AI face unblurring software

I have been using Lightroom Classic to manage my photo collection for years.

Its sharpening features only go so far. Out of focus photos, not necessarily from motion shake, but also from the camera focusing on the wrong thing, cannot really be recovered with those tools. I have scanned a bunch of old photos, including film photos from negatives, that fall into those OOF categories.

I became aware of an unblur tool at imggen.ai . https://imggen.ai/tools/unblur-image

It has done an incredible job on the vast majority of photos I ran through it. The most amazing thing is what it does with faces. It's uncanny. And there is no watermark.

The main problems are :

a) it is a cloud service only, not a local program. There are private photos I just don't want to run through that

b) it doesn't integrate with Lightroom Classic

c) it has a 4096 x 4096 & 20 MB input file size limit

d) output files are extremely compressed JPEGs. Nothing I ran through it is larger than 500K KB. Most are 100 - 200KB.

I did trials of several other programs that claim to do unblur / sharpening.

1) DXO Photolab 7and Nik Collection 7

2) ON1 NoNoise

3) Focus Magic

4) Topaz AI

5) Luminar Neo

The first four were a bust in various ways compared to the imggen.ai service, as far as the unblur function is concerned. I did not try other functions.

Luminar came closest to being usable. It did a reasonable job with many photos, using the SuperSharp setting on Middle or High, and the "Face enhancer" function enabled.

However, in other cases, it did a downright terrible job, doing things like changing eye color, sometimes the color of just one eye, adding eyelashes when they were none, changing the shape of teeth, increase she size of lips, making a real mess of hair with tons of of moiré, etc. None of which you would expect from a sharpening tool. And indeed, it does not happen with the imggen.ai tool .

I filed a ticket with Skylum with the most egregious example that included all these defects in just one photo. It was almost like a face swap, and not unblur.

Since I don't expect them to fix it in the next 6 days left on my trial, is there any other software I'm not aware of that can deal with deblurring that might do a better job ?

I think you hit the major ones. What didn’t you like about Topaz Photo AI? Did you just use the auto settings or tune them to your taste? You can mask for to areas you want to unblur.

I was fairly impressed with the ability of Topaz Sharpen AI to reduce small focus errors.

Unfortunately, Photo AI seems to lack the focus deblur controls of Sharpen. And Sharpen AI is no longer supported.

BobKnDP said:

I was fairly impressed with the ability of Topaz Sharpen AI to reduce small focus errors.

Unfortunately, Photo AI seems to lack the focus deblur controls of Sharpen. And Sharpen AI is no longer supported.

Click to expand...

I didn't know that. I have Sharpen AI and access to Photo AI v1. Since Adobe Denoise AI came out I stopped using Photo AI and kept Sharpen AI around. Last time it was updated was in 2022 and not is it supported any longer, you can't purchase it either. It is a mature product so it works well.

This is what Photo AI v1 did when it was just released in 2022. I realize it has changed a lot since then which includes v2. I'm surprised there would be less control.







--
I roll with pleasing colour

Zeee said:

BobKnDP said:

I was fairly impressed with the ability of Topaz Sharpen AI to reduce small focus errors.

Unfortunately, Photo AI seems to lack the focus deblur controls of Sharpen. And Sharpen AI is no longer supported.

Click to expand...

I didn't know that. I have Sharpen AI and access to Photo AI v1. Since Adobe Denoise AI came out I stopped using Photo AI and kept Sharpen AI around. Last time it was updated was in 2022 and not is it supported any longer, you can't purchase it either. It is a mature product so it works well.

This is what Photo AI v1 did when it was just released in 2022. I realize it has changed a lot since then which includes v2. I'm surprised there would be less control.

Click to expand...

Photo AI seems to lack an explicit choice of focus blur models, unlike Sharpen.

I'm not the first to whine about the loss of some adjustability that was present in the old Sharpen, Denoise, and Gigapixel trinity.

BobKnDP said:

Zeee said:

BobKnDP said:

I was fairly impressed with the ability of Topaz Sharpen AI to reduce small focus errors.

Unfortunately, Photo AI seems to lack the focus deblur controls of Sharpen. And Sharpen AI is no longer supported.

Click to expand...

I didn't know that. I have Sharpen AI and access to Photo AI v1. Since Adobe Denoise AI came out I stopped using Photo AI and kept Sharpen AI around. Last time it was updated was in 2022 and not is it supported any longer, you can't purchase it either. It is a mature product so it works well.

This is what Photo AI v1 did when it was just released in 2022. I realize it has changed a lot since then which includes v2. I'm surprised there would be less control.

Click to expand...

Photo AI seems to lack an explicit choice of focus blur models, unlike Sharpen.

I'm not the first to whine about the loss of some adjustability that was present in the old Sharpen, Denoise, and Gigapixel trinity.

Click to expand...

I believe you. Just surprising.

--
I roll with pleasing colour

I did not take notes about my Topaz trial, or any of of the other trials I did, unfortunately, and thus I can't answer about specific adjustments, or how badly it failed to perform the task. Unless adjustment controls were hidden, I would have played with them, though.

I downloaded Topaz AI on 8/9, and likely installed it that day. I uninstalled it shortly after once I determined it did not meet my needs - the unblur function was my only reason for the trial.

I'm not sure if I can reinstall it now to refresh my memory.

Is it just me, or has Topaz labs very recently removed any mention of free trials from their Photo AI web site ? All I see is links to buy now, and a 30-day money back guarantee. But nothing about any trial.

madbrain said:

I did trials of several other programs that claim to do unblur / sharpening.

1) DXO Photolab 7and Nik Collection 7

2) ON1 NoNoise

3) Focus Magic

4) Topaz AI

5) Luminar Neo

The first four were a bust in various ways compared to the imggen.ai service, as far as the unblur function is concerned. I did not try other functions.

Luminar came closest to being usable. It did a reasonable job with many photos, using the SuperSharp setting on Middle or High, and the "Face enhancer" function enabled.

Click to expand...

I think you are a case of overly ambitious expectations or CSI syndrome (there the image enhancement can make a number plate readable in the reflection of the car in a bystanders eye)... There is one more AI buried in one of the tools but they too suffer from the face feature replacement syndrome. And as far as I have seen, that online tool suffers from the same problem. The faces are not restored but replaced by that AI too...

madbrain said:

I did not take notes about my Topaz trial, or any of of the other trials I did, unfortunately, and thus I can't answer about specific adjustments, or how badly it failed to perform the task. Unless adjustment controls were hidden, I would have played with them, though.

Click to expand...

Topaz deliberately simplified the controls in Photo AI as the multiple modes and options in the predecessor products were deemed much too complex. Most people just used the default settings anyway. So now the smaller number of modes try to do more automatically.

madbrain said:

I downloaded Topaz AI on 8/9, and likely installed it that day. I uninstalled it shortly after once I determined it did not meet my needs - the unblur function was my only reason for the trial.

Click to expand...

Do you remember if you used the facial recovery tool? That works pretty well. Note that you sometimes need to explicitly select the faces you want it to recover. It marks all the areas that it thinks might be faces, but by default only attempts to recover the ones where it’s certain are faces. You can manually select other candidates.

Digital Nigel said:

madbrain said:

I did not take notes about my Topaz trial, or any of of the other trials I did, unfortunately, and thus I can't answer about specific adjustments, or how badly it failed to perform the task. Unless adjustment controls were hidden, I would have played with them, though.

Click to expand...

Topaz deliberately simplified the controls in Photo AI as the multiple modes and options in the predecessor products were deemed much too complex. Most people just used the default settings anyway. So now the smaller number of modes try to do more automatically.

Click to expand...

That's unfortunate.

Digital Nigel said:

Digital Nigel said:

I downloaded Topaz AI on 8/9, and likely installed it that day. I uninstalled it shortly after once I determined it did not meet my needs - the unblur function was my only reason for the trial.

Click to expand...

Do you remember if you used the facial recovery tool? That works pretty well. Note that you sometimes need to explicitly select the faces you want it to recover. It marks all the areas that it thinks might be faces, but by default only attempts to recover the ones where it’s certain are faces. You can manually select other candidates.

Click to expand...

No, I didn't use that tool. I used the sharpen tool.

I was able to reinstall the trial version. The Sharpen tool is what Topaz suggested. I did not know there was a separate tool for face recovery. It's confusing to me that there is a "show suggestion" box at the bottom, and a different location for selecting the other tools on top. I noticed one, but not the other, somehow. I guess Topaz does not run face detection on the images before displaying these suggestions.

Indeed, with the one photo that gave so much trouble with Luminar, the face recovery tool seems to do a great job, where the sharpen tool did not. Clearly I should have RTFM. Mea culpa. I'

I ran through every other image I I tested before. They all come out great in Topaz Photo AI when using the right tool.they fare.

I'm not trying to read number plates

The use case is for old film photos where the photographer could not tell the sharpness.

And also for countless photos where I handed my DSLR to somebody to take a picture of me, and they had no clue that there was a central focus point and they needed to put it on my face. I was lucky if they knew what an optical viewfinder was, or even a shutter button.

I found that I was using the wrong tool in Topaz Photo AI. The face recovery tool actually works great. It is more accurate than imggen, which changes the colors somewhat, besides the compression.

I have yet to see something objectionable like I did with Luminar. The worst I saw so far is some pink eye added, due to a scratch on a 53 year old paper photo that I scanned.

Unblurring is certainly not perfect, but I'm so glad now that I didn't delete all the blurry digital photos over the years. Some 1 and 2 rated photos now become 3 stars. Wish there was more granularity than 5 stars in LR. Less than 2% of my photos get 4 or 5 from me.

madbrain said:

Digital Nigel said:

madbrain said:

I did not take notes about my Topaz trial, or any of of the other trials I did, unfortunately, and thus I can't answer about specific adjustments, or how badly it failed to perform the task. Unless adjustment controls were hidden, I would have played with them, though.

Click to expand...

Topaz deliberately simplified the controls in Photo AI as the multiple modes and options in the predecessor products were deemed much too complex. Most people just used the default settings anyway. So now the smaller number of modes try to do more automatically.

Click to expand...

That's unfortunate.

madbrain said:

madbrain said:

I downloaded Topaz AI on 8/9, and likely installed it that day. I uninstalled it shortly after once I determined it did not meet my needs - the unblur function was my only reason for the trial.

Click to expand...

Do you remember if you used the facial recovery tool? That works pretty well. Note that you sometimes need to explicitly select the faces you want it to recover. It marks all the areas that it thinks might be faces, but by default only attempts to recover the ones where it’s certain are faces. You can manually select other candidates.

Click to expand...

No, I didn't use that tool. I used the sharpen tool.

I was able to reinstall the trial version. The Sharpen tool is what Topaz suggested. I did not know there was a separate tool for face recovery. It's confusing to me that there is a "show suggestion" box at the bottom, and a different location for selecting the other tools on top. I noticed one, but not the other, somehow. I guess Topaz does not run face detection on the images before displaying these suggestions.

Indeed, with the one photo that gave so much trouble with Luminar, the face recovery tool seems to do a great job, where the sharpen tool did not. Clearly I should have RTFM. Mea culpa. I'

I ran through every other image I I tested before. They all come out great in Topaz Photo AI when using the right tool.they fare.

Click to expand...

Another tool worth checking out is the text recovery tool. It never seems to be suggested, but is really worth using if there’s any text in your image. Otherwise, the text often gets mangled. The software isn’t good at finding text, so you need to use the brush to select it.

The text recovery tool has never worked well for me.

I've probably asked too much from it.

BobKnDP said:

The text recovery tool has never worked well for me.

I've probably asked too much from it.

Click to expand...

I use it more to protect text from being mangled than to actually make it clearer.

madbrain said:

I did trials of several other programs that claim to do unblur / sharpening.

1) DXO Photolab 7and Nik Collection 7

2) ON1 NoNoise

3) Focus Magic

4) Topaz AI

5) Luminar Neo

The first four were a bust in various ways compared to the imggen.ai service, as far as the unblur function is concerned. I did not try other functions.

Click to expand...

Use Facial AI with Topaz AI. It does an excellent job with OOF faces.

BobKnDP said:

I was fairly impressed with the ability of Topaz Sharpen AI to reduce small focus errors.

Unfortunately, Photo AI seems to lack the focus deblur controls of Sharpen. And Sharpen AI is no longer supported.

Click to expand...

Yes it does. It offers several options with focus being one of the choices.

BobKnDP said:

Photo AI seems to lack an explicit choice of focus blur models, unlike Sharpen.

Click to expand...

Not true. It offers several choices.

BobKnDP said:

I'm not the first to whine about the loss of some adjustability that was present in the old Sharpen, Denoise, and Gigapixel trinity.

Click to expand...

That's not true. It offers everything that old individual programs did and then some. They are there but you have to choose the function to reveal the choices.

tbcass said:

BobKnDP said:

I was fairly impressed with the ability of Topaz Sharpen AI to reduce small focus errors.

Unfortunately, Photo AI seems to lack the focus deblur controls of Sharpen. And Sharpen AI is no longer supported.

Click to expand...

Yes it does. It offers several options with focus being one of the choices.

Click to expand...

Not in Photo AI.

tbcass said:

BobKnDP said:

I was fairly impressed with the ability of Topaz Sharpen AI to reduce small focus errors.

Unfortunately, Photo AI seems to lack the focus deblur controls of Sharpen. And Sharpen AI is no longer supported.

Click to expand...

Yes it does. It offers several options with focus being one of the choices.

Click to expand...

I don’t think so. I think the Lens blur option also handles out-of-focus.

tbcass said:

BobKnDP said:

Photo AI seems to lack an explicit choice of focus blur models, unlike Sharpen.

Click to expand...

Not true. It offers several choices.

tbcass said:

I'm not the first to whine about the loss of some adjustability that was present in the old Sharpen, Denoise, and Gigapixel trinity.

Click to expand...

That's not true. It offers everything that old individual programs did and then some. They are there but you have to choose the function to reveal the choices.

Click to expand...

No, there are many fewer options than in the old products. The capabilities may still be there under the hood, but not the manual controls to select them.