Last week Topaz released and update to one of the plug-ins from their popular collection, the Topaz Impession, and today, I will take a look at it.

What is it for?

Topaz Impression changes your photos into paintings, by simulating brush strokes. It provides many (over 150) presets for different styles and also gives you access to huge amounts of settings, so you can further tweak the look you are going for.

How does it look?

It’s really hard not to be impressed by the results. If I did not know, you could easily fool mi with the results, claiming that they are paintings. I especially liked the impressionistic presets, that provide just wonderful one click results.

For each preset, you can also go into the settings and tweak many attributes. From the size and shape of the brushes, to color tones, textures, lights and more. It’s not always easy to tell what will result from a specific change, but exploring is part of the fun here.

Usability & Performance

Again, it’s hard to not be impressed by the speed of this software. Switching between presets takes a second (it get slower by huge photos, but one should expect that :)) and changes in settings take effect almost immediately. This really makes experimenting that much more enjoyable. The interface is very simple, similar to other plug-ins from topaz, with the presets being the center element here. You just select the one you like the most, and than just tweak the result a bit.

The quality of the result is really nice, with the brushes being high enough resolution, that it looks great even when zoomed in.

Conclusion

While the results are impressive, there is a question, where you would use something like this. For me, the usability is very limited, as I tend to go more toward realism. But if you want to put a more artistic touch to your photos, or you have a client that would be interested in something like this, you should really give it a try. For more info and a trial version, head over to the Topaz Impresion 2 webpage here. (btw. there is also currently a introductory price with a 40% discount available, the code is on the Topaz website)