No, Topaz AI is pretty good.
Her face looks like a figure in a wax museum.
And there are even square patterns on her clothes.
Mike should have seen that before!
May 7, 2025
97
-
-
There is so much to complain about, but I really like these photos.
-
For some uses, Topaz AI is ok, but even when applied lightly it often gives me people who look like the zombie sisters and brothers of Mike's lady here - too much skin smoothing, sometimes strange facial distortions, and too many weird artifacts.
The square pattern is an oddity that I'm not going to attribute to Topaz AI since I've never seen it render such as that and I can't figure out quite how it could. What do you think it is? It looks more like a sensor pattern to me but I am not familiar with Sony cameras. Maybe an Interaction between camera and Topaz? There was a pattern in an image from this same place that Mike posted last week, but a quite different one. What it had in common was prevalence in the dark greens. I'm not sure what's going on. I've had some weird artifacts erupt in images I took in dark places with high ISOs. Hope Mike can sort it out!
-
Cool, and thank you for commenting!
-
...an inveterate fiddler... Heh, I like that. Digital has made it very easy, or simply put, possible!
No worries, I think I took the message as it was intended. print... My printer died some time ago and I miss it. I guess I'll have to buy a new one at the end of the summer. -
I went back to last week and had a look at Mike's last image from the wonderful Milkbar. Wooden ribs in the seatings!
I have used Sony cameras since i bought the RX1 back in 2012 (I think) and I also have owned the A7CR (great little camera) Mike used at the bar. The modern sensors of today are great and the only sensor-related pattern i know of is the phase-AF line that sometimes can show during certain circumstances. The square pattern is strange and doesn't look like anything I ever seen. The shadows are also blotchy in a way I thought was a thing of a distant past.
Yes, I to really hope Mike can sort it out! -
I've really liked the exchange of ideas around this triptych, and I also like the images themselves. There is a dynamism there, with the full body portrait first, and then a close up with turned head that gives way to a face. The inclusion of that middle image gives the whole a sense of motion.
-
This may be part of the story. community.topazlabs.com/t/strange-pattern-in-the-background-after-processing/49711
This claims to have a fix community.topazlabs.com/t/resolved-in-v3-5-2-square-grid-artifacts-on-mac-click-here-if-you-get-this/85859/199
It seems it is an interaction between sensor and Topaz software.