Topaz so-called AI selected Standard model, but because this was taken fully zoomed, Motion was the obvious override. I took several similar photos and this is really no better than the best two, but if it had been a single moment, Sharpen AI would have been useful. Before and after:
I have never been sure of how to use Sharpen AI except in the auto mode, which sometime improves my photos, but sometimes makes them worse.
Are there any good instructions anywhere?
David
No, not really. They change the software frequently. Nobody wants to write a book about a moving target.
Aside from camera shake blur, Sharpen can increase depth of field, but it's probably most useful for sharpening up scans from photo prints. In the example I posted, artifacts on the leaves make me prefer two other photos that were properly focused.
Gigapixel is good for 0.5x reductions of cellphone pictures with too many pixels, and for enlarging images with too few pixels.
If you shoot Raw and have DxO PhotoLab or latest Lightroom denoise, Topaz Denoise is pretty much useless.
I think it actually does a good job of sharpening or "enhancing." I use it in moderation for NR, and when I have it dialed in for one photo in a session then when I hit Alt+Ctrl+F the recipe is automatically applied (whereas Topaz AI goes back to default and takes much longer to execute). I'm almost always less impressed with the results from Topaz Sharpening.
I like sharp focus and in this case I think the improvement is worthwhile; but I often find that the results are worse than the original, with too many artifacts. I dont expect to upgrade, unless they make significant improvements.
David
The latest version of Topaz AI photo { which I think has taken all their plugins and put them together } 1.5.1 has tweaked the interface a bit and seems a touch quicker . One small advantage over DXO PureRaw is the ability to work on JPEG's if you just want a quick improvement or if you can't find the raw . The upscaling is improving a little each update. For raw files DXO PureRaw NR is excellent and works quickly you also get access to DXO's lens corrections , I am not at all fond of DXO photo lab's interface and for me PureRaw gives me what I want from NR. I use Adobe for my processing and the recent denoise feature in ACR is looking promising
Thanks for the update, Jim. I shoot everything raw and actually find the DWO PhotoLab interface suits me better than Photoshop for many operations. I will look into Topaz AI Photo. I only have *Sharpen AI v.4.1.0.
David
They update it regularly , I don't think that the older standalone products get updated anymore though I could be wrong
It's true that the big three D G S hardly ever get updated. Maybe someday Photo AI will have the best user interface, but it's still changing too frequently.
I've got better things to do than download software all the time.
BTW, I said if you shoot Raw and have a good converter "Topaz Denoise is almost useless." It's useful for JPEG.
It is true that the basic program of Sharpen AI has not been updated since I bought it over a year ago; but maybe the models have been updated behind the scenes, though I have no evidence of this.
I read here that the potmanteau Topaz Photo AI does not have the same amount of control that the standalone Sharpen AI has.
I agree about the irritation and time wasting aspect of constant downloading and updating. DXO Photolab, Firefox and Skype are constantly updating, with no improvements that I need.
David
Topaz AI had an update every week recently or so it seemed 😀 The interface is improving though I can't say I saw any great advances in results. I don't use it very often I find that DXO pureraw works very well and I use PS for all processing. Their recent NR in ACR/lightroom does look promising. I am just back on my feet after a protracted illness and spent a lot of my recuperation time on the PC re-processing a load of older images , the difference in results compared to what was available back then can be drastic. Now that I back out and about the PC time will be going down, though I do enjoy processing
PhotoLab (6 anyway) usually has helpful updates including support for new camera models. Firefox takes hardly any time to update. Nor does G. Chrome. When my license was still active, Topaz had some useful improvements but seldom enough to justify time wasted.
WTF, Skype?!?
This sharpening tool can give some spectacular results sometimes.
I recently used it to sort out a set of pictures where I had nudged the tilt function on my 24TS. It worked pretty well, but there was something a bit artificial about the results. I went back and did a reshoot to get optimal resukts.
Fixed in Topaz
Reshot
Principal difference is the Reshot looks overexposed, the Topaz fix does not. I really can't see any sharpening problems; I do see out-of-focus in lower corners.
Aperture ƒ/11.0
Exposure Time 1.300s
ISO equivalent 64
Aperture ƒ/11.0
Exposure Time 2.500s
ISO equivalent 64
I disagree. the lighting is totally different in the second shot. Look at the floor. The colour balance is also different: again, the floor. The detail on the left hand pillar is better in the second shot. I dont think any of these differences are due to not using Topaz.
Topaz was not quite able to save the first shot. There was something a bit artificial about this and some other shots I tried to save. Sometimes going back another day is the only solution for out of focus or blurred pictures.
