Vrooom!

[adrian jordin]

I'm not normally into bikes, but I found these at the Bristol Bike Show a couple of months ago and couldn't pass these by....


image0611001 by jordin57, on Flickr


image0611002 by jordin57, on Flickr

and one for the Mods...


image0611003 by jordin57, on Flickr

 

[Davie Hudson]

i recognise that lambretta SX200, I'm a veteran of the scooter rallies from about 5 years ago ... I would ride my Lammy Li 200 from Dundee to the rallies, including switzerland.

I love the blurring you've done on the Lammy and that thing at the top is a MONSTER lol

 

[Jim Kuo]

Stunning bikes and pictures! Love the details on the bikes and colourful shinny surfaces in #1 and #2.

 

[adrian jordin]

Bike Shows like these are great for close-ups of all the shiny chrome and paint jobs, not just the big custom bikes.
They're also slightly less intimidating than approaching a group of Bikers outside a pub...

I had to blur the background on #3 to stop the bike getting lost in a rather busy background. Of course with all the mirrors, etc doing the cutout took ages and it isn't perfect.

 

[Chris Dodkin]

I like 'em all - but especially the angled comp of #2 - very nice

 

[Hamish Gill]

Yeah, i love these! Great attention to detail in the bluring of the background!
So is this those Topaz filters again?
I love the effect to the colours reflections and textures!

 

[adrian jordin]

#1 and #2 have had Topaz filters used.
Topaz Adjust is the filter in question, and I used the 'spicify' preset as the starting point for these.
It doesn't always work, it can look very garish, but when it does it can produce some wonderful pictures. There are also times when it isn't worth using Topaz at all, all you may need to do is to tweak levels in PS and crop the picture.

The preset in the filter is the starting point and applies a range of settings, after that you can adjust individual settings for saturation, detail, exposure, etc to get exactly the effect you want.

The backgrounds in both pictures were very busy with a lot of distracting detail.
So I replaced them with backgrounds from other pictures (taken in the same place), cloned over the joins and blurred the result to let the foreground stand out.

A lot of this I could probably do in PS but not half as quickly or as easily.

(BTW there's a new version of Topaz Adjust going through Beta testing at the moment...)

 

[Chris Dodkin]

I find that Topaz expects the image to be less than optimal for exposure, so boosts exposure/brightness accordingly.

So if you have a well exposed photo, it may then over do it during Topaz processing.

 

[Dan Cattermole]

WWHHHOOOOAAAAA!!! Look at the size of those tires on the first shot!
They'll put a Range Rover to shame! great shots!
Really paying a bit of interest to this topaz filter effect after Dodkin had raised my attention with that link. lol
Can you get it on LR as a plug-in at all? or is it something completely different?

 

[Hamish Gill]

I'm looking at getting a mac soon so I'm winding down the spending on stuff ... Once I have it I'm going to get a bunch of stuff like this i think! Really get my brain around what it is I like about things like this I think!

 

[adrian jordin]

Topaz is available for Windows and Mac.
It says it is compatible with any of the CS versions of photoshop, but I use it with PS7 without any problems.
The only thing I miss is some extra flexibility that things like 'smart filters' in the newer PS versions provide.

The filters are '8bf' format so should work with almost any editing software that supports this filter type.
I have them working with 2 other editors/viewers in addition to PS.
Topaz may only officially support some versions, however.

As for Lightroom, there is a free (yes free..!) adapter, Topaz Fusion Express, which will allow Topaz filters to be used.

 

[Dan Cattermole]

Thanks Ade,
I have Lightroom 2.6 and Photoshop elements 2.0 (now that is OLD SKOOL)
I do have a copy of CS4 but struggling to load it on the laptop.... just doesn't run for longer than 15 secs
I need a computer buff to help me.....
come to think about it.... CS4 has topaz filters on it doesn't it??

 

[adrian jordin]

I do have a copy of CS4 but struggling to load it on the laptop.... just doesn't run for longer than 15 secs
I need a computer buff to help me.....

Is it the installer thats not running or the actual program?
Any error messages?
Do you know the spec for your laptop?

I can't guarentee an answer but I've dealt with enough software and PCs over the years....

 

[Fidel Marcus]

adrian thank you so much for sharing, at first glance I thought these had to be HDR but when you started talking about Topaz it was clear you did this from one shot, I love colors (Dan called me out on that lol) and Topaz is going to be the next thing I play with, I'm assuming it works fine on the newest versions of photoshop!!

Dan I wish you lived near, I'd solve your adobe issues once & for all =/