Ednsb Loc: Santa Barbara

Pc native, tries to run on Mac (intel) with the Wine emulator which is in my opinion margínal.

bebop22 Loc: New York City

I agree with Lucian. On1 RAW 2022 is a nice powerful editing app. Give it a try.

mrgarci Loc: Albuquerque, NM

Thanks for the question! Someone did ask and I answered as follows: My computer is a Windows 10 desktop with Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-9900K CPU @ 3.60GHz with 32 GB memory and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 graphics card.

I hope that helps with your recommendation.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

Creativity is one of those over used terms that means different things to different people. I would be remiss if I didn't also suggest DxO's PhotoLab 5 Elite along with DxO FilmPack 6.2 Elite and DxO's Nik Collection 5. While I own licenses to several other software titles nothing provides more creativity choices than DxO software.

Ednsb Loc: Santa Barbara

I’m in the same boat as the original poster but rather on M1 Mac Mini not PC. Topaz Studio 2 was a paid product which from the answers above most people didn’t know what it did. It allowed on to do creative edits to look more like paintings, etc. While it has some editor functions I am not sure it is a raw editor (topaz never said) nor does it have a Data Asset Management. I use it as a plugin to Photoshop/Lightroom Classic and On1 Raw 2022. I’ve had numerous frustrating discussions with Topaz informing them they are both losing a lucrative market and violating US laws regarding support of paid applications.

So I have too been looking for the next solution and while you could do some of these features with the adobe suite or On1 it would take many more steps than what I can do with Topaz Studio 2 or even Topaz Studio which I still run (actually faster than Topaz Studio 2 on my M1 Mac Mini). So those suggestions are not what I am looking for or what the poster is as well I would guess. And the people saying topaz AI has any elements of Topaz Studio 2 are incorrect. The ’new’ app is just a dumbing down of the current Topaz Sharpen AI, Topaz Gigapixel and Topaz DeNoise. It has absolutely no creative features nor does it borrow anything from Topaz Studio 2.

so to answer the actual question - I have looked Pastello and Impresso Pro from JixPix. They do a lot of the functions of Topaz Studio 2. It is a bit expensive at $100 for the 2 but it does do a lot Topaz Studio 2 didn’t do with what seems to be more controls with brush strokes etc. It runs on both pc and Mac. I am just testing it. One issue I have so far is it doesn’t work correctly as a plugin for On1 which is a big issue for me as On1 drops the plugin as a layer rather than the approach Photoshop and Lightroom Classic does which just creates a new image. With Topaz Studio 2 I can use it from the raw processor as a layer with much more control.

I looked at the other application mentioned in this stream but as I reported it doesn’t work on Macs correctly. It might be a good pc solution though.

any other pertinent suggestions would be appreciated.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

Your setup should run any current software quite well. Do you have an SSD drive? What size and type of monitor are you using?

mrgarci Loc: Albuquerque, NM

I have several SSDs and my monitor is a 27" IPS UHD display calibrated with datacolor/SpyderX Pro.

mrgarci Loc: Albuquerque, NM

Thanks for that input! I hadn't run into JixiPix before, so thanks for that option. After a quick look, it looks intriguing. I'll be looking at it more closely.

Capn_Dave

If you right click on a photo any photo a dropdown will appear. Here is where I messed up the dropdown will give you a selection of programs to open the photo with one will say OPEN WITH click on that and Photo AI should be a choice

mrgarci Loc: Albuquerque, NM

Okay, now I understand. You were referring to one potential way to open Photo AI within Microsoft Windows. Thanks for the clarification.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Lightroom does 80% for me. Photoshop does most of the other 20%. Lots of things can be presets in LrC.

NCMtnMan Loc: N. Fork New River, Ashe Co., NC

I think I understand now what you are referring to. I believe you may be referring to the options in Studio 2 to "Add Filter" and "To Add Look" that are not in Photo AI. For those who use those even on a minor basis, Photo AI will not be useful for them. Not sure what the thinking a Topaz was or if they found that very few people were using those functions, but based on many of the how to videos I have seen they may have made a wrong move. I don't see why they can't include those in Photo AI. They are mostly stylized setting created by Topaz or users to make it easier for the users to do things with their pics without going through the complete process of making all the changes in the software to achieve the look. I had only given Photo AI a cursory look, but after your posts I can see what I consider significant short comings such as there is no option to even convert an image to B&W. Thank you for bringing up this subject!

mrgarci Loc: Albuquerque, NM

I've had the attitude for a long time to not jump on the Photoshop bandwagon and to resist subscriptions, which in this day and age is becoming the norm. Perhaps it's time for me to reconsider. I'll certainly be looking at the Adobe option with an open mind. Thanks for your encouragement!

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Adobe and Microsoft get bad raps for the subscription model. I haven’t yet found the criticism to be valid.

yssirk123 Loc: New Jersey

I've been using Photoshop since CS3 up to current day, and there is almost nothing that can't be done in it 3 or 4 different ways; and that includes creative effects. Since it's the 800-pound gorilla of photo editors, there are also tons of instructional videos and articles available to guide you step by step.

While I own other software, Photoshop is the only one that is irreplaceable for me. YMMV.