Issues with Plugins Upgraded to be part of Studio

It takes way too long to open Studio as a plugin in Photoshop. It serves no purpose to have access to Clarity in Studio, Impression in Studio and Detail in Studio as separate plugins listed under Studio in the Photoshop filter pull down menu. Every time you click on these filters, Studio opens first before the invoked filter opens. I am a long time Topaz plugin users and seriously hoping that Studio will become more integratable with Photoshop.

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The filters are now part of Studio, it isnā€™t Studio opening the filters but a Specialty Category in Studio with the Presets available.

Impression, Detail and Clarity were Upgraded to be an Adjustment or a combination of Adjustments in Studio that also gives you access to other adjustments.

Invoking the Clarity, Detail and Impression entries under Studio doesnā€™t invoke the older plugin via Studio.

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I am already using all of the older plugins which I was told were not going
to be updated. I was talking about the updated filters which can only be
accessed by opening Studio either as a plugin in Photoshop or in the
standalone mode. I plan on continuing using all of the older plugins as
long they meet my needs. The way Studio is currently designed is
incompatible with my Photoshop workflow.

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Don,

Here is the screen shot of the new filters listed under Studio.

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Workflow is a personal choice and you do have the option to use either path but I believe that the path forward for Topaz Labs is to migrate the plugins to be accessible from the Studio interface.

To quote Topaz Labs ā€¦

"Weā€™re still committed to our products being used as plugins, weā€™re a plugin company, and although studio is an editor itself as well, itā€™s real power is as a framework or processing engine. The plan is to get out products integrated into this engine so we can speed up new feature development in the form of tools and adjustments but it will all run through the Topaz Studio framework.

That said, even though tools like Detail, Clarity and Impression are now in studio, and you can still access that work-space directly through Photoshop, under the Topaz Studio category instead of the Topaz Labs category.

Weā€™re definitely not going to force people to only edit in Studio, we want you to be able to access that toolbox where ever you want, right now we work with Photoshop and Lightroom officially. But we want to expand that to include other editors. Creativity is about options, we donā€™t want to stifle that at all."

So, in essence the development going forward will be through Adjustments integrated in Topaz Studio but the original plugins, although they will no longer be updated, are still available via the Topaz Labs filter menu.

Donā€™t get me wrong. I like all the amazing capabilities available in
Studio. There lie my frustration with the Studio interface. It just takes
too long to load every time I want to use a filter on each successive
Photoshop layer. So unless studio is updated to load as fast as the old
plugins, I wonā€™t be using it.

I understand your frustration but one thing you can do is actually apply the plugins in one hit as they get ported over. For example if you wanted to apply Clarity and Detail there is no need to apply Clarity, return to Photoshop and then invoke Detail as all are available through the one Studio interface.

I find it a little faster through Studio as there is no pre-processing involved as previously but I only have CS6.

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I find it to be just as slow with Studio loading first and then again
loading Detail, Clarity or Impression. I like to keep track of all my
Photoshop layers with each adjustment identified. That also includes many
of the included adjustments I would like to use within Studio. This means
that I have to open and close Studio repeatedly to use several adjustments
on one image.

While I think Topaz is moving in the right direction by integrating and
updating all of their plugins into one platform with Studio, some
substantial work needs to be done to make it fully integratable with
Photoshop and other photo editors. Even though I have purchased the full
version of Studio several months ago, I have no desire to use it as a
standalone. Meanwhile I will continue to use the full suite of Topaz
legacy plugins. Hopefully, Iā€™ll be able to use Studio on my images
eventually.

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Although I donā€™t find Studio slow to open nor the individual Adjustments, I would agree with Artypixall in that there is still not the same adaptability in Studio for me as there is in PS. I like having layers that are clearly defined, I like the possibility of returning to a saved image with all the layers still in place and add or subtract effects. I may not be too ā€˜au faitā€™ with Studio at present so more flexibility may be there or may come later. I was hoping that the ā€˜layersā€™ in Studio would be more flexible but so far none of the webinars I have watched have given any indication that this is so. Too early perhaps to make this kind of judgment - so I am hoping that more flexibility will come.

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As a user, I find much that is confusing about Topaz Studioā€™s Interface in PhotoShop. Simplify, for example, is a big issue. Accessed separately in PS but, later, if one wants to use Clarify, one launches Studio.

In Studio all the other plugins are listed under Specialty and Simplify is listed under plugins at the top of the Studio menu. Iā€™m talking UI right now and how the user relates to it. For example, after enough times of going back and forth ā€¦ one grabs Simplify from Studio just not remembering that itā€™s a plugin in Photoshop. And the extra resources running slows down the machine creating one of two events 1) a crash with a crash report 2) a program freeze that requires a forced close which can be catastrophic if there is no saved document (and who thinks about that anyway) Crashes and freezes are always the programā€™s fault. They are never the userā€™s fault.

So I agree there are programs with the UI in PhotoShop and with the actual organization and coding. Topaz Labs and Topaz Studio have to be merged. The separation makes web access and program access cumbersome if not as times completely impossible.

Thanks for listening and allowing this feed back. I love these programs and hope to help.

I have been thinking the exact same thing and I concur completely with your assessment of the situation with respect to using Studio within Photoshop. I am more than bummed that, as I understand it, future plugin updates will only be offered through Studio and not available directly from Photoshop as a ā€œTopaz Labs" plugin. The power of the integration of Topaz Plugins within PS is the ability to easily and QUICKLY create plugin based layers, without having to wait for Studio to load and then subsequently the desired plugin to load. That said, I want to be clear that I LOVE the wonderful path to creativity the plugins offer. For me, the creative aspect of creating a pleasing painterly image is the result of understanding what a specific plugin offers and being able to invoke and apply the desired effect quickly. Launching and applying plugins directly from Photoshop meets this process much more so that having to go through the Studio interface. It is all about layers and donā€™t slow me down ā€“ please. Thank you for listening.

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Essentially, Topaz needs to ensure that the specialty plugins currently available in Studio, Clarity, Detail, Impression and other upcoming ones, can be opened without first opening Studio. After all, they are listed separately along with Studio in the filter pull down menu in Photoshop. A lot of amazing adjustments options are also available within Studio. Making it load faster is also essential.

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I purchased Studio with the $70 offer (Introductory offer with added filters to the free offer) so I could see what Studio could really do. It was okay until they started adding Impressions, Clarity, then Detail. Now Studio will not work in my Affinity program. In Corel Paint Shop Pro X9, It will work but it is quirky, slow, and somewhat buggy. The bugs should be worked out before offering the additions.

I am not so interested in one size fits all concept environment. And, I should have a choice to run upgraded plugins separately apart from Studio. After all, I paid good money for the whole set of Topaz plug-ins.

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It does work from Affinity.

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I just updated to version 1.44. Somehow I missed update 1.43. It is working in Affinity now. Havenā€™t had a chance to work with it yet other than to check if it was working with the update. I will give it a workout soon. Thank you.

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100% Agree. Iā€™ve been using the Topaz plugins for years and they are my ā€œgo toā€ in many situations. However, the Studio program only hinders my workflow in Photoshop. And, I wonā€™t be leaving Photoshop. I hope Topaz can continue with their line of plugins.

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Atrypixall, Iā€™m glad you asked this question, as I was wondering what was going to happen with the individual plugins, as I noticed on the download page some of then now only download Studio. Studio does not fit into my Lightroom / Photoshop workflow, as I make adjustments between Denoise / Adjust / and one or two others. If going forward Topaz only offers Photoshop plugin functionality through Studio, then this is where we part ways. I always save copies of what Iā€™ve downloaded, and have all the plugin installers Iā€™ve bought, so as long as they continue to work with Photoshop Iā€™ll keep using them.

One they stop though, Iā€™ll be moving on to competitors products that donā€™t force one to use a container application just for plugin functionality.

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It looks like the upper management suits at Topaz Lab have decided to develop Studio as a standalone container fit-all application to appeal to people who do not have the inclination to learn and use Photoshop. I hope I am wrong, but it appears that Topaz Lab is no longer interested in supporting the plugins that the Photoshop community of digital photographers and artists depend on for their work. I will also continue to use the Topaz legacy plugins as long as they work. After all, I am still using some of the plugins from Color Efex Pro 3.0 with Photoshop CS5.

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Studio could be a good optional product- but abandoning the development and upgrading of stand alone plugins is a huge mistake. I understand Topazā€™'s strategy but it is too narrowly focused on Studio. You donā€™t see any discussion on Photography websites about it as you do for OnOne and others- even DxO Optics is using Nik now, and in the Photography forums all you read is complaints about Studio. Iā€™m not willing to update Simplify as I donā€™t have the time or patience to deal with potential problems with Studio.
And even if you like Studio- you have to have a lot of time to deal with the bugs of every release, beg for support to get it to work and then go through the laborious process all over again.
Most photographers are unwilling to go through Studio to access their plugins- I love my stand alone plugins- but for now forget Studio.

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I have to add the System Requirements for Topaz Studio puts it out of reach for many users- another Topaz misstep. Other photo software forums I participate in, like Corel PaintShop Pro, users complain Impressions in Studio ridiculously slow and Topaz support tells them to upgrade their video card- if on a laptop thatā€™s not possible- and few laptops can meet Topazā€™s hefty GPU memory requirements. Impressions standalone plugin will work fine though on most laptop Intel graphics, just not in Studio.
From a competitive standpoint, look at On1ā€™s minimum requirement for GPU- OpenGL 3.3-compatible video card with 256 MB video RAM, 1280x720 resolution, yet Studioā€™s minimum GPU memory is 1GB.
https://www.on1.com/products/photo-raw/specs/