Topaz Photo Ai

[Adriana Gowen]

AlthoughI've watched videos and read reviews about Topaz products, I had never actually tried them, remaining faithful to my workflow and not venturing farther afield. I do like software and seeing what it can do with my images, but felt safe with what I currently use. So, what could Topaz Photo AI bring to the table that I couldn't already accomplish?

I'm writing this review from a complete newbie's point of view when it comes to this software, so if you are a current user, you may see things I could improve on or indeed disagree with my findings, but I will say I'm mightily impressed with it.

Don't just take my word for it as there's a free trial of the software on the Topaz website for you to try with your own images. To save them, you have to activate a license, Once activated Topaz Photo AI can be used on two computers as a plugin for Lightroom and Photoshop or as a standalone software and includes a year of unlimited upgrades. With Black Friday sales just around the corner, there is a massive discount of $299 on the retail price, meaning you only pay $159, including a 30-day unconditional money-back guarantee.

These all do exactly what the name suggests and do them very well, extremely well, in fact. For most of my initial experimentation with the software, I used Fujifilm X-T4 raw files, and the difference was clear to see. Results were never too much or overcooked thanks to autopilot, yet there was a substantial improvement in the overall image quality. I wasn't expecting the quality of the upscaled images it produced. I also tested Topaz Photo AI's features on my phone images and camera jpg files, and again it worked flawlessly. So if you want to see how your images can be improved with these features I'd definitely give a go.

The interface is clean and not convoluted, which is a good thing for new users like me. You can engage or disengage any of the features depending on the result you are after, and although I will use it mainly for landscapes, I did try the recover faces option. For some of the higher-ISO or softer faces, it sharpened and improved them considerably. So far, I have only used the software either as a standalone or via a Lightroom plugin using the File>Plug-in Extras option, instead of the Edit in option. The software jumps into action quickly, and after the AI analyzes your images, it provides you with a preview for you to tweak as you see fit. I mainly used the Autopilot mode with only slight tweaks here and there, as the results it provided were surprisingly good.

The Autopilot mode is also configurable via the cog icon, and you can set various preferences depending on your usual genre of photography. I found this useful. It's minimal and straightforward in its approach, though this can be easily changed to suit whatever your images require.

I don't do many astrophotography images, but I remembered I had one fleeting glance of the aurora borealis when in Iceland this year, so what better way to check the denoise function than a shot like this? Again, the software made light work of the noise. The image below is a 100% zoom to let you see the difference it made. Included in the gallery are a few screenshots to let you see how much this software can enhance your images.

A few images took a little longer to save back into Lightroom. This, I'm sure, was due to the complexity of the AI adjustments being made and is not something that would stop me from using the software, because the resulting images were worth it. This was sometimes around 80 seconds for Nikon raw files and not a frustrating amount of time that I've encountered with some programs.

Being really impressed with what Topaz Photo AI could accomplish very easily with landscapes, I had to try it on another few subjects: an image of a crab and an architectural image, both quick snapshots but both improved greatly with Topaz Photo AI. Autopilot scanned and analyzed the images relatively quickly and produced results that I was very happy with considering the original images.

As I mentioned, I used the software as a plugin via Lightroom and so created a global edit to the images. If using it as a Photoshop plugin, it could be used via layers and masks to correct or enhance areas within your images locally.

As this is my first venture with the software, I have to say I am very impressed with Topaz Photo AI. I never encountered any anomalies or soft areas, even when I tweaked some of the sliders. A few of the images, depending on the complexity of the adjustments and the file size, would take a little longer than the others to save back to Lightroom, but the results are definitely worth it. I've got to admit I'm sold on what I've seen so far and will be adding it to my workflow for future edits.

Gary McIntyre is a landscape photographer and digital artist based on the west coast of Scotland. As well as running photography workshops in the Glencoe region, providing online editing workshops, Gary also teaches photography and image editing at Ayrshire college.

Right now I am editing a group of photos that I took at night for my review of SUPER NINTENDO WORLD at Universal Studios Hollywood. If you and your readers would like to see those low light photos, here is a link to where they will be posted on my "AutoMatters & More" website (at AutoMatters.net). Just wait a day or do from the date of my comment and then enter SUPER NINTENDO WORLD in the search bar in the middle of my Home Page. That column should come up.

Hi, the vast majority of my photos are of people and events indoors. I rarely use a flash so I often need to use a relatively high ISO. Whenever I need to reduce high ISO noise, I tend to use the Topaz AI filter from Photoshop. In general, I think it does a good job of removing noise from 'large surfaces' (walls, clothing, faces, etc.) while preserving details. It's not perfect for all photos, but usually good enough for cleaning up noisy photos. The same applies to the Topaz Sharpen AI filter. I find it good in picking out details to sharpen. That said, sharpening can of course increase noise in some areas!

The main reason I use the Topaz filters is their ease of use. I like the 'split screen' (before and after) view and the movable 'zoom in' window that show me what the effect of the filter would be in various parts of the photo. And of course, I can adjust the filter parameters to see whether either more or less noise reduction would be beneficial. Similarly, I can select between a number of different types of 'blur' and adjust the parameters to optimize sharpening.

I can't really compare the Topaz filters to Adobe's native capabilities because - these days - I rarely use the native Adobe filters. As far as I can see, Photoshop allows you to remove noise in 2 places. Either in the 'Camera Raw' (detail) filter or in the 'Reduce noise' filter. The latter also has a movable 'zoom in' Window that allows you to adjust the parameters. Compared to Topaz, what I

I'm not quite sure what you mean by upscaling but Photoshop usually does a good job of resizing a photo to a larger size automatically. But it allows you to select your preferred 'resizing algorithme.

re Sharpening: I like the Adobe suite because it provides a variety of different sharpening methods, and the best depends on the image. I do most of my sharpening with three tools: the sharpening sliders in Lightroom, which are quite good for some images; Smart Sharpen in Photoshop, and a high-pass filter in Photoshop.

Re changing size: I don't know how well Topaz does this, but the Adobe suite does it well. For printing, I find the built-in up- and down-rezzing algorithm in Lightroom does a very good job, so I have given up bothering with doing it manually in Photoshop. There is now also the enhance option in LR/ACR for raw images, which I have used when I am really short of detail, e.g., severe crops. It works some of the time.

Re noise reduction: I don't use it much because of the way I shoot. However, if you shoot raw, the new AI-based NR in LR/ACR is very good. For example, I used it recently on faces in images I took at a high ISO, and it was better than I could do at distinguishing between areas that needed detail preserved (e.g., eyelashes) and areas that could take more smoothing (e.g., cheeks).

First of all, hello. Long time away.

I find that Topaz Denoise and Topaz Sharpen do very well. Topaz Photo AI leaves me cold. It fails to sharpen images that need it. The "Enhance" function in LR is good, but slooooow on my computer.

Thanks, all. As you may have guessed, I use Photoshop plus ACR but was wondering if I should spring for the Black Friday Topaz deals. I decided not to because the Adobe tools are very good and periodically get worthwhile updates. No one I asked made the case that Topaz is better than Adobe for the three things I mentioned.

Good decision, Gary. No point on splashing out on Topaz If it doesn't offer you any significant advantages. I bought the (non-AI) Topaz suite many years ago because the Denoise app was highly rated. Since then, I've received 'free updates' on most Topaz apps. Notably the 'AI' versions of Denoise and Sharpen.

For someone not already tied to a RAW converter, that has need to be concerned about noise reduction, they need to also consider DxO Photolab. IME DxO has the best NR program when applied in RAW conversion. I still have Topaz AI to work with iPhone images, but for RAW images, DxO and Topaz are pretty close to the same, which is excellent. I slightly prefer Topaz AI's sharpening tool as it's very intuitive to work with and very effective.

Sharpening software companies frequently like to advertise how great they work with birds. And with the feathery plumes and eyes, it does give a lot for sharpening software to sense. But I was wondering how it would work with night photos where part of the image was out of focus. I did two comparisons: one with a sculpture of a velociraptor in Borrego Springs, CA, and another with an old photo of Mobius Arch in Alabama Hills, CA.

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