Topaz Glow: A Closer Look

Blending Options within Glow

During the Topaz Webinar on Tuesday I showed quite a bit of information. After the webinar my head was spinning, it felt like an hour went by in 5 minutes! Sorry if you got sucked into my whirlwind of tips and tricks and spit out without a clue (I felt the same way in the end). Luckily, you have the PDF with the Workflows and the settings on the Webinar page!

The main thing I wanted everyone to take away from the webinar session was to not look at Glow so literally. Glow, in its most basic form is a fractal art generator, however, it is capable of SO much more with the power of blending options.

In this tutorial I will be taking a closer look at Glow with specific attention placed on the 2 heavy hitting blending options, Screen and Soft Light in reference to Glow:

Screen

The Screen Blend Mode makes anything Black on the top layer disappear, showing the bottom layer below it. This is critical to making some really interesting images with the “Neon” Presets in Glow. Try this:

Duplicate your background layer

Open Topaz Glow

Select any “Neon” preset

Change the blend mode to Screen

Now you can adjust the neon colors in the Color section and reduce the saturation to zero to allow for really nice highlight effects.

Blake, thank you so much for your vast knowledge. I have learned so much from your blog and Topaz Labs webinars. Like you, I wasn’t sure about Topaz Glow to the point that this was the only one which I used the demo before purchasing. Your sessions were the turning point for me and for that I thank you. Now to get busy putting your knowledge into creating my works of art. Here is wishing you and your family the happiest of New Years.

That is great to hear! I was in a very similar position as you not too long ago, now I run every photo through Glow just to see what I can come up with. It is a lot of fun! Thanks for the feedback! I wish you and your family a very Happy New Year as well!

Blake, thank you, thank you for the written steps!!! I always watch the videos and I love them. These written steps prevent me from accidentally leaving something out, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to do this :).

Another great tutorial. I guess that my first impression of Glow was similar to your own. I thought that it was a great program, but not one that I could use with any regularity. Your tutorial has changed that opinion. I can now see that there may be a way of integrating it with my current workflow. Thank you.

Thanks, Blake, I have started experimenting with Glow and find it fascinating. Your tutorial was so well explained and I have now learned a lot more. I will head back now and try a few more images that need a little lift.

Have to say Blake it was a lot to take in on the Webinar but I had the advantage of being familiar with Topaz Glow as I took part in the beta-testing. But once again you did a great Webinar and the follow-up PDF and actions is a great idea. Like you, I quickly realised that Glow was better used in a subtle way, blending it in with existing photographs. Sure, during testing I created some out and out, obviously Glow, pieces of art, but for normal use blending is much better and that’s how I use it in my workflow.

Very true. I made several interesting fractal animals and abstract landscapes before I found a great place for it in my workflow. You are right, it was quite a bit in one webinar, I just wanted to show as much as I could on the various uses for Glow.

Blake, I saw your Topaz webinar this week and I was still unsure about buying it until today. You taking the time to explain one image and its possibilities in more depth in this follow-up, really did it for me. Keep up the great work!

I just watched your Glow/Impressions tutorial on the Topaz site. Fantastic job. I learned so much. I would like to apply the techniques presented, and to that end, I was looking for the pdf that you mention at the beginning of the video. I can’t find a link to it anywhere.