PepperMillPatty Loc: Falmouth, MA

Hello! I can use some insight here. With Aperture being discontinued, I have waited patiently for the new Photos before making decisions. In addition, I seriously needed to come up with a backup plan for my pictures. And, to boot, my 17" Macbook Pro needed to go in for service. This forced me to actually start doing what needed to be done with my photos soon.

My photos have finally been backed up. I have two Seagate Backup Plus Slim 1TB 2.5" Portable External Hard Drives, red & blue. One is for a backup of the other.

The Mac went in for repair. I was told that Aperture would either be removed or not work properly when I received my Mac back. They were right. It was there but did not work. Thus, it has finally been removed from my system. All work was luckily covered by extended warranty.

One ~ My photos are well organized on my externals. I can find everything with ease. Thus, do I really need Lightroom at this point?

Two ~ I also have many Topaz Labs Products. I am at a point where I can purchase the remainder with photoFXLab. Do I need Adobe Elements 14 at this point at all? Can all my needs be met with Topaz Labs products?

I would love to hear from Topaz Labs users and how they feel about the editing capabilities of their products and mainly, what is lacking. I will have a learning curve wherever I move to next. Just trying to stay focused and not bring in too many new products to learn at the same time. My camera is the Canon EOS 6D. And, my favorite lens is the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM L-Series Telephoto Zoom Lens. My camera and lens combo really does produce a great picture with very little editing to be done.

Thank you for you help, Patty

dannac Loc: 60 miles SW of New Orleans

I have photoFXLab and most of the plugins and they do a good job ... but if I need layers, I always go to PS CS5.

If you wait until the end of the month, On1 Photo 10 will be out, and it looks really good from the youtube videos I saw.

It just may take care of all my needs.

If you pre-order, you get all the training videos and a few extra bonuses.
You can check it out at link below.

http://www.on1.com/apps/on1photo10/

PS: make sure you check out computer requirements needed

PepperMillPatty Loc: Falmouth, MA

Thank you dannac!

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Topaz products aren't really intended as a standalone product. They work much better as tools to be called from something else.

I am not so fond of PSE 14 since it downsizes things to 8-bits. I much prefer Lightroom from which I can call any Topaz Tool I am interested in. I actually do the $10/mo deal with Adobe and get Lightroom and Photoshop. My main product I use is Lightroom and I call Photoshop from Lightroom, if I need it. Same with the Topaz, and NIK tools also.

PepperMillPatty Loc: Falmouth, MA

Thanks JimH123 ... this is where I'm getting confused. I thought photoFXlab would make Topaz Labs products a standalone unit? I, too, have the NIK Collection. And, I have been calling the few Topaz Labs products and NIK Collection from Elements 13. So you are saying to stay with version 13 versus 14? After Apple's Aperture and Adobe releasing a new version of Elements with mine being purchased just before their cut off date ... you can see why I tire from being pinned to anyone specific. I'm spending too much time learning new products when I should be out with my camera!

Macronaut Loc: Redondo Beach,Ca.

Is there no way around this? It's a little surprising to me, since it's a PS product and will process raw files :|

dannac Loc: 60 miles SW of New Orleans

It does.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

This is on purpose by Adobe. They want to sell the full Photoshop package.

warrior Loc: Paso Robles CA

If you are going to start I would recommend Topaz Adjust to start. PSE 14 will have a slew of filters; Haze removal,Camera shake removal.

Crwiwy Loc: Devon UK

If you already have some Topaz products such as Remask - then the best thing about Elements 14 appears to be the haze filter so I will be staying with Elements 13.

plessner Loc: North Dakota

A friend uses on1 and loves it--makes me think I should order it too!

Treepusher Loc: Kingston, Massachusetts

I do most of my processing with the Topaz filters, but still use Photoshop for layering, masking, and most adjustments. Topaz is great, but there are many things you still want the capabilities of Elements or Photoshop itself for. I wouldn't use Topaz by itself. Don't think you'd be happy with the results.

Picdude Loc: Ohio

Many of the Topaz filters can be accessed standalone from the photoFXlab application, but one or two (Remask for sure), need to be accessed from programs like Photoshop or Elements that supports layers. Also, photoFXlabs will NOT access any of your NIK filters (or any other filters other than Topaz). If you currently have PSE 13 and are happy with your current workflow then it sounds like adding photoFXlab may be all you need at the moment. If you decide to upgrade to PSE 14 as well there should not be any major hurdles in the learning curve as you are already pretty familiar with the operation.

The hard part about answering questions like yours is that, ultimately, YOU have to determine whether or not the new features of any new upgrade or program will benefit or enhance your editing workflow. While it's always good to have the latest-greatest software, upgrading products like PSE is only beneficial if you are actually going to use the new features and enhancements.

At this point, it sounds like you believe adding photoFXlab and any other Topaz filters you currently do not have will make an improvement on your editing workflow (and most likely you are right in that belief). If it were me, and I had already decided to go the Topaz route, I would hold off on the PSE 14 until I integrated the new Topaz software into my workflow, then determine whether or not I really needed (or wanted) any of new features of PSE 14, or any other new program (like Lightroom).

pecohen Loc: Central Maine

Generally, I am of the opinion that if it works I shouldn't try to fix it. From time to time I try out some new software to see if it offers me something useful. I did this a year or two ago with LR and remained unconvinced that it would improve anything for me. I may eventually make the switch to Adobe's CC if Corel does not find their way clear to make adjustment curves accommodate the resolution of RAW images - but I'll give them a little more time to make that fix.

I have a limited collection of Topaz tools - Adjust, Clarity, Details, BW Effects and Simplify. I find I use Adjust quite a lot, Clarity and Details from time to time and the others rarely. I'm not sure I would even want the full set of Topaz tools - I already have so many choices to make when editing photos; having more choices might be more of a hindrance than a help.

JCam Loc: MD Eastern Shore

I'm still using PSE 10 with Topaz Adjust and find the combination works well for me, especially the "Pop" features in the Classic Collection of the presets; they seem to add just enough standout to take a nice but not striking photo visually attracting.

I have been considering 'upgrading to PSE 14, but do I understand from a couple of previous posts in this thread that it is only available on the "rental basis"? I much prefer to have copies of programs on a disc.