Tag: 2026

  • The long journey home

    It was 3:pm; I hurried to Llandudno Station, looked for a shop to buy water and snacks for the journey – but there were none. Neither in the station or nearby. Still there was enough time to sort this out when I got to Llandudno Junction … but to my surprise Llandudno Junction has no catering facilities and it’s not exactly conveniently located to the town so I was not able to get my water and snacks there.

    It was a hot day. The weather in the days preceding had been kind to me, but I was annoyed that I wasn’t able to prepare myself properly for the long journey that I had to do.

    At first all went well, the train hurried along and reached Chester with no problems at all. Again, like the previous day it was nice to just sit back and not think about taking pictures.

    Then we were in Wrexham. Fifty minutes later we were still in Wrexham. There had been an incursion onto the line at a level crossing south of the station and the Transport Police were “sorting it out”. The Train Manager broke open a cupboard with water bottles in it. Thanks goodness for that. Without that I think I’d have been in a quite different shape when we eventually arrived in Cardiff some 33mins late. I caught the Rhymney Line train 30mins later than I’d originally booked, but soon Jenny was there at Llanishen station to pick me up and take me home.

    All I had to do then was process in excess of 400 images and videos, and remember all I’d done, and construct this series of posts. I hope that someone, somewhere, reads them and gets some enjoyment from them. For me, it’s the only way I know of remembering what I’m doing these days.

    Cheers.

  • Topaz – the final word

    Topaz – the final word

    Last autumn users of the Topaz AI products (Photo AI, Gigapixel AI) were invited to migrate to a new suite of applications that they called Studio which included new versions of Photo and Gigapixel. As it was “Free” it appeared that you would not lose anything by continuing to pay Topaz Labs to receive upgrades for the following 12 months as you had done to receive upgrades the previous 12 months. You were guaranteed access to your legacy apps in perpetuity . What could be wrong with that??

    Well, I missed the subtle change in the licensing method. The new applications Bundled in Studio (I could have just opted to continue with the new Photo and Gigapixel as mentioned above) are licensed under a subscription model, not a purchase + upgrades model. Thus if I decide not to renew my subscription, I lose all access to the product. It’s like a sword of damacles hanging over your head – a threat to remove access if you don’t continue subscription – AND NO LEGACY APPLICATION that you have learnt to use to go back to.

    The new licensing model is similar to Adobe’s Photography Plan; but for less money you’re getting considerably more with Adobe, and if you do cancel your subscription you don’t lose complete access to your Catalog and Basic Editing. So you still have something to justify your expenditure. With Topaz Labs, nothing. Just imagine if you hadn’t been a Foundation Member and had paid for a year’s access and then decided not to renew. All you would have is the images you’d edited – at least they couldn’t take those away from you.

    Noise Reduction and Sharpening is improving in Lightroom, you also have Photoshop to work with as well. I WILL NOT BE RENEWING MY TOPAZ LABS SUBSCRIPTION. I have already removed the new Studio apps from my installations and re-installed the Legacy apps. At least I have them to use, should I wish to.