Topaz software is a great tool if used properly. I look at it as a way to make a crop sensor look like a full frame sensor, and as a way to make a 200mm lens look like a 600mm lens. I've been able to change the way I shoot because of it. For example, I can take my older, less expensive gear if I'm going someplace sketchy and don't feel comfortable carrying my newer stuff. I know I can clean the images in post and no one will be able to tell the difference.

Somehow the name "photoshop" has become a dirty word, no doubt due to people abusing its capabilities over the years. People often ask us "did you photoshop this," as if that's a bad thing. I try to explain to them that we don't have darkrooms anymore, and pictures still need to be processed. The images that come out of the camera are crap, IMHO. We've been shooting digital for about two decades now, and we've forgotten how beautiful Kodachrome and Ektachrome were, straight out of the camera. People have been looking at these crappy .jpegs on the back of their camera for so long that they think they're OK. They're not.

This is my favorite rant. I met my wife thirty eight years ago in her family's custom B&W Photolab. Her mother was one of the finest B&W printers in L.A. I have no doubt that she would be a Photoshop aficionado if she were alive today.