Topaz Adjust 5 Review

Topaz Labs has come out with an improvement over the 'Adjust' Plug In. The new features are many. One of the best new features is the Apply Button~ shown with the red arrow.

Many new presets are on the left hand side. Browse through them and you'll find some fun ones and those presets that you've saved in Adjust 4.

A close up of the presets:




On the left side of the screen you'll find your adjustments as usual, but you have to 'click' on each one you'd like to use and open it up. It is easy to get used to.
Luckily, the new Topaz Adjust 5 has the APPLY button!

So if you are half way done 'adjusting' your photo, you can 'apply' the adjustment and then go on experimenting or working with it...
without ever leaving the Plug In.

If you use Apply and then adjust something further and really are unsatisfied with it, you can 'Reset All' and get back to your original adjustment.
This is a time saver for people like myself who are always experimenting.




Before Topaz Adjust 5:
After Topaz Adjust 5:
Probably not the best photo to demonstrate with, but you can get a faint idea of what you can do with a photo that isn't perfect to begin with.
I did post process this one for 'noise' issues afterwards, and added a touch of Topaz Simplicity just to smooth it out.

I must be old or behind the times

Today is Black Friday. The traditional day that I make a point NOT to go shopping at all.

But last night while looking at the ads for Black Friday, I realized that I must be way behind the times!

My Phone is not Smart.
My TV is not Flat.
My DVD's are not Blue-Ray.
In fact I still have VHS tapes.
I don't have a Blue-Tooth -- not even sure what a Blue-Tooth does anyway.
I read paper books, not virtual books.
I listen to music on an old radio [or Pandora].

My car is of the vintage, it uses human power to roll up the windows.

I don't have a GPS in my car.
I use paper maps, still.


I guess, considering the source, it isn't really that odd after all.
After all, I did go nearly 10 months without a dryer and not miss it much.
We don't have our ancient 'fat' TV hooked up to anything but a DVD-VHS player.

And...I do have a magnificent outhouse.

Let the old times roll !

Turkey Day?

Okay so when did it get acceptable for people to start saying "Have a great Turkey Day!"?

I mean come on, what does that mean?

You are a Turkey?
You eat Turkey?

[not me, I prefer Lasagna...okay call me odd!]

So I 'Googled' it.

Turkey Day is slang, which I've figured. Who the heck came up with it? Some lazy person who didn't want to say Thanksgiving Day?
Even I've used that awful phrase, thinking it was hip.

Last night when someone told me to have a wonderful 'Turkey Day', I cringed and replied that he should have a nice Thanksgiving also.

I of all people of course should not lecture on the what Thanksgiving means. I do know that I wistfully think of family and meals...
chit chat...
someone needing a nap...
and everyone talking excited to be visiting with family members.

As a child Thanksgiving was a huge day for our family to get together. I recall trying to feed the yucky food to my cousin's dog.
I remember the smells, the smoke, the conversation that rumbled on between the adults.

And I remember that we couldn't wait to get outside and play.

It was Thanksgiving Day...

it certainly was NOT Turkey Day.

Have a good holiday and enjoy your family and friends.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

...and so it begins

I've edited the words, chosen most of the photos...
and now I have to begin to put them together.
The Sleeping Forest, the book... [a winter's photographic journey from October through April].

I've also begun the next 'Morris' adventure book.
Happy Hedgehog receives a letter from his family.

They are coming for a visit!

But Happy is so very very Un-Happy.
He had told his distant relatives a Big Fib.
He told them that he 'owned' a big farm and had his very own dog, among other things.

What is Happy going to do?
His distant relatives are very important Hedgehogs. They come from across the sea and are very wealthy and live in a castle.

It could be get interesting!

Time to get down to writing!

Oh Deer, Oh Dear?

It is all about trust when your husband asks you to go out in the woods for him and jump the deer up for him ...

mind you, he has a big caliber rifle with a scope...that has tiny little crosshairs on it.

In fact he is probably the only person I'd do this for.

And, big sigh.
I'll take almost any excuse to wander around in the woods after not being out there for 5 days. Heck, I begin to suffer woods withdrawal.
So I'll put on all the brilliant orange and put on my 'big girl' panties...
and hike out a route hubby has selected for me.

However.
This year he has selected a brand new outfit for me!

How special.
It is a nice tan Carhartt jacket and matching tan pants. Funny, I don't recall Carhatt putting a funny white tail on the pants!
Nor do I recall the hood having a pair of gleaming fake antlers.

Perhaps I should have second thoughts about walking about the woods and scaring up some nice deer for my husband.

Yah think?

The Day Before Deer Season

Yup. The Thirdy Point Buck,
The Second Week of Deer Camp,
and many other 'Deer Hunting'
songs will appear on Country Western Radio Stations
tonight and tomorrow morning.

It almost seems that Blaze Orange becomes very fashionable this time of year. Heck, you can even get a Blaze Orange 'Camo' Jacket. Along with T-shirts, button down long sleeve shirts, sweatshirts, pants, and coveralls. Not to mention a Blaze Orange Mad Bomber Hat, or perhaps a nice baseball cap, or plain ol' stocking cap.
[My son's dog Teslin posing with my Blaze Orange Bomber Hat]
Heck we even have a Blaze Orange Raincoat!

It is the time of the year where everyone gets 'Buck Fever'...and I...
get to see a miracle ... my husband arising before dawn each day...
believe me, he is not a typical early riser.

I enjoy the gun season.
Yup.
I sure do.
This marks 9 days that I cannot go wandering about doing whatever I want in the woods.
Opening days are marked with 'guns blazing' from one of the neighbor's properties.
I'd swear that the deer are shooting back.

So sure, I enjoy myself by...um, cleaning house, washing windows, and perhaps getting the Christmas stuff out and organized.

Ick.

I really don't like gun season after all.
Except when I get to put on Blaze Orange and walk the empty woods [after opening weekend] and play 'dog' for my husband.

If you don't know what 'play dog' is, well it is an expression used here. The 'dog' goes out and walks the woods in a pre-agreed upon route, in the hopes of scaring up a nice deer for the person with the gun.

One point I need to make clear.
You best trust the person you are 'dogging' for.

So Happy Hunting Season for those who love to hunt and provide meat for their families.
And for those who don't hunt...well in WI, break out your Blaze Orange and be fashionable!

Treasures

One man's junk is another man's treasure is how the saying goes.

Well today we were clearing the woods of downed wood from the 2007 storm [yes, still cleaning up the damage!] and I found the previous owner's junk pile.

I got some interesting photos of it while watching a pile of tree stumps and broken limbs burn...but unfortunately my data card had some sort of error on it.

Alas, I missed some creative opportunities to photo 'junk' in an artistic manner.

You would think a normal person would be disgusted at finding a 'dump' on their land.

I was amused that I found more than one sink and two water heaters in the pile, as well as springs to a couch [?] and a few rusty buckets as well as half of a toilet.
When my husband was purchasing this place, the previous owner had not yet installed a bathroom.


Of course to me it was an opportunity to pull out my pocket camera and experiment while keeping an eye on the bonfire.

Which of course reminds me.
There is plenty of 'cool' junk laying around on the farm. Not that one would like to admit it.
But yes, there is.

After all, my husband says he might need 'it' some day.
I'm wondering how a half toilet and some half buried sinks fit into that scenario.
Well you never know, it may be a true treasure after all.

Perhaps I can make it into some avant-garde art and become rich and famous.

Yeah.
Right.
It still looks like junk to me.