In addition to a Basic Adjustment layer I used Edge Exposure, Dust/Scratches, and Texture layers within Texture Effects to create this vintage look reminiscent of a tintype. It only took a few minutes. Historically tintypes and early methods of creating round bales of hay do overlap. I’m not entirely sure the hay bales looked exactly like this but I like the timeless feel I was able to achieve in Texture Effects.
Texture Effects, Topaz’s latest plug-in (also operates stand-alone) is the easiest way to add textures and a whole lot more to your images. It’s a huge time saver over creating textures in most other programs. In addition to hundreds of fantastic presets, you can also customize them or make your own.
One of the nicer aspects of Texture Effects are the hundreds of presets that come with it. You can use them to spark ideas or as a starting point. In this case I used the “Color Burst” preset to accentuate my image of these tiled stairs and rail. The image was already colorful and the wall textured but it needed a little punch. Although I tried changing various adjustments I liked the preset as is and was able to get what you see above with just one click.
It has a great interface that builds on the innovation they showed in Glow and Impression. It’s really easy to add adjustments and effects via layers, each with its own mask. You can add as many layers of adjustments or effects as you want and save off any combination as your own preset.
Here’s a before (left) and after (right). I started in Topaz ReStyle. In ReStyle you can choose your color palette so I used it to get vivid purple and yellow. Then I hopped into Texture Effects and used a Texture layer to create the corrugated metal look for the wall and a Light Leak layer to make it look like a spot of sun is reflected on the wall. I used the masking (available in each layer) to isolate the “sun” reflection. In the end I used only two layers plus a Basic Adjustment layer and a few minutes of my time to make this image.
Topaz has also set up a community cloud that allows you to share or download presets with the click of a button right within the program.
Here I was going for a Polaroid transfer look. I used a Texture layer for the overall mottled look and a Dust/Scratches layer for the peeling marks. I was even able to add the bluish tint of the peel marks right within the layer. Then a little Edge Exposure for good measure. I’m really impressed by the intuitive interface.
Topaz obviously worked very hard to come up with a really intuitive interface. This combined with the hundreds of presets that come with Texture Effects and thousands more via the Topaz Community cloud, really makes it easy and quick to produce great results with your images. Not to mention a lot of fun!
Hope you enjoyed this quick review.
Note: For a more in depth look at how I created these images go to my workshop page, scroll down to “Free Webinars” and click on “Travel Through Time with Texture Effects” for a link to the webinar.
