are my dragons!

–P

Firstly the Basic Studio is free but “pro Adjustments” are for sale … make sure that you have the latest versions of the plug-ins installed, download Studio and run it you will get a menu like this depending on the plug-ins you have installed …

No, that is the Texture Adjustment from the Adjustment Menu/Button that you use to add textures to your images …

Now I’m more confused

So I needed to DL and install all my prior Topaz products to this new computer BEFORE DL and install Studio??? I was hoping Studio was get around that b/c I have like 14 different modules, each with its own license. No fun to reinstall it all

Assuming that’s what I have to do, do I then have to DL and reinstall Studio AGAIN in order to be able access my old modules?

I was hoping Studio would be the one-door path to everything…

In the tool bar at the top of the screen, you will find the Plug-ins you own. You first must log into the Studio site. Under Help in the toolbar…you will find the following categories/steps:
Check for Updates - Ongoing…you may miss a notice and they can be frequent
Sync Adjustments -
Validate Plug-ins - This should bring in any plug-ins you own
Import Effects

Depending on the plug-ins you own…you may not need to purchase any of the Pro adjustments at this point. I would however download a trial to see if it’s something you might be interested in. As time goes on and new things are developed, there may be features that either the plug-ins you own don’t cover or they could be better. It is faster to use them then opening a plug-in.

What I said was you have to have the latest versions installed and, if it is a new computer with nothing installed, you will have to install them as you would any other application.

My thanks to Eleanore and Don for holding my hand through all this.

Per last night’s last two msgs, I started downloading and installing the “Topaz Legacy Modules” (well, that’s what I’m gonna call 'em…) and now, yes, I have a “Plugins” item in my Studio menu. So I think I am finally up to speed on how al this dovetails together.

So let me ask this question: is Studio intended as a (ultimately) a substitute for the “Legacy” stuff? Assuming I bought the whole “Pro” pack, would I then be able to do everything within the one program that I used to do with the 14 modules?

That seems like a ideal situation, much cleaner and simpler than the prior arrangement. Already, I prefer seeing just “Studio” in my Lightroom edit menu, instead of that long laundry list of edit options that the Legacy stuff put in.

I typically process an image with Detail, Adjustment, and Clarity. My work flow has been to open the image in Photoshop, and then stack layers with the different Topaz alterations. First a layer for Adjust, then a layer for Detail, then a layer for Clarity, etc.

Is it right to surmise that I could do all of that within Studio, in a single layer (assuming that’s what I wanted to do?)

I obviously have a LOT to learn about how all this works, but now that I (finally) see how the pieces fit together it’s beginning to make a little more sense.

Thanks,

–PS

Wait, one more actual question: since I DO have to install all of my Legacy Modules on this new laptop… can you please steer me toward the presets on the old one so that I can copy them to the new one?

Thanks,

–PS

As there is no indication of your environment here is where the application install to:

https://support.topazlabs.com/hc/en-us/articles/200129096-Where-does-the-software-install-to-

I believe that Studio is the ‘direction’ headed but the whole Pro Pack has much more than the current plugins. Simply go on to the web site and read about each of the pro pack items.

It is a similar process insofar as you call the external plugin and Apply the effect back to Studio where you will select the new image and then invoke the next plugin that you want to use.

NOTE: At the moment the workflow between Studio & Lightroom is NOT as it is with other ‘single’ applications and Topaz are working on perfecting that. The issue arises when you use external plugins from Studio and you need to do a Save as and overwrite the original sent to studio as it wont update automatically.

The latest update to Clarity made it part of Studio.

OK, believe it or not this is all beginning to fit together and make sense.

Fortunately, in addition to all of the individual Topaz modules I have purchased over the years, Topaz set me up with the whole 14-program bundle. Installing that has greatly simplified the installation process and now all of my modules appear as plugins in Studio.

I think I am sufficiently impressed with all that Topaz is try to do here that I am just going now to spring for the Pro Pack - so that I can see everything that Studio can do. Since I have been totally reliant on Topaz for the past several years, I can see how this development will ultimately make for a much more interesting and creative workflow. So, yeah, I’m sold.

I take that to mean that I load a file from LR into Studio, and then open a Plugin from Studio, that the resulting file will save but will not automatically appear in LR. That just tells me that I’ll have to be careful where the file saves to because I’ll then have to search/find it and Import into LR. Is that right?

I hope I can find the time to muck about with all this tomorrow.

Thanks again for you patience with me as I figured all this out.

–PS

Hopefully somebody sees this…it’s a continuation of this earlier discussion so I’ll put it here rather than starting a new topic:

I just want to verify that Studio is working for me as expected.

Yesterday I got an email informing me that Topaz Detail is now available in Studio. I already own Detail as a stand-alone / Studio plugin. I wondered if Detail would just show up in Studio.

Well, sure enough… I opened Studio this morning and there it was, along with two other programs that I previously own, Clarity and Impression.

So is that how it will work going forward? As Topaz adds components to Studio, if I already own 'em they’ll just show up in the program, and eventually I won’t need the plugins at all?

Pretty cool. This will be an extraordinary amount of processing power to have in one application. I’m definitely along for the ride (now that I’ve got a better sense of the destination).

As long as I’m at it, here’s an image that I came up with while checking out this functionality. This is the interior of the Great Dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London (no interior photography permitted, so of course I have no idea how this got into my camera,… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:), modified with a default preset in the new Detail-in-Studio called “fleblanc Punch and Smudge” (what’s “fleblanc”?)

So you can appreciate the extent of the alterations, here’s the original, which was processed in Detail and Clarity:

2 Likes

I guess it is a author of some presets that appear in the community and are automatically downloaded … a bit annoying. Just do a search for fleblanc and lots appear.

That is my understanding on how it is supposed to work. I had previously purchased all the plugins. They are all available to me in their original form through the Plug-ins menu, and three of them (Clarity, Detail and Impression) have in addition integrated themselves into the “Specialty” section of Topaz Studio. That is the “free upgrade” for owners of the plugins that is mentioned elsewhere in this thread.

I think so. However, if you have already created a lot of presets in one of the old plugins, you may want to keep using that plugin rather than re-create the presets in the upgraded version as long as the old plugin is still working well for you. I guess that’s a personal decision. I notice that the new Detail and Clarity TS interface displays a lot of community-created presets (like the one you used on the cathedral image that you posted). So if you want to see these presets I guess you have to go for the new integrated version of these plugins. If you click on the thumbnail of the preset, it will show you the author. As far as I have been able to determine, the presets are being displayed in the order of popularity. Some of the presets that are most popular were created by community members.

Elsewhere in this thread you expressed confusion over some adjustments (like Texture). All I can say is, you are not alone!! I purchased the Adjustment Pro Pack when TS first came out only because I love Topazlabs and want to support them for their customer-friendly upgrade policy. It is still not clear to me what the difference is between many of the pro adjustments and the similar functionality in many of the plugins I already own.

For example, isn’t the Radiance adjustment similar to Glow? And isn’t the Abstraction adjustment similar to Simplify? Are these adjustments replacements for the old plugins? I am very confused.:dizzy_face: