I certainly welcome competition for the big two players (or three if we count DxO). I wish the Topaz folks well, and I hope the Studio effort will be a success. However, it's clear that feature-wise Topaz Studio -- to put it as politely as possible -- needs a lot of work done on it.
For example, exporting a TIFF from a CR2 defaults to 16 bit ProPhoto, which is good, but strips out all metadata, which is bizarre in 2017 when there are excellent metadata libraries for C++ such as exiv2.
Hi Damon,
Yes, I agree that EXIF should be kept intact. Bugfix or Feature requests may help to fix that.
The user interface looks like it was rushed. The About menu item should not be below Exit / Quit. The menu item for the program preferences is incorrectly named 'Preference' (missing the plural), and its dialog window looks very amateurish.
Well, this is their version 1.0 release, and is available for MAC and Windows operating systems. They focused on functionality so far, and they now need to also cross some t's and dot some i's.
It's unclear what paying for the "Pro Package" today means given that many adjustment modules are sure to be coming, such as the replacement for Topaz Detail plugin. Will they be included in a purchase made today? I've queried their sales support but am yet to hear back.
You purchase what they offer right now, 14 plugins in the Adjustment Pro-pack, or individual plugins.
Future plugins will be a separate purchase, but they are usually offered with a discount at introduction time or during seasonal promotions. The business model that Topaz Labs have chosen, purchase once and receive updates and upgrades forever after that, forces them to keep innovating to attract new customers, or adding new plugins with new functionality for existing customers.
While their 'Clarity' Photoshop plugin equivalent is available as the 'Precision Contrast' plugin in Studio, their 'Detail' equivalent plugin is not yet available. So I expect that to be a future addition and purchase. BTW, there is some simplified Detail functionality available in some of the other plugins, but nothing as extensive as in the full Detail plugin. Also, if you have their PS version of the Detail plugin already installed, then it shows up under the Plugins menu-bar option. After the chosen plugin finishes, a version/snapshot of your file is added to the 'Workspace' at the bottom of the user interface.
Their 'Focus' plugin is a simplified version of their Photoshop equivalent InFocus plugin. Not as feature rich, but still useful for most users because it allows to specifically address Lens-blur.
The current 50% discount for the 14-plugin Pro-pack (70% discount for previous Topaz owners), is a pretty good deal, especially because you'll receive free updates and upgrades on these 14 plugins 'forever', so it's a one-time expense/investment.
Cheers,
Bart
P.S. Topaz Studio is free, as are 10 basic plugins, and can be used as host program for earlier versions of the Topaz plugins that were developed for Photoshop plugin compatible applications.