New Topaz Photo AI Coming in September

I was rummaging around today and came across an offer in my email referring to a new coming program from Topaz. Seems they've incorporated their DeNoise, Sharpen AND Gigapixel into ONE program. However more importantly it is upgraded in many regards. They've already fine-tuned it but stated it is currently in Beta with final release in September.

My former complaints regarding the Sharpen and DeNoise is there were times it provided some artifacts in the image. I road tested several images where in prior attempts with the standard programs from them there were artifacts. This time in the Photo AI program there were NO artifacts and noise was completely GONE! Without destroying fine details that in prior attempts it did mess with some fine details.

The real surprise came with the Upsize button where you can choose the pixels size or simply select 1 through 6 to increase its size. I took some small pictures taken back in 1979 with a cheap film camera of a friend in a creek and canyon area I was in at the time in Utah. I up sized it to 3 and it blew me away. Not only did it look as though it was taken yesterday, but there was detail rendered that was absent in the original with NO artifacts or noise speckles or anything negative. Sharpness was very prudently applied not overdone in this case. I was astounded how good it worked. I used several other examples from many years ago and it continued to amaze me. So keep your eyes peeled for this program. If you currently have their Trio of programs, you can go onto the site for Topaz and do a download of the prerelease of Photo AI. Check it out, this could be the new kind of the hill in post processing noisy image or ones that lack detail.

Sounds excellent. I am looking forward to it!

Thanks for the hint. Just downloaded it. Will give it a try shortly.

This is a video and introduction to Topaz Photo AI 0.5 beta by Dave Kelly. He says the first product version is supposed to be in September. Here is the video and I have it cued up to 5:18 because the first part is a very long part that is more like an advertisement and also explains how to get the beta. You can start from the beginning if you want to see that too.

This video is mostly about NR. He says he will be doing more videos later about other aspects of the program and new beta versions. He also has a simple DXO PureRaw comparison.

Clearly Topaz is getting the marketing buzz started by having the people on youtube make videos. Useful info though. I am looking forward to seeing what the real product can do. Do not know the price yet.


Probably this week or next week beta 0.6 will be out.

--
Henry Richardson
http://www.bakubo.com

I watch Kelly's videos regularly and saw that one. He's a salesman. Nothing bad with this, so am I. I believe that selling is helping, and he does, in the end. Now, I tried Photo Ai myself with less than great results: good denoising, on par with Denoise Ai, but brutal sharpening choices which resulted into loads of artifacts. What is different with Photo Ai from us running the individual programs is its new auto function. Well, for the moment, I am better than it.

Count me out. Having fairly recently had to pay for a Denoise upgrade, I find they are asking for more money for V3.7.

Seems a subscription model by the back door.

Mike

FourthHorse said:

I watch Kelly's videos regularly and saw that one. He's a salesman. Nothing bad with this, so am I. I believe that selling is helping, and he does, in the end. Now, I tried Photo Ai myself with less than great results: good denoising, on par with Denoise Ai, but brutal sharpening choices which resulted into loads of artifacts. What is different with Photo Ai from us running the individual programs is its new auto function. Well, for the moment, I am better than it.

Click to expand...

Your results were 100% in the opposite direction from mine. I tried 6 challenging photos some of which I'd used prior in the other Topaz DeNoise and Sharpen AI programs producing the artifacts and excessive sharpening. The PhotoAI I downloaded yesterday did NONE of these repeatedly time after time. there were NO artifacts (which I was exceedingly pleased to see) and the sharpening was VERY tame by no means excessive. I'd probably sharpen more personally. So how you came up with those results is beyond me.

ProDude said:

FourthHorse said:

I watch Kelly's videos regularly and saw that one. He's a salesman. Nothing bad with this, so am I. I believe that selling is helping, andssu he does, in the end. Now, I tried Photo Ai myself with less than great results: good denoising, on par with Denoise Ai, but brutal sharpening choices which resulted into loads of artifacts. What is different with Photo Ai from us running the individual programs is its new auto function. Well, for the moment, I am better than it.

Click to expand...

Your results were 100% in the opposite direction from mine. I tried 6 challenging photos some of which I'd used prior in the other Topaz DeNoise and Sharpen AI programs producing the artifacts and excessive sharpening. The PhotoAI I downloaded yesterday did NONE of these repeatedly time after time. there were NO artifacts (which I was exceedingly pleased to see) and the sharpening was VERY tame by no means excessive. I'd probably sharpen more personally. So how you came up with those results is beyond me.

Click to expand...

My main issue with the app so far (and this may change with the production version) is that the sliders are pretty much useless, the optimum result requiring the sliders to be set at level 0-1 on a scale of 0 to 10. I think Topaz needs to set the optimum slider position somewhere near the middle of the scale, 0 meaning do nothing and 10 meaning just above the "this is too much" level, and 5 near or at the average optimum level. My second issue is that Denoise still sharpens and Sharpen still denoises, i.e. they have not completely separated the two functions. Third issue I have you can not mask the image once and apply the mask to all 3 functions, you have to mask Denoise and Sharpen separately and can not mask the Enlarge function to prevent effects such as Face Enhancement from being applied where not desired.

--
Roger

RSTP14 said:

My main issue with the app so far (and this may change with the production version) is that the sliders are pretty much useless, the optimum result requiring the sliders to be set at level 0-1 on a scale of 0 to 10. I think Topaz needs to set the optimum slider position somewhere near the middle of the scale, 0 meaning do nothing and 10 meaning just above the "this is too much" level, and 5 near or at the average optimum level. My second issue is that Denoise still sharpens and Sharpen still denoises, i.e. they have not completely separated the two functions. Third issue I have you can not mask the image once and apply the mask to all 3 functions, you have to mask Denoise and Sharpen separately and can not mask the Enlarge function to prevent effects such as Face Enhancement from being applied where not desired.

Click to expand...

RIGHT! this pre release version offers us no adjustment capability mask included. They have requested us early adopters email them with suggestions to dial it in. I need to do that for sure. I'd like to see the sliders active (as they are not currently) and as you say offer the "refine" masking options. That would make this program pretty deadly good.

Discussion and place to report problems are here for 0.5:


When 0.6 is released they will start a new one.

Henry Richardson said:

Discussion and place to report problems are here for 0.5:

https://community.topazlabs.com/t/topaz-photo-ai-v0-5/33432/130

When 0.6 is released they will start a new one.

Click to expand...

Thanks. There's also a mean to give feedback from within the PhotoAi itself.

I am pretty confident that, in the long run, Topaz will do just as good, or even better, likely, than they already do with the trio of DenoiseAi, SharpenAi and GigapixelAi. For the moment, it is certainly not at that level.

--
Fourth Horse
Erri De Luca said that humans live as long as three horses and then goes on displaying his wisdom. I'm well past both.

Here is another video from today.


The marketing is starting to rev up.

ProDude said:

FourthHorse said:

I watch Kelly's videos regularly and saw that one. He's a salesman. Nothing bad with this, so am I. I believe that selling is helping, and he does, in the end. Now, I tried Photo Ai myself with less than great results: good denoising, on par with Denoise Ai, but brutal sharpening choices which resulted into loads of artifacts. What is different with Photo Ai from us running the individual programs is its new auto function. Well, for the moment, I am better than it.

Click to expand...

Your results were 100% in the opposite direction from mine. I tried 6 challenging photos some of which I'd used prior in the other Topaz DeNoise and Sharpen AI programs producing the artifacts and excessive sharpening. The PhotoAI I downloaded yesterday did NONE of these repeatedly time after time. there were NO artifacts (which I was exceedingly pleased to see) and the sharpening was VERY tame by no means excessive. I'd probably sharpen more personally. So how you came up with those results is beyond me.

Click to expand...

I did nothing else than letting PhotoAi run on its Autopilot. Here is one example of my results. I got the same on plenty of others.

On the left = Autopilot with denoising only ; on the right = Autopilot denoising and sharpening.





Also Notice that PhotoAi uses a flat profile for the RAWs.

--


Fourth Horse
Erri De Luca said that humans live as long as three horses and then goes on displaying his wisdom. I'm well past both.

mikero said:

Count me out. Having fairly recently had to pay for a Denoise upgrade, I find they are asking for more money for V3.7.

Seems a subscription model by the back door.

Mike

Click to expand...

I have the trinity set of three (DeNoise, Sharpen & Gigapixel) and my license expires on 26th November 2022. DeNoise v3.7 is the most recent available and covered(?) by my license should/when I want to install it. What you describe is curious because AFAIK when you buy a license it is for a year.

As for Photo AI, I have no wish to be a Beta tester.......some aspects of the development of Topaz products I have felt like a Beta tester of what should be stable releases!

Looking ahead I wonder what will happen to the Trinity, are they slated to be EoL. If so will Photo AI be offered to current users at a significant discount,???

PS is there a recommended minimum PC spec to run Photo AI or if the Trinity is running AOK will Photo AI run well too,???

Edit ~ found the specs here

--https://support.topazlabs.com/article/115-system-requirements-for-topaz-photo-ai

AVX2 Instructions set in the CPU leaves behind....as my 1st Gen i5 Quad Core does not have AVX2

C'est la vie !

Living life a slice at a time
http://www.1stdesignit.co.uk/350d/burnup2.gif

mikero said:

Count me out. Having fairly recently had to pay for a Denoise upgrade, I find they are asking for more money for V3.7.

Click to expand...

Yes, you apparently bought Denoise AI over a year ago. You got free updates for a year. After a year you don't get anymore, but you can still use the last update that came out before the end of the year. It does not stop working like the Adobe rental plan.

I bought the 3 app bundle from Topaz last year. I got free updates for a year on all 3. The year ended awhile back. I still use my Topaz apps. Maybe later I will pay to update for another year, but not yet.

--
Henry Richardson
http://www.bakubo.com

Henry Richardson said:

mikero said:

Count me out. Having fairly recently had to pay for a Denoise upgrade, I find they are asking for more money for V3.7.

Click to expand...

Yes, you apparently bought Denoise AI over a year ago. You got free updates for a year. After a year you don't get anymore, but you can still use the last update that came out before the end of the year. It does not stop working like the Adobe rental plan.

I bought the 3 app bundle from Topaz last year. I got free updates for a year on all 3. The year ended awhile back. I still use my Topaz apps. Maybe later I will pay to update for another year, but not yet.

Click to expand...

Maybe it was a year. Probably was. Time flies depressingly fast as you get older, and memory starts to fade, to boot.

Mike

mikero said:

Time flies depressingly fast as you get older, and memory starts to fade, to boot.

Mike

Click to expand...

Oh man can I relate :-(

0.6 out now:

https://community.topazlabs.com/t/topaz-photo-ai-v0-6/33769

ProDude said:

I was rummaging around today and came across an offer in my email referring to a new coming program from Topaz. Seems they've incorporated their DeNoise, Sharpen AND Gigapixel into ONE program. However more importantly it is upgraded in many regards. They've already fine-tuned it but stated it is currently in Beta with final release in September.

My former complaints regarding the Sharpen and DeNoise is there were times it provided some artifacts in the image. I road tested several images where in prior attempts with the standard programs from them there were artifacts. This time in the Photo AI program there were NO artifacts and noise was completely GONE! Without destroying fine details that in prior attempts it did mess with some fine details.

The real surprise came with the Upsize button where you can choose the pixels size or simply select 1 through 6 to increase its size. I took some small pictures taken back in 1979 with a cheap film camera of a friend in a creek and canyon area I was in at the time in Utah. I up sized it to 3 and it blew me away. Not only did it look as though it was taken yesterday, but there was detail rendered that was absent in the original with NO artifacts or noise speckles or anything negative.

Click to expand...

So the program invented some details? If they where absent in the original and you see them now the program must have inserted details from what it "felt" should be there.

Feels like something not photography to me....

Member said:

Sharpness was very prudently applied not overdone in this case. I was astounded how good it worked. I used several other examples from many years ago and it continued to amaze me. So keep your eyes peeled for this program. If you currently have their Trio of programs, you can go onto the site for Topaz and do a download of the prerelease of Photo AI. Check it out, this could be the new kind of the hill in post processing noisy image or ones that lack detail.

Click to expand...