Topaz Photo AI

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I've just tried three pictures using it through "Plug-in Extras" from the file menu in Lightroom, so working on the RAW file and creating a DNG. Processing goes quickly, creating the new DNG takes quite a while. I'm guessing about a minute for a 21mp file. This is on an Intel 6-Core Intel Core i5 iMac with a Radeon Pro 5300 4 GB graphics card and 40 GB of RAM.

Tech geek stuff aside, I found that it did a good job on sharpening and removing noise in a trouble free file. With subject blur, even though it identified the subject correctly, it did not recommend motion blur sharpening, so I had to manually set it to do so. I found that I got as good or better results using DeNoise AI, and adding the use of Sharpen AI if needed.

Here's an odd thing. When running the files through PhotoAI, the resultant DNG came back with quite a bit of added saturation, and I think a tad of color warming, as well.

For now, it's much faster for me to just use DeNoise and Sharpen as needed rather than Photo AI.
 
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The latest update of PhotoAI is working really well for me!

The secret is to let it do its own thing and don't second guess it!

This image was "just ok" before I cropped it in LR (the only change) and then sent it to Topaz Photo AI. It sharpen the image (on automatic) and increase the resolution 4x (automatically). It did not need any noise reduction (it was a bright day) and it did not do any (automatically). It was a bit blown out in the throat, but in the 0.5 seconds I had to take the image I couldn't adjust!

I am very pleased with the result.
Kingfisher after photoAI-.jpg
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Good info here, thanks everyone! I was thinking about grabbing this, seems convenient. I have a package completion offer that offers AI for "free" ($138 to add Sharpen, Gigapixel, and AI - pretty fair!). I've been playing with the trial and I'm impressed. However, if it's accurate that batch-processing will reset to default / auto settings in between images, that's a no-go. I process a lot of event images (mostly indoors / stage lighting). So currently I have DeNoise, and DxO's PureRAW2. Both are excellent, but DxO for me is on the level of magical.
 
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Wow. I'm glad you are getting good results from Photo AI. My results couldn't be more opposite. Oh well. Not everything works the same for everyone! I still think this is a work in progress vs a must have, but that is just for my workflow.
 
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Ultimately what we'd probably all like to see is AI noise reduction and sharpening built in to Lightroom, or our image processing program of choice. In the mean time I think the use of DeNoise and occasional use of Sharpen AI is the route I will stick to.
 
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ccirelli said:
Good info here, thanks everyone! I was thinking about grabbing this, seems convenient. I have a package completion offer that offers AI for "free" ($138 to add Sharpen, Gigapixel, and AI - pretty fair!). I've been playing with the trial and I'm impressed. However, if it's accurate that batch-processing will reset to default / auto settings in between images, that's a no-go. I process a lot of event images (mostly indoors / stage lighting). So currently I have DeNoise, and DxO's PureRAW2. Both are excellent, but DxO for me is on the level of magical.
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You can turn off some of the auto settings when batch processing but I have yet to find a way to paste a set of settings to a group of images while batch processing.
 
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Update on my experience with Topaz Photo AI.
Today they released an upgrade to version 1.1 which does offer some improvements.
I used that new version to process a very difficult image. This is a photo of me a few years back in the Salt Mines outside of Krakow, Poland. Available light only. Camera was an Olympus E-M5 which is a 12MP micro four-thirds sensor. ISO was 20,000 1st image is processed in lightroom with a 150% crop, temp and tonality adjustments only. Then the same image run through Topaz Photo AI for denoising and sharpening.
I think the results are impressive.
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SandyW said:
It does look like Ai has improved, but I still think it makes things too smooth. I just don't like what it does to texture.
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I think AI works well if you apply a light touch, to both the denoising and especially to the sharpening. The image I posted above was obviously an extreme example given the very high ISO, the very small sensor size, the significant underexposure of the original image and the heavy cropping.
 
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Ivan Rothman said:
I think AI works well if you apply a light touch, to both the denoising and especially to the sharpening. The image I posted above was obviously an extreme example given the very high ISO, the very small sensor size, the significant underexposure of the original image and the heavy cropping.
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I agree, which is why I prefer more control. I did play with the most recent version on some of my very high iso images, and it did a good job in removing noise. Unfortunately to my eye it also removed too much detail/texture. I like my sliders. :)
 
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SandyW said:
I agree, which is why I prefer more control. I did play with the most recent version on some of my very high iso images, and it did a good job in removing noise. Unfortunately to my eye it also removed too much detail/texture. I like my sliders. :)
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I do understand your feelings and I do feel the separate Denoise and Sharpen programs have more controls than Photo AI. But with Photo AI, you can still separately work with noise removal and sharpening with sliders that control strength. After Photo AI makes the decision on exactly what settings to apply, you can then go in and manually adjust the sliders to whatever degree you like. In fact, I find that with noise removal in Photo AI, it may have selected a relatively low slider setting of perhaps only 15 or 20. I can then further lower it to maybe 10 or less and still get good noise removal without really adversely affecting the detail. In fact, with a really noisy image, removing noise by itself will improve detail.
The more that I am working with Photo AI, the more comfortable I'm feeling with it. And I do believe that Topaz is likely to continue to improve Photo AI, while ignoring Denoise AI and Sharpen AI. So Photo AI may be the future of Topaz.
 
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Ivan Rothman said:
I do understand your feelings and I do feel the separate Denoise and Sharpen programs have more controls than Photo AI. But with Photo AI, you can still separately work with noise removal and sharpening with sliders that control strength.
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Interesting. After my first experiences with the program I had not taken the time to delve further into the details. I see what you mean. It seems the program is also altering the tone of the image. At least on the photos I've played with it seems to be making my subjects darker. I think that could be part of the reason I'm losing texture. I still prefer my current workflows, but it will be interesting to see where this program goes.
 
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I have downloaded the trial of DXO but default contrast and saturation settings are very heavy handed for my purposes. I cannot find a place to change the profile such as Adobe has with its own profiles and it's interpretation of camera profiles. Does such a function exist is DXO? Thanks
Alistair
 
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