I just found a Shareware program that had me reaching for my credit card within fifteen minutes of first downloading it to try out. From mooSoftware.com is TABLETDRAW® a simple drawing program that uses the pressure sensitivity of the various Wacom tablets to allow you to draw freely. It’s a sketching and drawing program with the look of pencil, pen, or felt marker. It runs on Intel-based or PowerPC Macs and requires Mac OS X version 10.4 or later. Sorry, PC users, this one is Mac only.

What makes it different than some other pressure-sensitive drawing programs is

1. cost—it’s only $35.00 US
2. given most modern computers, it will have no trouble staying up with the freely-drawn variations in curving lines.

The MENU BAR has most of the things that you would normally expect, but there are a couple that should be noted. Under the FILE MENU is an EXPORT FOR PHOTOSHOP function that exports an image as a .psd file. Under the MODE menu the increase and decrease pen size do not require a modifier key and are simply “[ "(decrease) and "]” (increase). The VIEW menu allows you to access a COLOR PICKER to pick intermediate colors rather than simply BLACK, RED, BLUE and YELLOW, and the HELP menu has the SHOW KEYS function that brings up a complete listing of the key combinations available. I include the SHOW KEYS listing further along in the tutorial.

“Finally, a drawing program for artists,” that’s what mooSoftware calls their program. Here’s the TOOLBAR outlined in red below. The first row has the pencil tool that allows you to select a Pencil, Pen, or Marker from the TOOL PRESETS column. New is the Eraser which allows selection of the Small Soft Eraser or Big Firm Eraser.

The second row gives us a Lasso to select a portion of an image, and next to it is the Move tool that allows you to move the selection.

The tird row gives us a Marquee Rectangle or Oval to select an area in an image, and there’s also a Hand tool that, like in ADOBE PHOTOSHOP® allows us to move the whole image within its frame.

Last row is a bit different in zooming in and out of an image. Select the mangifying glass and then while holding shift and spacebar use your pen and draw a line upward on your image. This will zoom in an image view. Holding the shift and spacebar and drawing the line downward will zoom out the image view. Finally, that circle with the arrows allows you to rotate the image to allow you to work on the image as though it were a sheet of paper that you rotated to allow your pen to make strokes that are natural to your hand.

I’ll insert all the keyboard shortcuts here to get you thinking about your shortcut keys.

If you are drawing a freehand image then the screen size can be chosen beforehand and is a matter of choice. Obviously, if you are opening another image it will determine the screen size because the image will try to open at the native size of the image which may be much too large for the computer screen and it may be necessary to zoom out on the image to bring the size down to a workable view. I’ll explain how to zoom a bit later.

If you are drawing a feehand image the height and width of your image can be set in Inches…

…or Centimeters, Millimeters, Picas, or Points.

The tool presets give us a PENCIL (very light in tone) a THIN BLACK LINE or a THICK BLACK LINE or the effect of a MARKER. Remember changing the size of the selected tool is simply a matter of using the “["and "] “keys for decreasing on increasing the tool size by 1 pixel. Adding the shift key decreases or increases by 5 pixels.

BLACK is the default color of the PEN tools while the MARKER can be BLUE, RED, or YELLOW. The ERASERS can be decreased or enlarged in size as well. If BLACK is not your choice to draw with, go to the VIEW MENU of TABLETDRAW® and choose COLOR PICKER; it will appear above your working image and will allow you to point and click on a new color choice.

Notice that in the TOOL PRESETS that there is a small arrow to the left of each tool. If you check that arrow you will find that there is an adjustment set that allows you to adjust the minimum and maximum size of the tool, the color of the tool, opaciy and an ink mode.

The LAYERS menu can create an infinite number of LAYERS which can be manipulated in all the customary forms for anyone familiar with ADOBE PHOTOSHOP®. NEW layer, COPY, MERGE, FLATTEN and DELETE are possible…

…and the LAYER BLEND MODE allows BLEND MODES similar to other programs which use LAYERS.

Here’s a picture of myself sitting in a coffee shop. This image was made with the camera in my 17″ MacBook Pro notebook computer. Let’s take it through the drawing process so we can get a look at the way the tools work in TABLETDRAW®. Remember, we have a WACOM® TABLET attached to our computer.

Here’s the same image processed with Akvis SKETCH®. Remember Akvis SKETCH®? I wrote a review and brief tutorial for it only a few weeks ago. For my purposes there is too much background visible in the image and the lines tend to be the same in weight in too many places. There is not enough variety to the lines to give the image the kind of “life” that is commonly associated with a hand-drawn image. But, it’s somewhere we can start.

In the image below, which I have opened in mooSoftware’s TABLETDRAW® I have begun to erase the background with the BIG FIRM ERASER chosen from TABLETDRAW®’S tool presets.

Now I continue to erase the background of the image. Like a real eraser, the BIG FIRM ERASER does not erase everthing in one pass; it takes several passes to erase the majority of the background, and we don’t have all of it yet. We’ll get all the rest as we clean up later. Right now, we’ll just lighten up the overall background so we can concentrate on my head and shoulders.

OK, I didn’t quite stop erasing above; I decided to remove the figure who was behind my shoulder on the right.

Now I’ve added a blank layer above the image and selected the MEDIUM BLACK PEN from the tool presets and using the presure-sensitive quality of my pen with my WACOM® tablet, I have begun to draw on the blank layer on top of the image, and by varying the pressure with which I push down with the pen I begin to try to add character to the lines that represent the most dynamic parts of the image.

Now I start to pick out the most important parts of the image that I want to emphasize. I’m trying to find parts of the image that represent stresses in the fabric of the shirt and vest and places that represent bumps and creases in my skull, mouth, neck and ears. The glasses get some work as well.

More bumps and creases in the skull follow; and then some defining of the beard line. Finally a touch or two in the shirt will give it a bit more form.

Look closely at the diagonal strokes done in the beard using the light touch and pressure sensitivity of the WACOM® pen.; there are a few strokes on the neck and in the shirt collar starting to show up now. We’re closed to finished; there are only a few more things to do.

To finish up our transition from a stylized and somewhat artificial shetch-looking image to something closer to a hand-drawn one, I went back with a smaller eraser–the SMALL SOFT ERASER from the tool presets–and lightened places in the vest and shirt on the lower layer, and I also finished erasing the background. I had to lighten the area seen through the eyeglasses on the left where the background had produced a dark area, and a few diagonal swipes were made through the face and beard to increase the hand-drawn look. Oh, and I lightened the bump in the top of the skull.

If desired there are still two things I could have done. One, would have been to “turn off” or make invisible the original image. REMEMBER, we are working with two layers at the moment. Turning off the original image layer would have left a black-lined image with very little of the gray tones showing through. That was not what I wanted, but it could have been done. Secondly, I can export this image to ADOBE PHOTOSHOP® if I wanted to. That is an option that can be selected from the FILE MENU in TABLETDRAW)r). I haven’t chosen to do that either, so we’ll simply stop here with a drawing that looks much more hand-drawn and natural than we had where we started. You can’t do this with a mouse; only with the pressure-sensitivity of a pen and tablet can you achieve this effect.

Granted, you could have done this same effect using the LAYERS in ADOBE PHOTOSHOP® with a pressure-sensitive WACOM® TABLET and PEN.

But, and here’s the “Big But…”.TABLETDRAW® only cost $35.00 US and ADOBE PHOTOSHOP® costs hundreds. Take a look at mooSoftware.com and download the trial version; it works completely correctly except LAYERS are limited to two instead of unlimited, and undo’s are limited to five instead of unlimited.

How’s that for a chance to see what you could do with it? I could have done this image with the trial version, but at $35.00 Shareware, it is too good to pass up, so in the interest of the new Federal Regulations about disclosure I BOUGHT IT for myself; so go try it out for yourself; I suspect you’ll have to buy yourself a copy.

But for the moment, I had some need for Akvis SKETCH and here’s a bit of a look at the software and the techniques for using it.

Running Akvis Sketch 9.0 as a plug-in inside of Photoshop will place it as the first item (alphabetical listing, remember) in the FILTER menu items. What you will really get is an item named AKVIS and SKETCH will be an option within it because Akvis has a large number of applications as I’ve already mentioned that can be purchased to run as either stand-alone applications or as plug-ins within Photoshop and Elements in both Macintosh and PC versions.

The first window that appears when your are in the plug-in version from inside of Adobe Photoshop will contain whatever image you already have open within Photoshop itself. You will have a toolbar at the top and an image window with a preview square within it on the left lower side of the frame, and a series of menus and sliders will be available on the right side of the frame. We’ll take a look at each component separately for a quick orientation of the icons and menus.

Below is a shortened version of the toolbar as it appears in Photoshop. Not present in the plug-in version is a way to print directly from the image as can be found in the stand-alone version. Instead, the plug-in version will require you to return to Photoshop to save or to print. Not every tool is explained here; only the ones to get you started with the least amount of work are covered. See the "?" to access the complete application tutorial.

Here’s the pertinent icons and what they allow us to do.

1. Exports presets. You can save any number of presets. They will end in .sketch in a folder by the same name.
2. Imports a list of presets from the .sketch file.
3. Tells SKETCH to process the rest of the image into the same look as was shown in the preview window (the square which can be adjusted to cover different sizes or parts of the image you are working on).
4. Tells SKETCH to process the image, close the plug-in, and return you to the image in Photoshop. There will be a brief delay depending on the speed of your processor before the image appears in Photoshop. In fact, several times I had to click off the image and back on it for it to refresh on my MacBook Pro, 17", C2D, 2.5 Ghz. I don’t know whether that was an idiosyncrasy of my MacBook or not.
5. Allows you to exit the SKETCH plug-in without completing any of the menu choices. Without it you are trapped in the plug-in. This access is in the AKVIS SKETCH PLUG-IN item at your main screen left. This button will also bring up the screen where you may UPGRADE, ACTIVATE, or CONTINUE with the plug-in. It will have a BUY option if you have not yet purchased the software and are running it in the 10 day trial mode.
6. Will access the HELP file which was part of the software installation from the downloaded application file. I suggest you actually begin here because all of the tools, menus, and windows are explained in depth here.
7. Will access the preferences file where you can change the image preview window size as well as other options.
8. +brush allows you to draw in blue while working on the BACKGROUND tab. This will select an area where you DO NOT want an effect to occur.
9. –brush allows you to draw in green the area where you DO WANT an effect to occur.
10. Is an eraser that allows you to modify or change lines done with either of the two brushes while working on the BACKGROUND layer.

Accessing the SKETCH window allows adjustments in WATERCOLOR, CHARCOAL, and COLORATION. Moving any slider bar to the right increases the effect. The WATERCOLOR effects become noticable at around 17. CHARCOAL becomes too heavy after a setting of 3 unless you are attempting a very overdone, sketchy look. COLORATION is readily visible by a setting of 13 and will almost match the original image by 95.

We’ll look at BACKGROUND next and return to the rest of the adjustments under SKETCH and STROKES in a moment.

With BACKGROUND chosen you have three options, SKETCH, SKETCH & PHOTO, and SKETCH & BLUR. When using SKETCH & PHOTO the effect is similar to using layers in Photoshop where the sketch effect is placed on top of the photo image and the two are blended at roughly 50%. If this is the control you are seeking, the effect is better done in Photoshop itself by combing a sketch image with a duplicate of the original and adjusting the opacity blend with more subtle control.

However, chosing SKETCH & BLUR you are able to define the background that you desire to blur and choose between motion, gaussian, and radial blur.

Still another option is the addition of TEXT. Chosing the TEXT window gives access to all of the fonts available through Photoshop. The font size can be chosen, the line of type (typed into the area that says AKVIS Sketch) can be stretched and postioned via the eight green arrows shown in LOCATION below. The TEXT can be given a color, an outline and a glow.

CANVAS is also an option chosen by USE CANVAS. The texture properties, repetion pattern, reflection, alignment and scale are variable choices. The brightness, embossment, texture, distortion and the direction from which the light is directed onto the canvas can be set in this window.

Returning to the front window, that is, the SKETCH window, the size and angle of the strokes in the sketch are available. The default 45 degree sketch angle approximates the stroke of a right handed artist. The width of the stroke is determined by the size choice and the minimum and maximum lengths of the stroke are chosen to approximate the contour-following strokes of the artist. Choices made with this menu is somewhat unique to each subject chosen and should be the result of experimentation.

If COLOR PENCIL is chosen you must be using some degree of COLORATION in order to really see the effect of the colored pencil. Increasing MIDTONE DENSITY will show more detail and result in a filling of the midtones in your image. Increasing the MIDTONES HATCHING will visibly darken shadow areas and has a tendency to look contrived when the number is too high. Experiment with this setting as well.

The rhythmic flowing of the contour lines in an image are a function of EDGE TRACING. SENSITIVITY increases the number of lines in the image as you move the slider to the right. Generally, a number below 35 combined with a WATERCOLOR number of 25 produces a pleasing watercolor/pencil look. But again, experiment to find what settings produce the look you are searching for.

Here’s a sample image from musicians in an Irish pub. This is a screen grab and the artifacts are normally visible in some preview windows in SKETCH. The triangle surrounded by the red box tells SKETCH to render all of the preview window. The check mark surrounded by the yellow box tells SKETCH to complete the rendering and transfer you back to Photoshop and close the plug-in window.

The original picture is the upper of the following two images; below it is black and white with settings on Watercolor 30, Charcoal 3, and Coloration on 0. Stroke angle is 45 degrees and size is 8, Minimum length is 2 and Maximum length is 9, Midtones Intensity is 5 with Midtones Hatching at 95. Colorization is not on in this black and white example.

The original picture is shown in the upper positon in the two following images, and the second image has the same settings as the upper except Colorization is set at 95.

Below is a detail of the above image with the already defined settings; here it is shown larger for you to examine.

Subjects with low contrast will fail to make separation as shown in the example below where the white of the drawing paper and woman’s blouse fail to separate from the wall behind them.

An example of a subject that works well is the trees in the left image. Both a color version and this black and white verson were tried with little discernable difference. Here the contrast makes for good separation of the branches and sky and produces a good sketch look of the trees.

Here is a self-portrait done with the computer camera on my MacBook Pro laptop.

Here is the same image done with the same settings as used on the bar scene except that COLORATION was about 13. The laptop screen is reflected in my glasses.

The following image is of stones and dead leaves from the countryside in Ireland.

The following image is the Stones and dead leaves using the already mentioned settings with the addition of Coloration at a setting of 13.

A photographer in the Irish countryside as the original image.

The photographer with the already mentioned settings and Coloration set at 0.

What you are getting with SKETCH is an outline drawing such as may be produced by using several layers of the HIGH PASS filter, or variations of THRESHOLD in Adobe Photoshop. You are not producing a contour drawing as an artist might attempt with a pressure sensitive drawing tool (Wacom tablet, pen and ink, graphite, brush, or similar drawing instrument); however, for the artistically-challenged, SKETCH produces an acceptable alternative for many instances of illustrative work.

It’s a useful tool in my filter menu of Adobe Photoshop and can be found at http://akvis.com/en/store-software.php. Look it over along with its companion programs; you will find numerous useful applications there.

What does Simplify 2 do? It is an application that allows you to turn a photography into a painting or a drawing on any one of a number of variations; Topaz’ advertising says it this way "Simple and elegant photo interpretations." Download the program and douple-click your unstuffed file—you’ll get a dmg file for Mac and an Exe file for PC, and the application will install itself into your Photoshop Filter folder under a "Topaz Labs" heading. See the ilustration below for a quick visual example.

When Simplify 2.0 opens you will see the following window. Along the left side are twelve presets. Clicking on any one of them will directly move you to a still adjustable image because each preset will open with SIMPLIFY, ADJUST, and EDGES as slider-bar adjustments.

Here are the twelve general presets that you have to choose from. They are (1) BuzSim, (2) Cartoon, (3) Image CrispEdge, (4) Painting colorful, (5) Painting Harshcolor, (6) Painting oil, (7) Painting watercolor, (8) Sketch Color, (9) Sketch hardpencil, (10) Sketch softpencil, (11) Underpainting, and (12) Wood Carving. Remember, each of these presets has slider bars under the categories of SIMPLIFY, ADJUST, and EDGES.

Looking under SIMPLIFY we can choose our Colorspace from RGB and YCbCr; now experiment by moving the sliders back and fourth to examine the subtle variations of the presets. Work your way through each of the menus under SIMPLIFY, ADJUST, and EDGES. At any time you feel like you would like to undo an adjustment, a RESET TAB, will allow the resetting of one adjustment, or RESET ALL will reset all of the adjustments in that particular third of the image adjustments.

Here’s an image of one of the windows in a New Mexico church.

Applying Sketch color to the image produces this result. All that is necessary to select the preset is to click on the appropriate selection to the left of the preview window. Click and observe as you move down the options available.

Here’s a larger view of the results of choosing Sketch color.

Here’s the results of choosing Wood carving.

A little more complex is making two identical original layers one above the other, and applying Sketch color to one layer and Wood carving to the second. Then these two layers are blended together by using the opacity slider in the upper layer and causing the Wood carving to blend into the Sketch color layer.

Here we have the original image on the left, and BuzSim on the right.

Here we have the original image on the top and the Watercolor effect on the bottom. I find BuzSim, Watercolor, Sketch color, and Wood Carving to be the most interesting effects to me personally. Your mileage will probably vary; play with all of the effects with a varied selection of of images. It will become obvious that certain effects/presets work best on certain general types of images. In general, I have had the best luck with scenics.

A simple sand dune in the original is simplified with the Wood Carving preset again.

A ray of sunlight outlines a set of leaves in an otherwise darkened arbor area followed by the same scene run through the Painting colorful preset

One last example is a photograph of the gondolas in Venice, Italy, followed by the Painting oil preset followed by adding (via a merged layer) the Wood Carving preset.

This is the third of the Topazlabs Applications that I have added to my toolkit and I’m actually looking at a couple more. I have found the approach that Topazlabs uses to be very innovative and a very good value for the money. Having put in a lot of time developing certain looks and effects in Photoshop I find that many of my multi-step processes can be duplicated by choosing a Topazlab application and making a few personalized adjustments. In the long run that saves time—a lot of time—and in this business time equals money. I’m very pleased with the value received for the reasonable cost of each application. Bundles of some of the most used applications can produce significant savings. Check out Topazlabs.com and take a look at the selection; I think you will be pleased.

In my class "Intro to CS4", I distribute an overall explanation to Adjustments on a reference CD I put together for the students. I thought I’d make a simplified version available for new Photoshop CS4 users on DigitalAppleJuice.

	Here’s the initial window you get when you select Adjustments from the Window menu and add Adjustments to any other menus you have already open. Remember, everything you choose to do from these menus will be applied to an Adjustment Layer rather than to the image itself. It’s non-destructive adjustments.
	Right on the front of the panel on the lower half are Presets that allow the instant selection of a possible answer with a repeatability that is locked in. As you saw above, the first Presets are all Levels Presets, and there are more available than just those that I am showing here.
	Following the Levels Presets we have a series of Curves Presets that allow predictable repeatability.
	Below the Curves Presets are Exposure Presets in whole numbers.
	Hue/Saturation Presets follow the Exposure Presets. I find that the Sepia Preset is particularly useful.
	The Black and White Presets allow a number of choices. Of these, the Infrared Preset gives a good infrared look with adjustments easily performed with the sliders that become available once Infrared is chosen.
	Channel Mixer Presets gives a different approach to Black and White Infrared with adjustable sliders to fine tune the results. The effects of blue and green filters can be produced. Remember, a filter lightens its own color and darkens its compliment.
	Now, before we get to far along, let’s look at how we get back to the main panel. Look at the bottom of the particular adjustment you are using. A series of symbols allow you to (1) Return to the main Adjustment area, (2) Minimize the overall Adjustment panel, (3) switch back to the unmodified image permanently, (4) View the image before the adjustment, (5) Remove the adjustment, and (5) have available the trash can to delete layer masks or the adjustment layer itself..
Activating the Brightness/Contrast icon allows us to access the slider bars for each adjustment.	Having looked at the Presets, now let’s look at the adjustable choices that are defined by a series of symbols at the top of the frame. As you mouse over each of the symbols, the appropriate title for the symbol appears at the upper left just under where I have indicated.
The second Adjustment Icon brings us to the Levels Adjustment.	Selecting the Levels Icon brings us to a conventional Levels toolset; just remember it is on an Adjustment Layer and it is a non-destructive Adjustment.
Curves Adjustments are one of the most used tools in the photographers’ toolbox, and while Preset curves are useful for repeatability, almost every image requires a unique set of adjustments.	By clicking on the finger icon on the upper left side, and then moving to the actual image and stroking upward in an area where you would like to lighten the tone, or stroking downward where you would like to darken a tone, it is possible to apply the curves adjustment directly on the image instead of guessing where the tone to be adjusted is to be found on the tone curve.
The next adjustment available is the Exposure adjustment. This resembles the adjustment possible when using a RAW image and allows you to adjust the exposure after the image is made.	After triggering the Exposure Adjustment you will be presented with this window. This is where you will be allowed to adjust Exposure, Offset, and Gamma within the image.
The Vibrance, or as I like to call it, the "punch or crispness" of the image is accessed from the first icon on the second row.	Vibrance is coupled with Saturation and the two together make it possible to increase the crispness of an image considerably.
The Hue and Saturation menu allows access to Hue, Saturation, and Lightness & Darkness controls.	It is also possible to Colorize an image from this menu and this is an easy way to produce an image with the look of a Cyanotype or Sepia-toned image.
Color Balance provides adjustments to color balance in Shadows, Midtowns, or Highlights
Choosing to shift the image into a Black and White image is simply done by clicking on the Black and White diagonally-opposed triangles in the next menu icon.	This allows the tones within the original colors in the Black and White image to be adjusted. Green leaves for instance can be made lighter or darker, blue sky can be lightened or darkened and other intermediate colors can likewise be adjusted in the Black and White tonal scale.
Photo Filter: Applying color filters such as warming or cooling filters allow the original image to be treated like film where filters such as the 81, LBA, or 85 can be applied for warming, and the 80, LBB, and 82 can be applied for cooling. A number of other color filters (fourteen to be exact) can be used to produce special effect. A repeatable Sepia tone is one of the available choices.	In addition to choosing the density of a pre-determined filter (such as a Warming 85) it is possible to use that as a base color and increase the density of that color with the slider bar.
The Channel Mixer adjustment should be no stranger to anyone who used that technique to produce Black and White images in any of the previous versions of Photoshop.	In addition to choosing Monochrome to produce a Black and White image, the tones within the image can be adjusted by lightening or darkening any particular color as it appears in the original color image. This is one of the easier methods of crisping a monochrome image where the intensities of reds and greens approximate one another such as in the traditional problem of the red apple amid green leaves when the image is converted to Black and White.
Like its name indicates, Invert reverses the colors and produces a negative image of the subject.	Invert is a one trick pony, that is all it does. There are no adjustments or modifications available to this adjustment.
The ability to Posterize an image by sub-dividing it into steps allows adjustments from 2 to 255 steps.	However, after 10-12 steps the image becomes a continuous tone image for all practical purposes.
The next adjustment is Threshold which among its many uses is to create Line Drawing effects.	Slider adjustment on the histogram allows you to determine the break point you want to use to create your line effect.
The next to last adjustment that you have to choose from is the Gradient Map. The Gradient Map gives access to fifteen choices.	For example, choosing the Black to White gradient converts a color image into a high-contrast black and white image with considerable "snap" to the images. Experimentation will produce a number of special effects.
The final choice of adjustment is the Selective Color adjustment icon.	With its slider bars on Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black and the ability to choose to adjust within the Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, Magenta, White, Neutrals, and Blacks, considerable subtle adjustments are possible on the base image.

This has been a quick overview of the new Adjustment Menus in Photoshop CS4.

Remember that these are fundamentally the same adjustments that are available from the Image > Adjust menu in previous versions of Photoshop and are still available from the same menu choices in CS4— except when accessed from the adjustments panel, all these adjustments are automatically applied to an adjustment layer.

It is this distinction that allows the operator to skip the two steps of creating an Adjustment Layer and allows the automatic creating of non-destructive results. This, I think, is a major improvement in CS4, and seems to be the most admired everyday use set of tools in the new Photoshop CS4. While there are other "oh wow!" things that can be done with the new CS4, (and I will cover them in other tutorials), this appears to be the most appreciated of the new changes in Photoshop CS4.

So here is one I tried DeNoise with; it was shot with a 3.1 megapixel point-and-shoot camera in Morocco in the summer of 2000. Look at the color artifacts in the shadow under the palm leaves and in the shadow on the floor on the right.

Going to Filter > Topaz > DeNoise we get the panel below.

The default in the Main>Noise Suppression is 1.0 when it opens.  You can use the Reset button on the bottom right to force Noise Suppression to open at 0 if you choose.  We’ll take a look at all the adjustments possible before we make corrections.

The Advanced panel allows us to make adjustments in (1) Color Noise, (2) JPEG Fixer, (3) Smoothness, and (4) Add Grain.  It opened with a default of 0.05 in Color Noise.

The third panel, Presets, gives us the options of settings for (1) SRAW Normal, (2) JEPG High Quality, (3) Large Grain Noise, and (4) Supersmooth. Choosing and Applying one of these presets will make adjustments in the Main and Advanced panels.

Finally, the About panel will allow us to reach (1) Tech Support, (2) On-Line Resources, (3) Check for an update, and (4) enter our registration Key if we have not already done so.

Now, we’ll go back to the original image and the noise in the shadow and brick areas.

In the following image the Noise Suppression was set at 2.88.  Remember, the default was 1.0.

A slight amount of curves was applied to lighten the shadow area.

Now, here’s the detail close-up so you can see the original grain in all its gruesome glory.

Here’s the example with the Noise Suppression at 2.88.

Now here is a completely different means of removing the Color Noise. 

Pretend you ignored all the steps under the Main  panel and went directly to the Advanced Panel and chose to make your corrections through the Color Noise and Smoothness adjustments. You will get results similar to the ones below, which are not identical to the answer you received working with the Main panel and Smoothness.  But this simply shows that there are more than one way to reach an acceptable answer to the noise problem.

On the left side we can see an area corrected only by Color Noise and Smoothness sliders.  The original, grainy, image is the right side of the image.

Here we have the image totally corrected by using the Advanced panel and the Color Noise and Smoothness sliders.

I think we have another winner here. I’m going to use Topaz BeNoise to save many of the photographs I took with the 3.1 Megapixel  point-and-shoot camera while we were traveling in Morocco.
 

Check out DeNoise at http://topazlabs.com where it is priced at US $79.95 as a download.  A CD with the program can be ordered at extra charge, but saving the download with a copy of the key which is emailed to you after purchase can be done in only a few minutes.  After all, the DMG file is only 5.2 megabytes and is a quick download even on dial-up.  DeNoise is another good additon to your toolkit and workflow.

On the left side of the window there are 21 possible presets to choose from.  However, I encourage you to experiment instead with the adjustments in the EXPOSURE, DETAILS, COLOR, and NOISE adjustment frame below. The infinite number of possibilities allows you to customize your image to your exact preferences.

The redraw rate in the PREVIEW window works extremely fast and allows you to determine changes almost as they occur.  If you want to compare backward a small VIEW ORIGINAL IMAGE button allows you to shift back and fourth between the original and the modification.

Each of the ADJUSTMENT CHOICE buttons allows you to zero in on a particular part of the image modification that you want to use. Topaz recommends strongly that you work from left to right through each adjustment.

EXPOSURE allows you to adjust the exposure, contrast, highlights, regions, brightness and shadow in the image.  Think of “regions” as a tone-mapping function.  It will make good sense as you play with it.

DETAILS allows you to select strength, threshold, sharpening, boost, and radius adjustments.

COLOR allows adjustments in adaptive saturation, saturation, hue, regions and saturation boost. Think of regions as being a tone-mapping ingredient in your recipe for modification.

Finally NOISE allows you to define the amount of suppression, the lowering of artifact impacts, and the amount of the strength of the suppression.

Here’s a typical example of an image shot in hot bright sunlight with the exposure set to look into the shadows at the expense of flattening the tone of the image and blocking the highlights. A blue sky is burned completely out.

Exposure Correction: Adaptive exposure 0.7, Regions 36 gives you the following:

Here’s another original, unmodified image.

Here we are using an adaptive exposure of 0.74 and a regions of 42. As you can see the “regions” setting is a tone-mapping setting or another way to think of it is posterization with soft edges and which has the “grunge” look.

Increasing the DETAIL strength to 3.34 and the boost to 0.66 produces visible changes in the hair and moustache.

Here are a couple of “after topaz adjustment” samples (without the “before” versions).

I’ll leave you to download the 30 day trial version and experiment with Topaz Adjust.  Play with it a little while; and also try the noise filter on skin and then try your copy of Noise Ninja on the same image and compare the results; I think you will be favorably surprised.  Topaz Adjust is available for download from http://www.Topazlabs.com for $49.95.

Desaturate:

Obviously, the simplest method of converting a color image to black and white is to desaturate it.  This will produce a black and white image that seldom has truly good blacks, so it is often necessary to use contrast controls to increase the overall contrast of the image, or it may be necessary to adjust levels to beef up the blacks and whites.  Try both methods, they produce similar results, but not identical.  Choose the best one for your purpose.

Here is a color image on the left and a desaturated image on the right.

Here is a desaturated  image adjusted with contrast/brightness on the left, and with levels on the right.

Using The Channel Mixer:

A superior method of converting an image to black and white is to use the channel mixer: Choose IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > CHANNEL MIXER.

Choose Adjust > Channel Mixer and then select MONOCHROME.  The image will change to a black and white image.

Once MONOCHROME as been selected you may note that Red, Green, and Blue Channels are shown in the custom menu.  Try experimenting with changing the values in each channel but at the same time keeping the total value of ALL the channels between 90 and 110.  Exceeding these values may produce useable variations but will exceed what you might think of as "normal" variations of tone in a black and white print.

Now we take our selected image and prepare to produce a SEPIA toned version.

Go  to IMAGE>select ADJUST>select SELECTIVE COLOR

Select NEUTRAL from the list of colors. Choose RELATIVE from the options.

Set Cyan at -48 to -53; set Magenta at -30 to -33; set Yellow at -15 to -22.  Method should be RELATIVE with the preview mode selected.  Adjust Black as necessary.  This  produces a neutral to slightly warm sepia tone.

So there you have it.  Color print to black and white print by two methods and black and white print to sepia toned print by a third technique.  Experiment with the latter method to produce a wide variety of toned image possibilities.