Passing on information about Topaz DeNoise and Nikon z8

If you would like to post, you'll need to register. Note that if you have a BCG store account, you'll need a new, separate account here (we keep the two sites separate for security purposes).

Member's gallery
I updated yesterday and I am blown away at what today's software does for images, it's crazy. It's like we are on this steep and fast uphill rise to perfect photographic images, which is not a bad thing but obviously from the comments in the thread perhaps a thing with some issues. I generally don't take a stand on software, there are too many other things in life I could take a stand on, and software is not one of them. I use it, learn, like it, or move on. I try to simply accept what is happening and adapt. And, I most often find all the changes good, not a negative. Sometimes I read comments and I think to myself, "what am I missing here?" The image included here was processed using Topaz Photo and I think the image looks pretty good, but again, "what am I missing here?"

CCassinetto-8229.jpg
You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.
 
Member's gallery
I can confirm that it processed a Z9 HE* file. But alas another issue on my Mac, it won't let me browse for images. I am rebooting and reinstalling. These are the types of simple issues that confound me. This has happened before when the update doesn't work and you have to start all over. I do agree that it is much better now overall. I will probably just keep a version that seems stable at some point.
 
Member's gallery
EricKlees said:
Do you mean DXO PL or PureRaw? I find it odd that sometimes PureRaw 3.0 does a fantastic job on an image and others with less noise and already good feather detail that it adds way to much sharpening and artifacts even with the soft sharpening option. When it works it works well, but it's not close to consistent. More times then not I use Topaz Denoise, and it's what I use for sharpening so even my ISO500 images i usually run through Denoise AI in the clear model. That is usually the most natural sharpening even over LR.

As far as DXO PL, I am generally not interested in learning a new LR replacement. I have tried it and didn't care for it myself.
Click to expand...
I have both but use pure raw 3 the most with lens sharpening disabled. I think PL6 has some good features as well but like you have no desire for a Lightroom replacement.
 
Member's gallery
sh1209 said:
I have both but use pure raw 3 the most with lens sharpening disabled. I think PL6 has some good features as well but like you have no desire for a Lightroom replacement.
Click to expand...
I am having an ongoing battle with DXO and my PC. I like the RAW processing within LrC but on my PC I could get 1 or 2 images to process in the Develop module then it would fail to process any images until I exited out of LrC and restarted LrC. It did this only in the Develop module, it would work fine if I moved to the Library module. I have a support ticket in with DXO for over 3 months with no resolution, I have sent them system configuration dumps, screen capture videos, and sample files. It seems to do this only with Z9 HE* files but I am getting no resolution so I have just stopped using the application. Very disappointed with DXO, each new update comes along and I update and test but the problem still exists. I believe it is simply an issue with my combination or hardware and background applications but I am stuck. I have asked for a refund but they claim they need time to work out the issue.
 
Member's gallery
So after completely deleting the old version and a fresh install, it is now working and I have to admit it seems very much improved and working well including HE* support.

I do see its value. I am not sure though you need to keep upgrading it at some point. Keep track of which versions work best for you, but 1.4 seems like significant point for HE* users.
 
Member's gallery
FWIW - I just processed an image taken with the Z9 @ 18,000 ISO. Since Topaz DeNoise AI couldn't handle it to my satisfaction, I tried DxO Deep Prime XD. WOW! I am impressed!!!!
 
Member's gallery
BarkingBeansCoffee said:
Do you have access to Photo AI? Would be great to compare them.
Click to expand...
So in my experience with all 3 (got photo AI for owning the others for free, but haven't paid to update it in a while) there were a lot of situations where one would handle specific images better than others.

As in, for some images, Topaz Denoise (standalone) seemed to give me the best end result, others dxo pureraw, etc. I've tended to believe pureraw does the best job overall, so I've gotten away from the others, and photoAI (the all in one) has gotten a lot of updates that have made it better, so I can't speak to current versions. I just don't want to spend the 140 or whatever to keep it current right now.
 
Member's gallery
As posted above I emailed Topaz this morning (about DeNoise) and they got back to me with this reply (in part):
(I did reply back saying it seems awful gutsy to stop updating programs that got you here only to work on a single program that isn't aa capable yet).

Our customers have long been asking us to consolidate the three programs into one program, and Topaz Photo AI is a direct result of our customers requesting us to do so. That is indeed what Topaz Photo AI is for. However, we have not discontinued the individual apps and there is certainly a fair amount of misinformation being spread.​
​
It is true that our development energy for upscaling, sharpening and noise reduction capabilities has been focused on Topaz Photo AI for the time being, but we recognize there is some segment of our users that don't need all three capabilities. As a result, we haven't actually made a decision on what is going to happen with those program and we haven't ruled out future updates.​
​
Ultimately, we do expect Topaz Photo AI to replace those programs, but those apps still have more fine manual control and we are focused on the autopilot capabilities of Topaz Photo AI for the moment so it has made sense for us to keep them all available.​
​
As for Z8, Z9 HE support, we just got the authorization from Nikon to handle these files (there was a proprietary license involved that took some time for them to give us approval to use) and that support was added to Topaz Photo AI in yesterdays update actually. We have not made a decision on adding this to DeNoise AI, Sharpen AI, and Gigapixel AI but now that we have the license it is something we would consider in any future updates to those apps.​
Click to expand...
 
Member's gallery
Geoff_G said:
As posted above I emailed Topaz this morning (about DeNoise) and they got back to me with this reply (in part):
(I did reply back saying it seems awful gutsy to stop updating programs that got you here only to work on a single program that isn't aa capable yet).
Click to expand...

I think that is the long version of what I originally posted....🤣. Some people say it in 10 words and others 10 paragraphs that dance around the actual answer. No matter, the Photo AI software does a great job, and the other programs still do a great job, too.
 
Member's gallery
Ben C said:
I had an extensive conversation and screen share with a Topaz tech support rep couple weeks ago due to an issue I was having on my iMac with PhotoAI not writing metadata properly when saving back to disk, which would cause an extreme color shift in my processed images (weird issue he couldn't fix so he gave me an Alpha build that didn't have the same problem - outstanding customer service). In the course of that conversation he told me that Topaz is focusing on the development of PhotoAI now and has made the decision - temporarily - not to work on further updates to DeNoise and Sharpen. It just takes too many resources for them to be updating all three programs and their current focus is on getting PhotoAI to a point where its sharpening and denoising are as good as Sharpen and DeNoise respectively. Apparently PhotoAI doesn't have all the same models that those programs have and it's coded differently so it's not as easy as just porting them over. So until they can get all the models into PhotoAI and achieve parity that is going to be their focus. He essentially acknowledged that Sharpen and DeNoise are currently superior at their respective tasks, but probably won't be in a few months.

Meanwhile, he did not mention to me that they would finally be supporting HE* raw files. I'm thrilled to hear that. I use that workflow for my OM-1 raw files but have had to use Edit In and work on tiff's for my Nikon HE* files. Be aware, however, that the raw file workflow creates a DNG file as output, rather than processing a TIFF file created by Lightroom.
Click to expand...

I had this happen yesterday (a lovely pink overlay) and have since drop-boxed them some detailed images. It only did it with one of the many images that I took, at least so far in my processing, and I had plenty more of the same type of image. No doubt it will be something I did! It will be interesting to see if they get back to me with anything, if so I'll post it.
 
Member's gallery
Viathelens said:
I think that is the long version of what I originally posted....🤣. Some people say it in 10 words and others 10 paragraphs that dance around the actual answer. No matter, the Photo AI software does a great job, and the other programs still do a great job, too.
Click to expand...
Agreed, I did't think there was anything new. I used the opportunity in my reply to 'lobby' for HE* support in the individual apps.

Thanks for the OP and heads up. (y)
 
Member's gallery
Viathelens said:
Hey, don't ask me...email Topaz...I'm just passing the email I received along so people might be informed. My guess? They want you to purchase Topaz Photo AI instead, but only a guess...I own both programs.
Click to expand...
I also think they are only upgrading Photo AI, which I rarely use since I think I get better results from DeNoise and Sharpen. There have been no updates of those since Photo AI came on the scene. That said, I own all their products as a package deal now they want me to pay $200 to get the Z8 upgrade. No thank you. I don't even like Photo AI and I'm certainly not paying $200 for it.
 
Member's gallery
Patty15 said:
I also think they are only upgrading Photo AI, which I rarely use since I think I get better results from DeNoise and Sharpen. There have been no updates of those since Photo AI came on the scene. That said, I own all their products as a package deal now they want me to pay $200 to get the Z8 upgrade. No thank you. I don't even like Photo AI and I'm certainly not paying $200 for it.
Click to expand...
There is a reason for all of this. Using the SDK to decode the High Efficiency RAW requires a royalty payment to TICO. I assume they made a decision not to pay that for the older stand alone products. Aren't you eligible for a free version of Photo AI if you have the older ones. You might inquire based on this decision for the Z8, if not.

Also Photo AI is vastly improved these days. I do have my issues with Topaz and likely won't extend my year but it does work pretty well now.
 
Member's gallery
BarkingBeansCoffee said:
There is a reason for all of this. Using the SDK to decode the High Efficiency RAW requires a royalty payment to TICO. I assume they made a decision not to pay that for the older stand alone products. Aren't you eligible for a free version of Photo AI if you have the older ones. You might inquire based on this decision for the Z8, if not.

Also Photo AI is vastly improved these days. I do have my issues with Topaz and likely won't extend my year but it does work pretty well now.
Click to expand...
What happened, as I found out when I checked my account on the website, my subscription for one year ended. Being a previous owner for everything, I've owned Topaz long before AI was even a thought, I had a renew price for everything of $99. Much better than the $199 they showed me to purchase only Photo AI in the app.

They don't much give anything "free" anymore, so I renewed my registration. And, Photo AI never wants to sharpen for me, only remove noise unless I specifically choose sharpen in the app. Sometimes, I just think things might need a bit of tweak.
 
Member's gallery
When I got my Sony A1 camera, Topaz did not support the Lossless RAW format directly. They rely on third party libraries to read file formats. A little later this file format was supported. Be patient. :)
 
Member's gallery
I have used both LR deonoise Ai out of LR and Topaz Denoise out of PS. My personal take is on most low to medium iso lmages they are very close but when it comes to higher amounts of iso I still prefer Topaz esp as I can mask for greater control.
 
Member's gallery
gnpToday said:
I have not timed my Mac Studio but I would put it at about a minute for one file (seems better on batch operations). What is nice is I can easily select a number of files and batch denoise them. I think I did around 100 files (16,000 to 25,600 ISO) and it took about 45 min. I just let it run in the background while I did other stuff in LRC. As soon as each file is complete you can start doing your selects as they continue to process in the background. For me this workflow is hands-down better than Topaz or DXO. Still not sure what the best option of the three is going forward.
Click to expand...
Wow, that’s the speed I’m hoping to get with a new 16” MBPro M2 max. I would love to know your Mac Studio’s specs if you’re comfortable sharing that.
 
Member's gallery
cchuck said:
Wow, that’s the speed I’m hoping to get with a new 16” MBPro M2 max. I would love to know your Mac Studio’s specs if you’re comfortable sharing that.
Click to expand...
M1 Max ( Total Number of Cores: 10 (8 performance and 2 efficiency)), 64GB Memory, 4TB Internal SSD. I am not sure if 64Gb has an impact on processing speed in this case. I hope so as memory from Apple is expensive!
 
Last edited:
Member's gallery
gnpToday said:
M1 Max ( Total Number of Cores: 10 (8 performance and 2 efficiency)), 64GB Memory, 4TB Internal SSD. I am not sure if 64Gb has an impact on processing speed in this case. I hope so as memory from Apple is expensive!
Click to expand...
Thanks! The info you've provided confirms that I'm on the right track. I, too, am doubtful about extra RAM helping speed as long as you minimize multiple applications working at once, BUT it's a one-shot decision. Everything Apple is pricey, including their market valuation.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top