Topaz Labs released their new B&W Effects plug-in last August. I have not yet tried this new plug-in, But if it is as good as the rest of the Topaz Labs plug-ins like my favorites Adjust and Sim­plify. It should be a great addi­tion to the Topaz Labs Lineup. In the near future I will be test­ing out this plug-in and let­ting you know what I find. In the mean­time below is a descrip­tion of what this plug-in can do.

Topaz B&W Effects, is their new black and white enhance­ment plug-in for Pho­to­shop. Topaz B&W Effects goes beyond basic con­ver­sion meth­ods, giv­ing users the tools to make detailed and styl­ized enhance­ments, in addi­tion to his­tor­i­cally accu­rate, tra­di­tional black and whites. And with over 150 pre­sets, users can quickly enhance any image with a 1-click work­flow. In addi­tion to the com­mon con­ver­sion tools, B&W Effects is packed with spe­cial­ized expo­sure and con­trast con­trol, real­is­tic ton­ing abil­ity, styl­ized effects and so much more. Cat­e­go­rized into tra­di­tional and alter­na­tive processes such as Cyan­otype and Albu­men, B&W Effects also includes a vari­ety of pre­sets that offer a fun and sim­ple way to cre­ate impres­sive imagery,” said Nic­hole Paschal, senior mar­ket­ing spe­cial­ist for Topaz Labs.

The abil­ity to con­trol expo­sure, detail, con­trast and tone is very essen­tial in mono­chro­matic images. Topaz B&W Effects fea­tures unique tools like adap­tive expo­sure, a five-in-one selec­tive brush, an advanced grain engine, quad ton­ing, cre­ative effects and fin­ish­ing effects to help enhance these black and white essen­tials in an intu­itive way. Accu­rately sim­u­lat­ing the look and feel of his­toric black and white film, although quite chal­leng­ing, was a key ele­ment in mak­ing our pro­gram so unique. We actu­ally took real film scans and devel­oped them into the soft­ware,” said Dr. He Yang, senior soft­ware designer at Topaz Labs. Dr. Yang, who spent tremen­dous effort work­ing on the film sim­u­la­tion and the B&W pro­cess­ing engine, adds, “I am glad to see very pos­i­tive feed­back from the cur­rent ver­sion. As always, we are going to con­tinue in our efforts to improve upon this release and pro­vide bet­ter imag­ing tools to the pho­tog­ra­phy com­mu­nity. Topaz B&W Effects is a plug-in that works with Pho­to­shop, Pho­to­shop Elements,Aperture, iPhoto, Light­room and PaintShop Pro. It is com­pat­i­ble with Win­dows XP or later and Intel-based Macs run­ning OS X 10.5 or later.Photographers look­ing a great way to cre­ate high-impact black and white images invited to try out the new Topaz B&W Effects plug-in for free using the 30-day free trial.

Other related posts.

• Topaz Adjust 5 Just Released
• Fun with Topaz Labs Sim­plify 2
• Fun With Topaz Labs Adjust