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Topaz Studio 2 is a premium Photoshop plugin offering a huge range of effects. As you’ll see in our Topaz Studio 2 review below, it will appeal to beginners and advanced artists and photographers alike.
This Photoshop plugin allows you to make adjustments ranging from basic contrast and brightness, to more artistic effects like film grain and vignettes, and all the way to wild effects like cartoon and oil paintings.
Topaz Studio 2
-
Ease of use
(4)
-
Value
(5)
-
Unique effects
(3.5)
-
Support and documentation
(5)
In short:
Studio 2 is a solid plugin that will appeal to a wide range of user abilities. This Photoshop plugin also delivers a very large range of effects, from basic photo adjustments, to dramatic paint effects. As a suite type plugin it can be used either as a Photoshop plugin, or as a standalone program, which might appeal to users who don’t need to make any changes within Photoshop. It’s main weakness is that it is in many ways similar to other suite type plugins, like On1 Photo Raw or Luminar 4.
Note: Studio 2 is also included in the Topaz Creator Bundle.
Full Review
Topaz Studio 2 is easy to use right from the beginning. The only thing to really notice is the difference between Filters and Looks. The plugin is easy to use once you understand how to navigate these two tabs!
The Filters Tab in Topaz Studio 2
The Essential filters offered in Studio 2 are quite extensive and you may recognize many of them. Here you’ll find precision contrast, color tuning, sharpening, dehaze, brightness contrast and more.
Topaz Labs has also included a lineup of Creative filters, including dual tone, color theme, vignette and much more. This set of filters are great if you want to make subtle artistic effects for your images. This set of filters will especially appeal to photographers who want to add specific moods to their work.
Finally, you’ll also find a set of Stylistic filters with names like glow, smudge, texture, impression (paint effect), and flare. These filters are really fun to play with and can really transform your image dramatically!
The Looks Tab
Studio 2 has another set of adjustments called Looks. These looks are essentially a preset stack of filters that result in really creative and sometimes amazing effects!
This plugin includes dozens of Looks included to get you started right away. A really cool feature is that you can save your own custom Looks to use in the future!
Looks can be sorted by categories such as: painting, abstractions, cartoon and many more. You can apply any Look with just one click, and then adjust with a slider from 0-100.
It’s super easy to scroll through the Looks to see how it will affect your image, without having to commit to it. You can just sample the effects and take your time to find one that suits your style.
Advanced features in Topaz Studio 2
Once you’ve become familiar with the basics, there’s plenty of room to play around with Topaz Labs Studio 2.
For example, you’ll find that adding several filters will create a layer stack, just like inside Photoshop. This allows you to go back to any filter and make adjustments whenever you want. Each filter can be modified by selecting blend modes and opacity to really fine-tune your effects.
When adding a Look to your image, you can go into the layer stack and see which Filters are used. This allows you to make adjustments to a given Look, and then save it as your own Custom Look!
Standalone vs. Photoshop plugin
Studio 2 can work as a standalone program or as a Photoshop plugin. If you’re working with a single image, it makes perfect sense to use Topaz Studio 2 as a standalone program. Just load up your file, make adjustments and save.
However, if Studio 2 is part of a larger editing process, then using it as a plugin makes more sense. There are a few limitations to this that you must be aware of before using this plugin.
Make sure you have a merged layer selected and set it to a Smart Object when you use the filter.
Note: if you go back to make changes to your Smart Filter, the effects in Studio 2 are reset to defaults. You can overcome this by saving your Look in the plugin before applying it to your layer in Photoshop. This way you can quickly retrieve it if you want to go back and edit it later.
Topaz Studio 2 review conclusion
This Photoshop plugin has an easy to understand user interface with a huge range of options and effects. Topaz Studio 2 will appeal to both beginning and advanced users. It is a top notch plugin for making big effects with just a few clicks. We only found one quirk when going back to edit a Smart Object, but this can be remedied easily.
Highly recommended!
Topaz Studio 2
-
Ease of use
(4)
-
Value
(5)
-
Unique effects
(3.5)
-
Support and documentation
(5)
In short:
Studio 2 is a solid plugin that will appeal to a wide range of user abilities. This Photoshop plugin also delivers a very large range of effects, from basic photo adjustments, to dramatic paint effects. As a suite type plugin it can be used either as a Photoshop plugin, or as a standalone program, which might appeal to users who don’t need to make any changes within Photoshop. It’s main weakness is that it is in many ways similar to other suite type plugins, like On1 Photo Raw or Luminar 4.
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We were so impressed that Topaz Studio 2 is included in our favorite Photoshop plugins for artists.
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