and the site receives a small commission
Topaz Photo AI (Before & After)
- Thread starter mstphoto
- Start date
- Messages
- 2,686
- Name
- Russell
- Edit My Images
- Yes
Hi, I use Topaz Denoise AI and also have Sharpen AI, find much better than this new effort from Topaz. They are still after nearly a year (maybe more) fiddling around with it, I find it far to aggressive on images and as I say get far better results from there previous software. Russ.
OP
- Messages
- 4,727
- Name
- Mike
- Edit My Images
- Yes
I've not long updated my PC and find it really fast - a lot faster than Denoise and Sharpen.
OP
- Messages
- 4,727
- Name
- Mike
- Edit My Images
- Yes
I'm finding the opposite.
I still find myself going back into the previous software but that's happening less and less nowadays.
- Messages
- 4,289
- Name
- Steve
- Edit My Images
- Yes
As it happens, I was doing some comparison tests between DeNoise AI and Photo AI this afternoon. It was a bit dreary outside and I had been taking wasting some time shooting (photographically 
) sparrows and tits through the office window and the ISO was hitting between 10,000 and 20,000. I decided to compare the two programs - nothing scientific.
I opened 18 unedited raw images directly in both programs initially using their Auto settings. So, both treat noise pretty well the same in all but two images but DeNoise had the edge in retaining details in the birds feathers in the highest ISO images. Sharpening was a different matter though, with Photo being far more aggressive and consistently over-sharpening and requiring me to turn it back by about two-thirds of the auto setting. DeNoise, on the other hand tends to under-sharpen but never by enough to make it imperative to adjust the setting. One thing I do like in Photo AI is the automatic selection of the subject in your image and then only sharpening that, leaving the background nicely blurred. Thumbs up for that feature.
Aside from the above, Photo AI is, on my PC, really slow and makes the CPU fan spin really fast (and noisily). Okay, I know my graphics card is rather outdated and a better one would help the situation but that's something for a later date
I think it is clear that Topaz are working towards making Photo AI their primary application and maybe drop development of the free-standing programs in due course. All I can say is that they still have a way to go before that is a realistic proposition.
) sparrows and tits through the office window and the ISO was hitting between 10,000 and 20,000. I decided to compare the two programs - nothing scientific.I opened 18 unedited raw images directly in both programs initially using their Auto settings. So, both treat noise pretty well the same in all but two images but DeNoise had the edge in retaining details in the birds feathers in the highest ISO images. Sharpening was a different matter though, with Photo being far more aggressive and consistently over-sharpening and requiring me to turn it back by about two-thirds of the auto setting. DeNoise, on the other hand tends to under-sharpen but never by enough to make it imperative to adjust the setting. One thing I do like in Photo AI is the automatic selection of the subject in your image and then only sharpening that, leaving the background nicely blurred. Thumbs up for that feature.
Aside from the above, Photo AI is, on my PC, really slow and makes the CPU fan spin really fast (and noisily). Okay, I know my graphics card is rather outdated and a better one would help the situation but that's something for a later date
I think it is clear that Topaz are working towards making Photo AI their primary application and maybe drop development of the free-standing programs in due course. All I can say is that they still have a way to go before that is a realistic proposition.
I also have been trying out various AI tools. I have used PL6 DeepPrime XD a fair bit - and DeepPrime for a long time before that for Nikon 1 etc. This noise "reduction" seems quite good at adding detail that appears as if it was in the original capture ( of course its not ).
Few weeks ago, I got the trials of Topaz AI sharpen and AI Giga and threw at the former some really naff snaps from way back. There are enough controls to tweak it to get something reasonable and believable ( well landscapes and not portraits ). There seems to be some NR included in AI Sharpen as well. Convinced me I could make good use of it anyway.
With the current offer, from Topaz, I got the AI Photo for £133 but the sharpen functionality which maybe is OK if your images are not too far out, is just not as good as in the standalone program so I asked and got a refund from Topaz quickly.
I will probably get just the AI Sharpen module - just for my own use: not selling or exhibiting anything. I do have quite a few old images which I would like to tart up.
But... boy is it slow - I have only got a MBpro i7 with a graphics processor. It didn't help that I or Apple had turned off the NVidia GT750M and I was using Iris graphics.
Richard
Few weeks ago, I got the trials of Topaz AI sharpen and AI Giga and threw at the former some really naff snaps from way back. There are enough controls to tweak it to get something reasonable and believable ( well landscapes and not portraits ). There seems to be some NR included in AI Sharpen as well. Convinced me I could make good use of it anyway.
With the current offer, from Topaz, I got the AI Photo for £133 but the sharpen functionality which maybe is OK if your images are not too far out, is just not as good as in the standalone program so I asked and got a refund from Topaz quickly.
I will probably get just the AI Sharpen module - just for my own use: not selling or exhibiting anything. I do have quite a few old images which I would like to tart up.
But... boy is it slow - I have only got a MBpro i7 with a graphics processor. It didn't help that I or Apple had turned off the NVidia GT750M and I was using Iris graphics.
Richard