From Pedestrian to Painterly – WPC

“Photography means painting with light.”

Katja Michael

DOCKSIDE DINGHY

This week I participated in a class on the creative possibilities of Topaz Labs’ suite of products. Happily, it’s given me an excellent opportunity to respond to this week’s photo challenge “pedestrian”.

DUNESIDE DESIGN

“A painter works with color as the medium, a photographer works with light.”

Carlotta M. Corpron

We’ve all been there – tried to photograph a wonderful scene where the lighting wasn’t perfect, or the wind was making sharpness impossible, or any of a thousand issues got in the way of our capturing the scene as we imagined it. Topaz helps the photographer to take those disappointing, pedestrian captures and turn them into something closer to what we’d seen in our mind’s eye.

ON THE WHARF

“It all depends on what you visualize.”

Ansel Adams

I must admit I went into the class feeling that I had no further need for editing products, having worked extensively with Photoshop, Lightroom and the Nik tools as well as some terrific textures. I am happy to report that I was wrong, and although I’ve not spent as much time as I’d like with the products there is a definite future for them in my bag of tricks.

BEACH SUNSET

“Art is a visual language; I’m just perfecting my alphabet.”

Zachary A. Diaz

The best way to appreciate the power of the Topaz products is to use them – and the company offers a 30-day free option for anyone interested in trying them (just use the link above). For today’s images I used combinations of Topaz’s Simplify, Impressions and Texture Effects products.  Once downloaded, I found the products easy to understand, fun to use and extremely flexible.

For reference, I’ve included the original photographs below. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the before-and-afters!

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Tags: art, Topaz Labs, weekly photo challenge

• October 7, 2017
• Abstract, Photography
• 132 Comments