Topaz Adjust 2.5 Upgrade - Features

[TommyO]

Eric,
I like the new version 2.5, especially the ability to remember screen size and position. It seems to be very stable.

A few items I thought I would mention and get your feedback on:
1. While it is nice to be able to type in values for the adjustments, it would also be nice to mimic Photoshop's adjustments with being able to arrow up or down for minor adjustments. Also, using Shift-arrow for larger increments. Any possibility of getting that functionality ?

2. The space bar posses a problem occasionally. In Photoshop we use it to bring up the hand for repositioning. In Adjust, it mimics a Windows application by pressing the last highlighted button. So, when we press just to see if it brings up the hand, we get numerous repeated presses of our last adjustment. Basically, it's just not intuitive how to reposition. You eventually discover you can just click and hold. But, with that, you also get a preview of the image without adjustments.
Any possibility of getting similar functionality to PS here ?

3. The filter also remembers your last adjustments as long as you're in the same Photoshop session. So, the next image brought up automatically gets adjusted, with no indication of why or with what. I guess that is by design. Obviously, we can simply hit reset all.
Any chance of getting a preference to turn that off ?

[MarcoMarc]

All very good points. I subconsciously noticed all of those things as well. The space bar thing is a big problem for me because, even though I know it doesn't do anything, it is a Photoshop habit and I still do it all the time.

I have not used 2.5 yet, but the issue of remembering screen size and position would be a big improvement. Also, the way the dialogue box is designed, you can accidentally resize it to be bigger than the screen area, at least on version 2.4 it is this way.

This is not good because if I resize the box too quickly then I end up with my controls disappearing off the screen. When that happens, the only way to get it back to a normal size is to quit the program and start it again, which is a waste of time.

It should at least be screen intuitive so that it does not allow the user to adjust the dialogue box to surpass the screen size.

[topazlabs]

Thanks guys for the suggestions. In the current version 2.5, the screen size and positions are remembered. We are working on developing 2.6 soon so we'll be taking your suggestions into consideration for that.

Best regards!
Eric

[MarcoMarc]

Good stuff Eric. I think on the issue of the Topaz dialogue box size, the best solution would be to have topaz read your screen resolution setting and then prevent the user from being able to resize the Topaz box to be any larger than the total screen resolution. This would probably be a simple programming function to add in.

Having Topaz automatically create a copy of the background layer when applying its adjustments would also be a great function as well. This way the program preserves the original background layer and becomes nondestructive to the original image.

Since I already do that manually, I often reduce the opacity to 65%-70% on my finished Topaz layer in order to preserve a bit of the original/natural look of the image and avoid many images from looking a bit too over processed.

Good luck with 2.6 and looking forward to seeing the added functionality it offers when it comes out.