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If Topaz has made a mess of your Photoshop plug-ins...

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2020 10:53 am
by E.J. Peiker
... and some aren't working or Photoshop is launching an older version, please read on:

Basically Topaz's multiple installers over time makes a mess of a Windows PC resulting in duplicate instalations in different folders of different versions and eventually Photoshop gets confused.  I have worked on trying to sort this out for several days and the way to totally deal with it is as follows:
1. Go into Control Panel > Programs and Features
2. Uninstall every single Topaz AI program
3. Go into your Downloads folder and delete every single Topaz AI product
4. Reboot your computer and login to the administrator account (if you have not set-up additional logins, it will be your default account and you don't need to worry about this)
5. Run a registry cleaner.  The free version of ccleaner works fine.  (this is important, do not skip this or any step)
6. Rerun the registry cleaner to get rid of any bad registry entries caused by the first clean
7. Reboot and login to the administrator account (if you have not set-up additional logins, it will be your default account and you don't need to worry about this)
8. Login to your TOPAZ account and go to Account > Purchased Products
9. Re-download every product you own - they all go into your downloads folder
10. Install every product (in most cases, the previous settings you had customized in preferences for each product will be retained but check each one)
11. Launch Photoshop and In Preferences > Plug-ins select Topaz Labs (not the one with LLC)
12. Exit Photoshop
13. Re-enter Photoshop

Everything should be fine from this point on until Topaz decides to change installers architecture again.

Overall, Topaz installers are an unmitigated disaster.

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2020 12:51 pm
by dbolt
EJ,

I am at the re-install step. Studio2 wants to install in the topaz labs LLC folder. I checked explorer and discovered AI sharpen folder still exists. I just about deleted the LLC folder, but thought I should check with you before. Also, should I delete all Topaz folders before re-installing. The installer program will let one select which folder app go.

Re: If Topaz has made a mess of your Photoshop plug-ins...

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2020 1:19 pm
by rjacobs
Any notion if same issues occur on MAC OS?

Re: If Topaz has made a mess of your Photoshop plug-ins...

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2020 2:12 pm
by dbolt
rjacobs wrote:Any notion if same issues occur on MAC OS?
Nothing that I see.  Initial installation and all updates have been smooth.  If my MBA were a bit more powerful, I'd not have a problem.  However,....  Hopefully, EJ's recommendations will fix the issues I've had with my Win10 machine.  I do like the results produced by the Topaz AI programs.

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2020 4:56 pm
by Ed Cordes
I must be lucky. I updates Topaz Sharpen AI to version 2 without incident. I only have the latest PS on my machine as I deleted the last edition - maybe that makes a difference? BTW, I really like the ability to brush in the sharpening effect.

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2020 5:13 pm
by EGrav
No problems with Topaz on macs here.

Re:

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2020 7:01 pm
by E.J. Peiker
EGrav wrote:No problems with Topaz on macs here.
It won't affect Macs in any way.  It has to do with Topaz deciding midstream to change how they do their installers on the Windows platform.  On Macs, Apple controls how installers work so every program installs in the same way.

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2020 9:51 pm
by dbolt
I followed EJs suggestions and I can now use both SharpenAI and Mask on my Win10 machine.
Thenks again EJ

Re:

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2020 5:22 am
by E.J. Peiker
dbolt wrote:I followed EJs suggestions and I can now use both SharpenAI and Mask on my Win10 machine.
Thenks again EJ
Excellent :)  Topaz really has made an incredible mess of things by modifying how updates install midstream.

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2020 2:46 pm
by bradmangas
Thank you for spending time sorting this out E.J. Topaz has indeed made of mess of things over the years. I appreciate your advice.

Re: If Topaz has made a mess of your Photoshop plug-ins...

Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2020 4:59 pm
by WJaekel
Thank you very much for all your efforts, E.J. I exactly followed the steps above and so far, everything works perfect now :) . I just realized 2 Topaz plugin-folders in PS CS6 ,- one ( called Topaz studio) containing my purchased products AI Clear, AI Mask, AI Denoise, AI Sharpen and the second one, just called "Topaz" (not Topaz LLC)  containing just the identical versions of  AI Denoise and AI Sharpen, too. Both work in PS, so the doublet doesn't matter for me. Prior to the procedure PS contained several Topaz versions with some of them crashing PS. So I really appreciate your help

BTW, though a bit OOT here: Has anyone tried AI Adjust and compared to NIK Viveza /ColorEffects ?

Regards
Wolfgang

http://www.wjaekel-foto.de

Re: If Topaz has made a mess of your Photoshop plug-ins...

Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2020 8:56 pm
by E.J. Peiker
WJaekel wrote: BTW, though a bit OOT here: Has anyone tried AI Adjust and compared to NIK Viveza /ColorEffects ?

Regards
Wolfgang

http://www.wjaekel-foto.de
I much prefer either Studio or Viveza/ColorEFFEX to AI Adjust.  

Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2020 12:57 pm
by E.J. Peiker
Updated the instructions after working with someone that still had problems. You must install the Topaz plug-ins using the administrator account, not the account of another user on that computer.