Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Digital Image Processing => Topic started by: mdijb on September 12, 2018, 02:48:28 pm
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This new software allow one to uprez and enlarge images with good results. This means that one can download images off Facebook or other sites from anyone and make good quality enlargements. The implication of this new ability are large and frightening to those who do not want their work stolen and used with authorization.
What has Topaz unleashed and have they given it any thought?
MDIJB
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Have you tried it yourself?
It is not a magic wand, that is my conclusie after testing it.
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No, I have not. Just read the intiial reports and watched the videos.
What did you conclude from your tests? ANy test result you can share?
Is my concern overblown?
MDIJB
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No, I have not. Just read the intiial reports and watched the videos.
What did you conclude from your tests? ANy test result you can share?
Is my concern overblown?
Hi,
No, your concern is not overblown. With good quality source images, Topaz A.I. Gigapixel can produce very usable larger size files that can easily be exploited by others. Where the original source image sizes were too small to be of much use before, they have now become more usable.
However, it's not necessarily due to the Topaz AIG application. There were already possibilities to upload images to a server that uses powerful hardware and that processes images with different types of SuperResolution upscaling software (e.g. in Research projects), and then allows downloading the finished image (which may take a while with large files).
The 'only' thing Topaz Labs have done is making the technology available to run on one's personal (on site) computer. That would limit the privacy issues and risks of Copyright violations of Copyright holders. But it also facilitates people with less honorable intentions.
Still, had they not done it, someone else would have, sooner or later. After all, we're entering the age of computed-photography, which is mostly a blessing.
And yes, that does call for a (renewed) focus on Copyright concerns, at last I might add. It should have been addressed sooner.
Cheers,
Bart
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It all depends on what is "good quality". Garbage in is still garbage out. Bart explained it quite clear in my opinion. And regardless of uprezzing, copyright needs to be respected, even when just copied or downrezzed.
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Interesting discussion! I decided to rip off an image from the Plugs 'n Pixels (http://www.plugsandpixels.com) guy (ha!) and see how well this worked.
The home page image of the hawk (desktop version of the site) downloaded at 45kb (489x320px @ 72ppi). Here's what it looked like after a 600% uprez in Gigapixel (unretouched):