Making Photoshop Easier - TK Panel Review

[DeMorcan]

I was recently asked to train someone who uses Photoshop and wanted to add to what she already knew. One of the reasons for using PS instead of Lightroom is area or spot adjustments which the adjustment brush and radial filter are not refined enough to do. Also the layers and blend modes, blends ifs to refine where adjustments are applied and so many other things that are complicated to learn and become proficent at. There is a just such a lot to learn. This is where TK6 and TK7 come in.

They called it Luminosity Masking. I have an action that made 10 masks and then chose the one I wanted. Even with the masks, it was not easy to teach and use having to go into layers, click, ctrl click, apply and so on. And frankly most people do not want to learn about luminosity masking. One shot, she wanted to warm the brighter type of a sunset without messing up the test of the photo. This is what luminosity masking does very well. Also processing the shadows differently as contrast and sharpness in shadows looks unnatural. As well as... You get the idea.

The TK6 panel is free. It comes with a video button by button explanation and how to use. For the sunset we made a new later and filled it with the color she wanted. Then we brought up the panel clicked buttons until the area she wanted warmed was shown and clicked mask. It was done. Nothing to learn. No real idea of luminosity masks beyond how to use them. Then another photo we made a duplicate layer of the original and did the sharpness and contrast she wanted for most of it. Next we went to the TK6 panel and clicked the level buttons until it was not applied to the shadows. She wanted to do the shadow adjustments so we made a layer for that. After the adjustments we went to the TK6 panel and clicked the levels until it only showed up on the area she wanted. The panel lets you define the what shadows and highlights are. You can see the results as you do it. And there is nothing really to learn. It makes Photoshop easy for people who want to process their photos instead of learning about Photoshop.

The TK7 panel is $30. With the TK6 we did the layers and what we wanted on them. The TK7 makes the layers also and some of the adjustments. It also masks by color for adjustments and a unique feature I liked is you can filter by the warm tones (instead of one color) or cool tones or... You can also adjust make many other adjustments within the panel all while seeing the effects on the final image. The best way I can explain the value of this is the following. I was hired to train someone how to do more than the basics in Photoshop for processing photos. I showed her the TK6 panel (which I did not use, I got it for her). She bought the TK7 panel, gave me $100 and told me thank you. It did all the things that would take many hours to have taught her.

The panel automates many tasks. However it is very adjustable. It is not like many actions where everything is predetermined and you have to go to Photoshop tools to make adjustments. You can adjust density of masks and levels of effects. And has the advantage you can see the effects as you do it. In Photoshop to smooth a mask you may feather or blur or whatever adjustment you wanted. Then you see what effect it had on the photo and perhaps redo it. With the TK panel you can see the effect on the photo as you modify the mask making it much easier to get exactly what you want. I will not even try to explain all it does. I have my actions I have built up over many years. Those save me much time. The TK7 panel saves even more time and replaces a lot of my actions with one easy to use panel. I had a beginner get it so they could spend more time processing and less time learning. I thought it would be good for that and since I was already doing many of those things, did not plan to get it. I ended up getting it for myself as it not only saves a lot of time, it allows me to edit better because of the watching the change as I do it. It actually runs faster than Photoshop. It has two different interfaces than you can change at any time so it will work the way you are most comfortable with. I will not try to list everything it does as I am still discovering more ways to combine what it does. If you are beginner this will make many Photoshop capabilities usable to you quickly. If you are an experienced Photoshop user it will speed your workflow as well as give you "WTH? How did they do that moments.

[Rob Trek]

I got your email on this. I'll take a look. Thanks.