A Colorful Interpretation of Rome with Topaz Plugins

A few days ago I was feeling artistic. I decided to peruse my archives to find a photo to play with and I came across the photo below of the Roman skyline, captured in September of 2008.
I can remember where I was standing and how beautiful the view was. The original photo itself, however, was somewhat blah. The colors were muted and it didn’t have the wow factor that I recall from that moment.
Cranking up the Color with Topaz Plugins
I made a few adjustments in Lightroom (lens correction, crop, exposure) and then jumped into Photoshop. From Photoshop I used layers to keep track of my edits in various Topaz plugins.
I started in Topaz Adjust and applied the ‘Color Pop I’ preset. I wasn’t going for bright colors necessarily, but I really liked the effect!
Next, I opened Topaz Simplify. I removed/softened some of the detail with the ‘Soft Features’ preset, lowered the opacity to .5 and added a soft vignette.
Back in Photoshop I made a small hue/saturation adjustment to the foliage in the foreground to remove a bit of the yellow. Thats it! The whole process took me only a few minutes and that includes clicking around various presets to see which best fit the photo.
Its bright, garish, and not at all my usual style, but I love it!
Want to get creative with your photos?
Topaz Labs produces some of the best tools for creative processing – whether you are looking for something bright and colorful like the photo above, or something more subtle and realistic – their plugins can help!
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