Fun with Topaz Studio

I'm not a huge fan of one particular photo program over another. I did try Lightroom and used the Free Trial for a few days. I didn't like how the program tried to force me into 'cataloging' my photos. I simply date my shots with a date taken and where/or what it was about.
I wish I could afford the Lightroom editing program, there are some nice features I could use for some of my more experimental shots such as star shots. However I don't see my self going into astro-photography.

I switched to Corel a few years ago and downloaded Photoshop C2 which was free at the time. I have used Topaz products and plugins ever since they came out.
Topaz offers 'Topaz Studio' in a free version. It works pretty darned well and has lots of tempting effects.

Below is the original shot. I did use RAW or the Nikon version of it called NEF.

With Topaz Adjust I was able to get this. I actually used a Toned shot setting called Vintage.
Now the shot was not perfectly in focus and I would have tossed it. In fact I probably will toss it as it really is nothing spectacular.

However this gives the view a better view of what I 'thought' I imagined when I took the photo. A quiet beautiful man made lake. It was built to prevent further devastation and flash flooding along the Bad Axe River around the year 1960.
You can see the dam in this shot.

Original:

Edited version with Topaz Studio. I used a Toned Sepia color here to bring out the fall colors and added some contrast. I had hoped in this shot to catch the mist rising off the water, but everything washed out in the original.

And then just because I had Topaz Studio open, I thought I'd visit Van Gogh and see how he'd see this shot. 'Van Gogh' setting:

That was pretty fun. As an experiment is worked nicely.

I used an HDR edit on the shot above to bring out the shadows.

My favorite shot of the morning was this reflection shot. The mist is nearly impossible to see, and the original shot had so much grey in it.

Original:

I used Topaz Adjust to bring out the colors and the trees I had to use a method similar to HDR processing.

And since I just wanted to fool around with it, I went into 'Trending' in Topaz Studio and found this effect:

I think it was an Orton glow effect.

Fun, but then again not something I'd print.

In truth, I don't think I picked the best time of day to come to Sidie Hollow to take photos. Sure it was right at sunrise, but the sun ... well, it doesn't peek into valley until at least an hour after the sun comes up.

I came away with a few shots I like, but I had to do some processing.

I'm not sure I'll purchase the full version of Studio. But I'll keep experimenting.