In Yesterday’s article, I tried to use Curves to boost the contrast in the sky of a photo. As I also said yesterday, I am not a fan of using Curves. Even while I was writing the article, I thought I could do better with another tool (without going HDR).
Lightzone 3.7
I first thought about using Lightzone. After several experiments, I created the following image based on the same original:
It took the following settings to produce the above image. The clouds look great, but the whole image has a strong blue cast.
Topaz Adjust 3 – the surprise entry!
I have been a fan of Topaz Labs for quite a while. Just for the hell of it, I thought I would try the new Topaz Adjust 3 with the same photo. Take a look:
Topaz Adjust provided a great boost in color and contrast. In fact, I thought the results were too strong, so I blended it back into the original image to tone it back. But the big difference between all of these image … the above image took only a few minutes with Topaz! The settings are below:
I am impressed!