Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Digital Image Processing => Topic started by: Rajan Parrikar on February 27, 2019, 06:02:13 pm
-
I just got an email about what looks like a new offering. It is a free download for me since I already have Topaz InFocus.
-
I just got an email about what looks like a new offering. It is a free download for me since I already have Topaz InFocus.
I got the same e-mail, but the web site appears to be down. Attempting to sign out produces repeated time outs. Any one else having this problem?
Bill
-
I got the same e-mail, but the web site appears to be down. Attempting to sign out produces repeated time outs. Any one else having this problem?
Bill
Yes, same with me.
EDIT: My coupon code just got accepted, I'm trying to check out ...
EDIT: Okay, today the free upgrade worked.
I suppose there are too many people at the same time trying to get the update (which is worth trying to get it!).
I've been beta testing it the past week or so, and it has come a long way.
And there is more to come, but I guess they thought; Why wait?
They are busy training new AI models but that takes a long time.
Don't know what is being released right now, so I can't comment on all the things that I've been testing, but the 'Sharpen AI' functionality works very well (think FocusMagic like; well).
Cheers,
Bart
-
Their website is struggling under the load of the new release but it finally loaded for me.
I did some tests of Sharpen AI (http://plugsandpixels.com/blog/new-from-topaz-sharpen-ai-discounted-free-replaces-infocus/).
-
It seems computational photography is reaching the desktop and not only for cell phone cameras. From what I've read, Sharpen AI is to be used very early in the post processing flow to correct blurring due to motion/focus. AI clear should be used afterwards. However if there has been any processing (for example in raw conversion ) they recommend using Denoise as it gives finer grained control.
-
This might be one of those expensive free upgrades for me. SAI is dog slow on my 2015 15" Macbook Pro. Preview updates are on the order of 5 min each (D800E 16-bit tifs), as is the final save. Pretty much unusable.
This reinforces my decision that I will return to Windows where I can afford both a desktop and laptop and just be looking at a video card upgrade (maybe) on the former. I have a R9 270x on the old desktop now, but it is just 2G. Topaz lists the 4G model as Recommended. The 370X in the MBP is barely above minimum and it shows.
I'm now regretting the Mac switch 3 years ago. :(
Lloyd
-
This might be one of those expensive free upgrades for me. SAI is dog slow on my 2015 15" Macbook Pro. Preview updates are on the order of 5 min each (D800E 16-bit tifs), as is the final save. Pretty much unusable.
This reinforces my decision that I will return to Windows where I can afford both a desktop and laptop and just be looking at a video card upgrade (maybe) on the former. I have a R9 270x on the old desktop now, but it is just 2G. Topaz lists the 4G model as Recommended. The 370X in the MBP is barely above minimum and it shows.
I'm now regretting the Mac switch 3 years ago. :(
Lloyd
Topaz has warned about hardware requirements.
https://help.topazlabs.com/hc/en-us/articles/360024353312
-
Topaz has warned about hardware requirements.
https://help.topazlabs.com/hc/en-us/articles/360024353312
Indeed, and is unlikely that speed will improve all that much on older hardware. These are applications that do huge amounts of calculations, and beefy GPUs will help a lot. There are some speed improvements possible through code optimization, but nothing that compares to hardware upgrades.
But the rewards are sweet ...
Cheers,
Bart
-
Bart,
The standalone works fine but the plugin crashes on launch. Are you seeing the same issue? I'm on the latest macOS on an iMac Pro.
-
Bart,
The standalone works fine but the plugin crashes on launch. Are you seeing the same issue? I'm on the latest macOS on an iMac Pro.
Hi Rajan,
I'm on Win10, and both the standalone and the plugin work without crashing.
You could try, if you get that far, whether (temporarily) switching the Processing Mode to 'CPU' instead of 'GPU' makes any difference. You find that option in the (File>)Preferences.
Cheers,
Bart
-
The plugin crashes for me as well, in GPU and CPU modes. Must be a Mac thing.
Lloyd
-
works for me - iMacPro AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 8GB
although it slams the GPU
-
This might be one of those expensive free upgrades for me. SAI is dog slow on my 2015 15" Macbook Pro. Preview updates are on the order of 5 min each (D800E 16-bit tifs), as is the final save. Pretty much unusable.
This reinforces my decision that I will return to Windows where I can afford both a desktop and laptop and just be looking at a video card upgrade (maybe) on the former. I have a R9 270x on the old desktop now, but it is just 2G. Topaz lists the 4G model as Recommended. The 370X in the MBP is barely above minimum and it shows.
I'm now regretting the Mac switch 3 years ago. :(
Lloyd
I was able to install Sharpen AI on my Windows10 machine with an i9-9900K processor running at 3.6 GHz with 64GB memory and a GForce GTX 1060 video card with 6 MB of memory. I loaded a 5504*8256 16 bit D850 TIFF image into Photoshop from Lightroom and used the AI-sharpen plugin. Updating previews at 100% took about 5 seconds and processing the entire image took 1m 10s. Improvement of the image was modest. This performance is acceptable to me.
Bill
-
I tried a 7906x5271 16bit D850 image - Sharpen - Save As. roughly 3 minutes
iMacPro AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 8GB
Note: processing for a save was twice the time of a split image preview
-
Note: processing for a save was twice the time of a split image preview
Yes, saving an image will process the entire image, while sharpening a preview will only process the preview region of interest. That also means that zooming in will speed up the preview, because a smaller region has to be processed.
Cheers,
Bart
-
An important thing to know is that the "Remove Blur" slider control relates to the amount of blur in the source image. It is not suggesting that more is going to produce better quality output, just that it will assume a more blurry input that needs to be fixed. So one really needs to look for a sweet spot.
So, when an image is already very sharp, one might need to use a low setting of around 10 to 30, and even 0 does some sharpening (assuming an already very very sharp source image).
Cheers,
Bart
-
I interpret "blur" as motion blur and that the "AI" part would determine the direction of motion I assume.
-
I interpret "blur" as motion blur and that the "AI" part would determine the direction of motion I assume.
Hi Bob,
Sharpen AI can (try to) tackle 3 types of blur.
- Blur due to Demosaicing or resampling, or less than perfect lenses
- Blur due to camera shake or subject motion
- Blur due to defocus
Assuming one has one's technique under control (camera on tripod, well focused, stationary subject, quality lens), then number 1 does best. If there is camera motion or subject motion (e.g. from low shutterspeed) involved, then number 2 will do best. If there is some front or rear focus going on, one just missed critical focus distance, then number 3 will do best.
Number 2 and 3 may have difficulty figuring out which part of the image to deal with (it may be AI but it's not clairvoyant), so it might be necessary to work in image layers, addressing the relevant parts of the image, and masking out the other regions, or layering different regions with different sharpening settings.
The layering/masking functionality, or something like that, has been requested during the Beta cycles, but will probably be added in future (free) upgrades.
Cheers,
Bart
-
ok... what is the explanation for "stabalize"
-
I tried the Stabilize option on an image. See attached gif. It does well on salvaging the image, at least for some applications. The original image was very noisy and I should have run a noise reduction before feeding it to Sharpen AI.
(https://www.parrikar.org/images/AI-Sharpen-Example.gif)
-
ok... what is the explanation for "stabalize"
"Stabilize" will try fixing motion blur, regardless of the direction. As if it stabilizes the camera, or the subject, after the fact.
Cheers,
Bart
-
This is just amazing. All focus restoration software before this was just a gimmick, this is a real deal!
-
This is just amazing. All focus restoration software before this was a just gimmick, this is a real deal!
Impressive!
Cheers,
Bart
-
Looks like it is time to update my GPU as I 'only' have a GTX 960 with 2gb vram. ;D
-
looks like if you give it a monochrome image (.tif) it only generates a color output and has color noise.
-
looks like if you give it a monochrome image (.tif) it only generates a color output and has color noise.
This is the same as with AI Gigapixel. They only trained the software with color images so all interpolated data are in color.
-
also seems to strip EXIF
-
also seems to strip EXIF
Hi Bob,
If you report it to their support crew, they'll fix it.
The color from Achromatic input is, as mentioned a side-effect from being trained on Color images.
What happens if you desaturate? Or are you using toned images?
Cheers,
Bart
-
Check this out. With ACR, this is the sharpest I could do.
This is image from the old and soft Fuji S3; the resolution gain is phenomenal.
-
Hi Bob,
If you report it to their support crew, they'll fix it.
The color from Achromatic input is, as mentioned a side-effect from being trained on Color images.
What happens if you desaturate? Or are you using toned images?
Cheers,
Bart
Grayscale images..
report what?.. the EXIF stripping?
-
I do have a variety of Topaz Plugins, but this one is puzzling me to some extent. Nowhere in the email introduction to Sharpen AI nor on their site is there any reference to this being an "update" to Topaz InFocus. It would seem that I am missing something here. There is no statement to the effect that if one owns Topaz InFocus this "new" product is a free download.
Would someone please clue me in on this. Even though my present GPU does not support this plugin, as it progresses I will likely upgrade the GPU. However, before that happens I would like to be clear about the possibility that I can download Sharpen AI as a free product.
Gary
-
Check this out. With ACR, this is the sharpest I could do.
This is image from the old and soft Fuji S3; the resolution gain is phenomenal.
Hi Michael,
Very good example.
ACR added some structure, Topaz Sharpen AI added real texture. That skin became almost tangible, alive.
Cheers,
Bart
-
Grayscale images..
report what?.. the EXIF stripping?
Yes, EXIF stripping. You're unlikely to be the only one (in fact I just experienced the same), so many will benefit if it gets fixed with priority. The more people report it, the sooner they'll 'focus' on it.
Cheers,
Bart
-
I do have a variety of Topaz Plugins, but this one is puzzling me to some extent. Nowhere in the email introduction to Sharpen AI nor on their site is there any reference to this being an "update" to Topaz InFocus. It would seem that I am missing something here. There is no statement to the effect that if one owns Topaz InFocus this "new" product is a free download.
Would someone please clue me in on this. Even though my present GPU does not support this plugin, as it progresses I will likely upgrade the GPU. However, before that happens I would like to be clear about the possibility that I can download Sharpen AI as a free product.
Gary
This is part of the email I received.
-
Would someone please clue me in on this. Even though my present GPU does not support this plugin, as it progresses I will likely upgrade the GPU. However, before that happens I would like to be clear about the possibility that I can download Sharpen AI as a free product.
Hi Gary,
Yes, as an owner of a license to the older InFocus plugin, you are entitled to a free upgrade, just as promised that updates and upgrades will be free.
Maybe the email was sent to another email address (the one with which you registered your InFocus plugin license), or it got stranded in your SPAM folder. Just login to your account page at TopazLabs, and you'll probably see that the upgrade is waiting for download, and a coupon is already in the shopping basket. If not, just contact them to align the administration details. Even without the required minimum hardware, you can probably run the software, albeit slowly. One can choose in the preferences to use either the GPU or the CPU as the main engine.
Cheers,
Bart
-
I've tried Sharpen AI on couple year old windows pc (windows 10) NVIDIA GeForec GTX 1050 GPU and 6 core Ryzen 1600CPU. It akes about 5 1/2 min to process a 24 Megapixel image using the Photoshop plugin. For most images the improvement is subtle but visual. For a couple of images I didn't see much if any difference between Sharpen AI and focus magic but most images were better than I got from focus magic.
Sharpen AI sometimes adds interesting stuff to out of focus areas so I find it best to use Sharpen AI on a layer in Photoshop so that I can mask out the undesirable stuff. In my opinion it is a useful tool for images that I plan to print. Doubt if the improvement is worth the extra time required for processing, on my system, for images destined for the web.
-
As always, this is a first public release, so it will only get better. It takes weeks to train the AI and I know they are actively working with a difficult image I recently submitted.
-
Aside from the successful samples I've shown above, I didn't have much success with Sharpen AI yet.
In most cases, Sharpen AI adds (in-paints) new detail, introduces micro-patterns that are foreign and that kills authenticity of the image.
This gets especially evident when image is enlarged for printing.
Also, in most circumstances I see a sort-of a tiling pattern. Not always rectangular, and not always with sharp edges/transitions.
If de-focusing large skin area, where part of the skin is in focus, Sharpen AI results in blotches of areas of improved sharpness intermixed with un-sharpenned areas. This creates rather a chaos in the image that no longer looks naturally focused/sharp/captured on camera. I hope these bugs would get sorted out, as it looks promising.
I would highly welcome de-focusing/sharpening with user-selectable option that could
1. avoid in-painting detail that did not originate from the same image and that could be
2. applied uniformly to the image for further manual masking.
-
Hi Gary,
Yes, as an owner of a license to the older InFocus plugin, you are entitled to a free upgrade, just as promised that updates and upgrades will be free.
Maybe the email was sent to another email address (the one with which you registered your InFocus plugin license), or it got stranded in your SPAM folder. Just login to your account page at TopazLabs, and you'll probably see that the upgrade is waiting for download, and a coupon is already in the shopping basket. If not, just contact them to align the administration details. Even without the required minimum hardware, you can probably run the software, albeit slowly. One can choose in the preferences to use either the GPU or the CPU as the main engine.
Cheers,
Bart
Thanks for that Bart. I have a feeling the email scenario is likely the issue, since when I purchased "InFocus" I may have used my business email address. However, it is definitely not part of the email I received, so I'll login to my account and see what I can find. If nothing, I will be in touch the folks there. I've always found them to be very prompt and helpful with any issue I might have. As far as the GPU issue is concerned, yes, I know I could use the CPU instead, but as you have mentioned, a hardware upgrade usually trumps software when possible. First thing first though, get the software upgrade.
Gary
-
What is the difference between AI Sharpen and AI Gigapixel. The both create detail and sharpen. Is it the same underlying technology in different packaging?
-
What is the difference between AI Sharpen and AI Gigapixel. The both create detail and sharpen. Is it the same underlying technology in different packaging?
Gigapixel is intended for enlarging (with clarifying and sharpening), though I agree Sharpen AI does sometimes remind me of Gigapixel (without the enlarging part). Though Gigapixel does not deal specifically with focus and blur issues, it can help there as well.
I did some tests with Gigapixel and Sharpen separately on the same image, and the results were different, as expected.
-
What is the difference between AI Sharpen and AI Gigapixel. The both create detail and sharpen. Is it the same underlying technology in different packaging?
Hi,
AI Gigapixel is used for upscaling the image, up to 6x the original linear dimensions.
Sharpen AI is used for sharpening at the original size.
Actually, after upscaling, one can use the sharpening, with rather good results.
And downscaling the by now added detail, will result in an image with more resolution.
Since both use AI, trained on a large number of example images, it depends on the specific training set how successful the detail replacement models work.
Cheers,
Bart
-
Aside from the successful samples I've shown above, I didn't have much success with Sharpen AI yet.
In most cases, Sharpen AI adds (in-paints) new detail, introduces micro-patterns that are foreign and that kills authenticity of the image.
This gets especially evident when image is enlarged for printing.
Hi Michael,
Always be careful with sharpening before enlarging. AI Gigapixel doesn't need a lot of sharpening of the source image, but it does allow the resulting image to be sharpened further.
Also, in most circumstances I see a sort-of a tiling pattern. Not always rectangular, and not always with sharp edges/transitions.
If de-focusing large skin area, where part of the skin is in focus, Sharpen AI results in blotches of areas of improved sharpness intermixed with un-sharpenned areas. This creates rather a chaos in the image that no longer looks naturally focused/sharp/captured on camera. I hope these bugs would get sorted out, as it looks promising.
It depends a bit on the type of sharpening one applies.
Both 'Stabilize' and 'Focus' can add detail that's situated at different unconnected places in 3D space.
Humans are capable of spotting that much easier than computers can do that.
'Sharpen' really focuses on the detail that is already relatively sharp.
Lens design can create spurious resolution in OOF areas, and that then risks being somewhat sharpened.
I would highly welcome de-focusing/sharpening with user-selectable option that could
1. avoid in-painting detail that did not originate from the same image and that could be
2. applied uniformly to the image for further manual masking.
That's why several beta testers requested a kind of masking or Region of Interest selection type of control. The developers were looking into adding that, but it didn't make it in time for the first version's release.
Cheers,
Bart
-
My 2 cents after about 4 hours and 20 images:
No tech problems on my Win10 desktop with I7 processor, 16gb main memory and Nvidia GTX 960 GPU. It did crash immediately on the first attempt to run as a Photoshop plugin. But then I ran the stand alone which did the trail license dialogue. After that the Photoshop plugin runs OK. I was a little confused that it's not part of Studio.
The UI was initially confusing. There are 3 "Processing Modes", Sharpen, Stabilize, and Focus. Are the stackable? Can you apply all 3 to different degrees in one process? The answer seems clearly NO. It's one and one only.
Noise suppression and grain addition are useless here. You are much better off dealing with these before and after AI Sharpen. Don't know why Topaz included them.
SHARPEN gives some good results, but not as good and not as convenient as many other tools, including Topaz' own Detail tool.
FOCUS failed to produce usable results on all my tests. It would produce strange artifacts in areas immediately adjacent to areas where nothing was done. I went thru many shots that were definitely out-of-focus and not camera shake or subject movement. The Focus process failed to produce any usable results. When it came close it would be only in small areas that would require extensive manual masking. On shots with shallow DOF, the FOCUS setting to get the best foreground would literally destroy the out-of-focus (bokeh) background.
STABILIZE does some very good and surprising things. However, it too would ignore some small areas and give bad artifacts in other small areas, leading to more extensive manual masking. It did a much better job than FOCUS at restoring out-of-focus images. On portraits, the setting used to get good eyes would produce ugly artifacts in hair. On angled face shots, the best setting for the near eye didn't work well on the far eye. So two passes and masking was needed - at 3 to 5 minutes per pass.
Some Annoyances: There is no "sticky" logic. Every time you launch all settings are at default. In the stand alone, the Save-As defaults to 16bit Tif in sRGB with LZW compression, regardless of the attributes of the input Tif. LZW + 16bit is a definite no-no.
Conclusion: Not ready for Prime Time, but STABILIZE shows some promise for the future.
-
Redcrown, some of the things you mentioned (especially the sticky settings) were discussed and will be added later.
I discovered as well that Stabilize gave good results in images that weren't motion-blurred, so there is some flexibility among the presets.
-
Calling it from PSCC2019 does not launch SharpenAI, but it generates an error message that states that Photoshop has crashed - which it has not - I can dismiss the dialog and continue to use PS.
Mojave, 10.14.3, PSCC2019 20.0.3.
kirk
-
Calling it from PSCC2019 does not launch SharpenAI, but it generates an error message that states that Photoshop has crashed - which it has not - I can dismiss the dialog and continue to use PS.
Mojave, 10.14.3, PSCC2019 20.0.3.
If I launch Topaz Studio from LR and then pick SharpenAI from the plugin menu, a small window pops up for less than half a second, there is no other change, and shortly afterwards I get a message that Studio has crashed. It hasn't - I can carry on using it - but I can't find a way to use Sharpen AI from within it.
Odd.
Jeremy
-
Calling it from PSCC2019 does not launch SharpenAI, but it generates an error message that states that Photoshop has crashed - which it has not - I can dismiss the dialog and continue to use PS.
Mojave, 10.14.3, PSCC2019 20.0.3.
kirk
Exactly my issue, too. I have reported it in the Topaz Forum and they are working on a fix.
-
It would seem that I am missing something here. There is no statement to the effect that if one owns Topaz InFocus this "new" product is a free download.
Would someone please clue me in on this.
Did you buy as part of a bundle offer?
I haven't had any free upgrade notification either. I bought all the Topaz Plugins as a bundle, and have had issues with free updates since Topaz Studio was introduced.
It seems that the system doesn't recognise users who registered with a bundle, and so far, since Studio, every update (e.g Clarity) has ended up being put through manually by Topaz, where they give me a free "new" copy, because the system doesn't recognise me as an existing user eligible for a free update. They did say the issue had been fixed, but apparently not.
I have emailed Topaz, who hopefully, as they have done in the past, sort it out for me. I would email them.
Cheers,
Graham
-
Old hardware isn’t necessarily a problem. A friend with a 2013 Mac Pro, 6 core, and D500 video (2x 3gb vram) is getting 6 second preview updates and D800 or D850 renders in about 1 min 10 sec. so it does use 2 cards ok. He is having the plugin crashing issue though, on High Sierra.
I did some testing: on Mojave, my previews take about 1:40 for sharpen on a particular 165mb file. Render is 5 min. Under Win 10 via Bootcamp on the same files and hardware, preview updates drop to 20 seconds! This is consistent on several files up to 217mb. Rendering is in about 4 min. So, either the windows code is better or MacOS is inherently slower. And, plugin works in windows. FWIW...
Lloyd
-
Impressive results. Dog slow both for preview generation and processing.
MacPro high Sierra. 6 core 32gb
Seems to only use gpu as processors are only used 4.5 percent.
On a 16 bit D859 tiff stabilize processing taking close to 15 minutes. For 1 file.
Stabilize does seem to provide good results but not for the time it takes to run a single file. At least for me.
Hopefully they can improve on processing time as they did for gigapixel.
Paul C
-
Did you buy as part of a bundle offer?
I haven't had any free upgrade notification either. I bought all the Topaz Plugins as a bundle, and have had issues with free updates since Topaz Studio was introduced.
It seems that the system doesn't recognise users who registered with a bundle, and so far, since Studio, every update (e.g Clarity) has ended up being put through manually by Topaz, where they give me a free "new" copy, because the system doesn't recognise me as an existing user eligible for a free update. They did say the issue had been fixed, but apparently not.
I have emailed Topaz, who hopefully, as they have done in the past, sort it out for me. I would email them.
Cheers,
Graham
This is my issue, too, as I own Infocus via a bundle. And I handled it the same way as well; submitted a help ticket, and am waiting for them to respond. I'm confident they'll take care of it.
-
Yesterday after Bart and I conversed here about my issue with InFocus I went to Photoshop (CS-6) in High Sierra to make sure InFocus was working properly. Unfortunately I couldn't get it to perform no matter what I tried. I then tried in Studio and no luck there either. I also found that two other plugins that I hardly ever use do not work in PS or Studio. I sent an email to Topaz concerning these issues, but it would seem that they have a lot to take care of at the moment, so I don't expect to hear from them soon. One interesting discovery was that InFocus does not appear in "My Products" list on their site, so I included my KEY Number in the email for them to check. I imagine the fact that I didn't receive an upgrade link in the email I received is due to the fact that apparently they have no record of me purchasing InFocus. Hopefully this issue can be rectified as well. All other plugins I have are in the list.
Graham - I believe I purchased InFocus in 2013, so I don't remember if it was part of a bundle. I think not, but not sure. You point could be viable, since it seems to be happening to others here as well
Gary
-
plug-in hangs photoshop CC 2019
iMacPro Mojave 10.14.3.
-
Plug in does the same in Photoshop CC 2018 Mac,. attempts t open, then errors out. same in 2019 CC. Mac Pro High Sierra.
Stand alone works OK albeit terribly slow.
Ran comparisons with win10, much older 3.4 Ghz i7 32Gb of ram, with a 4GB Radeon 580 installed. Same files process in about 1/3 of the time on windows. Plug in also works with Photoshop CC 2019 or 2018.
So overall, I seem this same slow down in a Mac environment. Gigapixel also runs about 2/3 slow on MacPro, High Sierra, 6 core (stock Apple radeon graphics cards)
Paul C
-
Impressive results. Dog slow both for preview generation and processing.
MacPro high Sierra. 6 core 32gb
Seems to only use gpu as processors are only used 4.5 percent.
On a 16 bit D859 tiff stabilize processing taking close to 15 minutes. For 1 file.
Stabilize does seem to provide good results but not for the time it takes to run a single file. At least for me.
Hopefully they can improve on processing time as they did for gigapixel.
Paul C
It relies entirely on GPU, like all of the AI apps from Topaz. I disabled auto preview updating, making changing the settings and scrolling around the preview easier - once I get everything set up, I generate a new preview manually.
kirk
-
Super impressed with a demo right now (as I am with all Topaz’s AI products). It/they aren’t necessarily for every image, but as background, I just had a 7 day event shoot which went well except for the all important group shot, on which I bumped the manual focus. Yesterday I went through about every refocusing, deconvolution and sharpening technique known to humankind and hobbled together a result that was barely acceptable but still quite embarrassing. Last night reading this forum I found this thread, just downloaded the demo (which I will purchase) and voila. I will have a lot of cleanup and photoshopping this morning, but I can tell I’m starting with output that will yield a much better result. Bravo Topaz!!!
Like one commenter above, I also noticed on some parts of the clearly out of focus image the Shake Reduction module did better than the Stabalize module, but still imperfectly. So both modules may be worth trying and as I will blending in the results.
-
Tried AI-Sharpen on a file that I liked but thought I missed focus. Well I did a little but the problem was actually stabilization. File was 800 ISO, 75mm Oly at 1.8, and 1/125 sec (m4/3). Should have used ISO 1600. Most of the unsharpness was caused by camera/subject movement. In FF terms I was using a 150mm lens at 1/125 sec which is a little iffy for a shaky guy like me even with stabilization.
File was processed in LR and I liked the results and wanted to save them. The first step was to use AI-Clear. This works best on a raw file with no adjustments. So I turned off Details (sharpness and noise reduction) because Topaz was going to handle this for me. To save the Develop and other settings I used a preset I call "temp". Hover the cursor over the temp preset and right click, check Update with Current Settings. Check All in the following dialog box so everything is saved (remember Details if Off).
Clicked reset so I had the original raw file and ran AI-Clear at default settings. Liked results. Noise was reduced but of course it did nothing for the blurry area. Saved file.
Back in LR. Ran preset Temp on AI-Clear tiff file and my original settings were restored. But it was still blurry but with better grain and overall sharpness.
Decided to try AI-Sharpen. Since this is a finishing process I used the LR settings. I tried Sharpen but not much change, then Focus with not much change, and finally Stabilize. Bingo a very noticeable change for the better. Left it at defaults and saved.
You may compare.
1st image. Finished image in AI-Clear and AI-Sharpen. Full size. Not too much of a noticeable change over original file at web viewing. But if a reasonable size print is going to be made the AI-Sharpen file is much better.
2nd image. 100% of my original file. Note blur.
3rd image. 100% of file processed in AI-Clear and AI-Sharpen. I can easily see a difference. Much better.
Larry
-
I just had a 7 day event shoot which went well except for the all important group shot, on which I bumped the manual focus.
Brad, I used to shoot weddings on film so you can imagine the stress there (I had no idea what I was getting or if the lab would destroy them regardless). But even with digital, you'll want to make multiple exposures of such shots and check them quickly as you go. ;-)
-
Brad, I used to shoot weddings on film so you can imagine the stress there (I had no idea what I was getting or if the lab would destroy them regardless). But even with digital, you'll want to make multiple exposures of such shots and check them quickly as you go. ;-)
I knew when I was typing someone would chime in with that -- but the truth is sometimes we all miss protocol. In any event, who needs to check anymore now that we have this! ;)
-
Ha, and that was the money shot too! Glad you're making some progress restoring it.
BTW, I'm told we can expect much better results from Sharpen AI in the coming weeks as they train it further.
-
Impressive results. Dog slow both for preview generation and processing.
MacPro high Sierra. 6 core 32gb
Seems to only use gpu as processors are only used 4.5 percent.
On a 16 bit D859 tiff stabilize processing taking close to 15 minutes. For 1 file.
Paul C
Paul, JOOC which video cards do you have?
Lloyd
-
Ha, and that was the money shot too! Glad you're making some progress restoring it.
BTW, I'm told we can expect much better results from Sharpen AI in the coming weeks as they train it further.
You know, I have 6.99 days of great shots, and yes -- that was the one I'd trade any of the others for. Not trusting the contrast autofocus on my X1D, I set focus manually just before they arrived and have at hand twelve shots all perfectly focused about 8 feet behind the group. I tried Focus Magic, SmartDeblur, Blurity, Topaz Infocus, Clarity, Detail, AI Denoise, Jeff Schewe's multi pass smart sharpen technique, high pass filters, different Photoshop and Raw developer sharpening/contrast/clarity layers of all kinds, darken only layers, and blends of many of them. I even tried rezing up and down with AI Gigipixel. I've been agonizing for the last day just trying to process that one shot, and the event leader was about to print the result for distribution to the group until I stopped her this AM.
There are plenty of artifacts that I'm cleaning up now left behind by AI Sharpen (mostly by hand blending the primary Focus layer with a Stabilize layer). But thankfully due to my large file size and Sharpen AI, I'm going to produce something that will I can see will be satisfactory. I'd post it here if not for privacy concerns. Nothing came close.
Do you know whether it (or AI Gigapixel) will be integrated into Studio and/or a PS plugin?
-
I don't have an answer about what's going to be included in Studio, but I can commiserate with you switching to manual focus. I did that a decade ago while on the Circle Line cruise around NYC. Lost some scenics due to it. I did not have to do that, grr.
PS: Maybe you can post a crop of their shoes or something so we can see before and after.
-
Paul, JOOC which video cards do you have?
Lloyd
On the Mac, it's Dual Radeon D500 Firepro cards, each shows 3GB of ram. 1 1/2 year old Mac Pro 6 core. I see this same general slow processing with Gigabyte on Mac. Topaz just seems to run faster on a windows platform. I have not upgraded to Mojave on this machine yet, but I guess I will do it sometime soon. Not sure it will make much difference.
Windows is a Radeon D580 Card, 4 GB of ram. Windows 10, with latest updates.
Paul C
-
Topaz has just issued a fix to the issue of the plugin not launching in Photoshop CC on the Mac. Fire up the standalone version, then Check for Updates, and install the latest version 1.0.8. I had to reboot my Mac for the update to take effect.
-
Thanks Rajan!
-
I tested Sharpen AI on another image using the Sharpen tab (animated gif attached). For some reason the shadow areas go darker. Bart, any idea why this is happening?
(https://www.parrikar.org/images/Test.gif)
-
Adding black "detail" that wasn't there in the original?
-
Topaz has just issued a fix to the issue of the plugin not launching in Photoshop CC on the Mac. Fire up the standalone version, then Check for Updates, and install the latest version 1.0.8. I had to reboot my Mac for the update to take effect.
FYI - I did the update, restarted - still does not work, fails as previously described.
kirk
-
I tested Sharpen AI on another image using the Sharpen tab (animated gif attached). For some reason the shadow areas go darker. Bart, any idea why this is happening?
Hi Rajan,
What was the "Suppress Noise" control's setting you used? Try 0.
Cheers,
Bart
-
Hi Rajan,
What was the "Suppress Noise" control's setting you used? Try 0.
Cheers,
Bart
Bart,
That did it! No more darkening after setting Suppress Noise to 0. Thanks.
-
simple way to suppress noise!
-
with the latest 1.0.9 the PS CC plug in only works if you have saved the image as a TIF.. using the plug in with a .psb (for example) crashes
iMacPro Mojave, PS CC 2019
-
the PS CC plug in also changes the RGB Color Profile to sRGB whether you like it or not. (my example was originally Adobe RGB)
-
And when it works as intended, it works wonders ...
Attached, a crop of a not Sharpened direct Raw conversion with Capture One Pro Version 12.0.2.
While that's already something to not be sneezed at, things really become alive after some Sharpening.
The same crop is attached as a sharpened version as well. Structure turns into texture, it becomes almost tangible.
The "Sharpen" setting of Sharpen AI also strikes a very nice balance between focused and defocused areas.
I have not done my normal postprocessing, with Topaz Precision Contrast and Precision Detail, on the image yet so the final version will look even more stunning.
Cheers,
Bart
-
And when it works as intended, it works wonders ...
Yes, that is my finding, too.
But it does pretty often generate artifacts that have to be dealt with. For instance, I'm finding that dark shadows sometimes have a prominent and ugly crosshatch pattern, in the same way that AI Clear does. At this point the only way I see to deal with that is to put it on a layer and mask out those dark areas.
Bart,
That did it! No more darkening after setting Suppress Noise to 0. Thanks.
I noticed the same thing, and Bart's suggestion fixed it for me, too.
the PS CC plug in also changes the RGB Color Profile to sRGB whether you like it or not. (my example was originally Adobe RGB)
It doesn't change the color profile for me, when starting with a tif that is in Prophoto, under Windows 10. Maybe another issue just for Macs?
-
Yes, that is my finding, too.
But it does pretty often generate artifacts that have to be dealt with.
Hi Arlen,
Artifacts may arise when using the "Stabilize" or "Focus" models, but I've not encountered them on my tests with "Sharpen". Also, try to not overdo the "Remove Blur" amount settings. They should match the amount of blur in the original image. More is not necessarily better.
When trying to recover from camera shake or subject motion, or from attempting to restore from serious defocus, wrong guesses can be made, which are obvious for humans, but not for computers. That's where the quality of the training data set comes into play. Some of the current issues may go away when more trained models are released. Also, when the ability to mask areas in/out becomes available in later versions, that will help a lot.
Cheers,
Bart
-
Seems a remarkable product! Frankly Im blown away by the early attempts Ive made on images.
Because I had previously bought TOPAZLABS SHARPEN PRO they sent me an upgrade price ($20reduction) on SHARPEN AI, which I took, but it seems some have had a free upgrade: is that right?
It works well as a standalone, but due to the sometimes unpredictable effects of sharpening some areas and not others it would be great to have a masking function in SHARPEN AI. For some reason invoking it (the most updated version current 1.0.9) from the latest STUDIO update (or my not latest PS CS5) it crashes...except it doesnt actually crash those programs..it just won't run on them. so I can mask within those and have to do a circuit out to desktop (or a folder) then open original and sharpened in PS and mask etc. Would be so much easier the other way esp coming from CaptureOne (eg via PS)
I really like TOPAZ programs but its a maze with some standalone only, some in studio as adjustments (basic or purchased), some plugins to studio (and obviously all are for PS as "filters"). Would be great to have some convergence.
-
After updating a second time to V1.0.9 (thank you for that advice Rajan) calling Sharpen AI from Photoshop works as it should.
kirk
-
...
Because I had previously bought TOPAZLABS SHARPEN PRO they sent me an upgrade price ($20reduction) on SHARPEN AI, which I took, but it seems some have had a free upgrade: is that right?
...
I think that the free offer was for Topaz InFocus owners (I received the free offer as the owner of InFocus, which I purchased several years ago).
kirk
-
I think that the free offer was for Topaz InFocus owners (I received the free offer as the owner of InFocus, which I purchased several years ago).
kirk
Thanks Kirk
Yes I have InFocus too, so I have asked them in a support ticket. I don't mind paying for stuff, but if entitled to a free upgrade I can put the $ into something else.
Brandon
-
Yes I have InFocus too, so I have asked them in a support ticket. I don't mind paying for stuff, but if entitled to a free upgrade I can put the $ into something else.
Hi Brandon,
Well then, a license to InFocus entitles you to free upgrades (for life) also on Sharpen AI, as they promised. It is usually something to do with the email-address with which people purchased the original license. They'll sort it out for you.
Cheers,
Bart
-
One more successful sample, this time using Stabilize:
-
Hi Arlen,
Artifacts may arise when using the "Stabilize" or "Focus" models, but I've not encountered them on my tests with "Sharpen". Also, try to not overdo the "Remove Blur" amount settings. They should match the amount of blur in the original image. More is not necessarily better.
When trying to recover from camera shake or subject motion, or from attempting to restore from serious defocus, wrong guesses can be made, which are obvious for humans, but not for computers. That's where the quality of the training data set comes into play. Some of the current issues may go away when more trained models are released. Also, when the ability to mask areas in/out becomes available in later versions, that will help a lot.
Cheers,
Bart
Thanks for the continuing information, Bart. However, even using the Sharpen mode and Noise Suppression set to zero, I'm still seeing the crosshatch pattern in dark shadows on some images. As I mentioned before, and others have noted, I sometimes see the same thing with AI Clear. I seem to remember seeing a post on the Topaz forum by a Topaz moderator that, in the case of AI Clear at least, the crosshatching is hard for them to solve because it arises from a critical part of the algorithm. Hopefully they will eventually figure out a workaround. In the meantime, for me at least, the problem appears infrequently enough that it doesn't present a major obstacle to the program's use.
-
Hi Brandon,
Well then, a license to InFocus entitles you to free upgrades (for life) also on Sharpen AI, as they promised. It is usually something to do with the email-address with which people purchased the original license. They'll sort it out for you.
Cheers,
Bart
Thanks Bart
I'm sure they will. I've always found their support great.
I've tried on a few more images, including with some camera shake. Remarkable recovery. The focus option tends to give remarkable recovery of detail for out of focus but can miss important parts (eg eyes of all things on occasion) or sharpen deeply out of focus area (eg background foliage), in a patchy way. masking is definitely helpful (Now launches from PS successfully).
Thanks for your continued constructive input to the forum BTW, it's much appreciated.
Cheers
Brandon
-
Has anyone tried this on film scans?
My normal routine is to use NeatImage noise reduction and then FocusMagic. FocusMagic hasn't been updated in a very long time so I wonder if it's time to look for something new.
Also, I wonder if an Nvidia GTX 1050 ti is enough GPU.
Allan
-
I am on Win-64, i3930K, 64 GB RAM and GTX 1060/6 GB, no system issues with Sharpen AI on 200 MP images
-
Has anyone tried this on film scans?
My normal routine is to use NeatImage noise reduction and then FocusMagic. FocusMagic hasn't been updated in a very long time so I wonder if it's time to look for something new.
Hi Allan,
FocusMagic is a stable product, so I foresee no changes. The combination of NeatImage and FocusMagic for film based images is excellent and hard to beat.
I have not tried Topaz Sharpen AI on film scans, so I don't know whether the film grain or dye-clouds will confuse the AI. I do not think that it was trained on film images. The built-in Noise reduction of Sharpen AI is a bit too strong in the shadows for my taste, so it might struggle with film images. Don't know for sure though, so a test is in order.
Also, I wonder if an Nvidia GTX 1050 ti is enough GPU.
https://help.topazlabs.com/hc/en-us/articles/360024353312-Sharpen-AI-System-Requirements
It is supported and it has the recommended 4GB memory, so it should work fine. So I expect you'll get there, but it takes time to process/calculate large images.
But do try the software for free during the initial 30 days.
Cheers,
Bart
-
[quote author=brandon link=topic=129311.msg1098454#msg1098454 date=1551645109...The focus option tends to give remarkable recovery of detail for out of focus but can miss important parts (eg eyes of all things on occasion) or sharpen deeply out of focus area (eg background foliage), in a patchy way. masking is definitely helpful (Now launches from PS successfully).
[/quote]
Where is the option to mask? I am using the trial. My workflow is to export to tiff 16 bit after camera raw adjustments. Then open tiff in ai sharpen, and do that work, and save. then open tiff in lightroom (for DAM) and final local adjustments and print.
-
Where is the option to mask? I am using the trial. My workflow is to export to tiff 16 bit after camera raw adjustments. Then open tiff in ai sharpen, and do that work, and save. then open tiff in lightroom (for DAM) and final local adjustments and print.
Sharpen AI itself does not yet have a masking capability, or another means to select regions of interest. It was requested by several beta testers, included myself, but it didn't make it yet in this first version. I hope they will add such capability, especially for the Focus modus and the Stabilize modus.
So, for the time being, you'll have to use an image editor that allows masking, and apply Sharpen AI to a duplicate layer. The plugin installs in e.g. Affinity Photo, and in Photoshop CS6 and later, under the plugin filters.
Cheers,
Bart
-
Where is the option to mask? I am using the trial. My workflow is to export to tiff 16 bit after camera raw adjustments. Then open tiff in ai sharpen, and do that work, and save. then open tiff in lightroom (for DAM) and final local adjustments and print.
[/quote]
Sorry for the confusion: I meant mask as a layer in photoshop. BTW integrates fine with photoshop CS5 for me.
-
Sorry for the confusion: I meant mask as a layer in photoshop. BTW integrates fine with photoshop CS5 for me.
In e.g. Photoshop, duplicate the background layer, and on that duplicate apply Sharpen AI. Then add a mask to that sharpened layer and paint out the regions you don't want sharpened.
Cheers,
Bart
-
In e.g. Photoshop, duplicate the background layer, and on that duplicate apply Sharpen AI. Then add a mask to that sharpened layer and paint out the regions you don't want sharpened.
Cheers,
Bart
Thank you. So how does it send a layer to Topaz's code if your image is a smart object? Does it turn it into a Tiff file under the hood? It seems to want a color space and it wants to pick sRGB when it pulls in tiff files.
-
Thank you. So how does it send a layer to Topaz's code if your image is a smart object? Does it turn it into a Tiff file under the hood? It seems to want a color space and it wants to pick sRGB when it pulls in tiff files.
Smart objects are not supported, only pixel layers are. The AI cannot be undone, so it needs pixels to operate on, and replace them with patterns it has learned that look like the sharper source.
Cheers,
Bart
-
Sharpen AI itself does not yet have a masking capability, or another means to select regions of interest. It was requested by several beta testers, included myself, but it didn't make it yet in this first version. I hope they will add such capability, especially for the Focus modus and the Stabilize modus.
Cheers,
Bart
Knowing nothing about how it works, for these two modes in particular, another way of controlling the effect might be ( a big if, and it should only be an option to invoke if its possible at all) that you identify key interest by eg the preview pane and it attends to that area and then applies the same "recipe" to the remaining image when you accept it. This may stop it being variably sharpened (deblurred etc) in some areas and not others across the entire image requiring masking out. I think selection by the preview pane is used in the "unknown/estimate" mode of InFocus plugin
-
Knowing nothing about how it works, for these two modes in particular, another way of controlling the effect might be ( a big if, and it should only be an option to invoke if its possible at all) that you identify key interest by eg the preview pane and it attends to that area and then applies the same "recipe" to the remaining image when you accept it. This may stop it being variably sharpened (deblurred etc) in some areas and not others across the entire image requiring masking out. I think selection by the preview pane is used in the "unknown/estimate" mode of InFocus plugin
Yes, that's one way, as it was used in their InFocus plugin. But Topaz have already started working on the next version of Topaz Sharpen AI, to be released in March 2019, and the request for targeted focusing (in some way) is high on the request list of beta testers and users.
TopazLabs also make a very competent masking plugin (Remask), and masking is standard functionality in their free Studio host application. So that is known territory for them.
Cheers,
Bart
-
Yes, that's one way, as it was used in their InFocus plugin. But Topaz have already started working on the next version of Topaz Sharpen AI, to be released in March 2019, and the request for targeted focusing (in some way) is high on the request list of beta testers and users.
TopazLabs also make a very competent masking plugin (Remask), and masking is standard functionality in their free Studio host application. So that is known territory for them.
Cheers,
Bart
Great point. I havent tried using Sharpen AI on a pre-masked selection layer. As well as it obviously working only on the "cut out" part of the image Im guessing that the result may be quite different as you are exposing a very different image to the AI "recipe".
-
I just used it to save an image that I previously couldn't display on the web due to camera shake. Very impressive software for an initial release. Close up crop, original on the right:
-
Hmm, clicking on my image is blowing it up to greater than its native resolution. Degrades the quality a bit. But you can still get an idea of how much shake it can rescue.
-
I just used it to save an image that I previously couldn't display on the web due to camera shake. Very impressive software for an initial release. Close up crop, original on the right:
Hi Bernie,
Looks like a successful restoration of a nice portrait. The original made me dizzy looking at it, and distracted from appreciating the cheerful looking woman. Thanks for sharing.
BTW, the magnification of the image is a bit odd, I had not noticed it in my tests of the "Stabilize" model. I'll check it out if other images do the same. I have to search for, or maybe make, some with motion blur.
Cheers,
Bart
-
To be clear I mean Luminous Landscape is enlarging the image when you click on the thumbnail preview in my post. It's defaulting to filling the forum container. It makes the corrected image look a little degraded. The un-enlarged version shows better how well the shot has been corrected.
-
To be clear I mean Luminous Landscape is enlarging the image when you click on the thumbnail preview in my post. It's defaulting to filling the forum container. It makes the corrected image look a little degraded. The un-enlarged version shows better how well the shot has been corrected.
Now I got it.
Cheers,
Bart
-
To be clear I mean Luminous Landscape is enlarging the image when you click on the thumbnail preview in my post. It's defaulting to filling the forum container. It makes the corrected image look a little degraded. The un-enlarged version shows better how well the shot has been corrected.
As a rule and trying to do justice to the image I always open them with IrfanView. Color managed whatever browser I'm using and gives me more control. BTW, I hate having to go to whatever those apps are called, Instagram, flickr or similar ;D
Just personal of course
-
Did you buy as part of a bundle offer?
I haven't had any free upgrade notification either. I bought all the Topaz Plugins as a bundle, and have had issues with free updates since Topaz Studio was introduced.
It seems that the system doesn't recognise users who registered with a bundle, and so far, since Studio, every update (e.g Clarity) has ended up being put through manually by Topaz, where they give me a free "new" copy, because the system doesn't recognise me as an existing user eligible for a free update. They did say the issue had been fixed, but apparently not.
I have emailed Topaz, who hopefully, as they have done in the past, sort it out for me. I would email them.
Cheers,
Graham
This is my issue, too, as I own Infocus via a bundle. And I handled it the same way as well; submitted a help ticket, and am waiting for them to respond. I'm confident they'll take care of it.
It took a while because of their help request backlog, but today Topaz took care of it and I got my free license for Sharpen AI.
-
It took a while because of their help request backlog, but today Topaz took care of it and I got my free license for Sharpen AI.
FWIW, they did the same for me, so people should shoot them an email and just sit tight and they'll take care of it. Two thumbs up for CS
-
It took a while because of their help request backlog, but today Topaz took care of it and I got my free license for Sharpen AI.
Same here with my question about the Sharpen AI free upgrade to InFocus. I emailed Topaz Support with this and another issue as well, knowing that it would probably take some time to receive a reply. I own InFocus, but oddly enough when I logged in to my account InFocus did not appear on my list of purchases. I explained all of that in my email and included the KEY # for InFocus as well. It took about a week and a half, but late yesterday I received a reply with a link to Sharpen AI, no charge. I haven't had any reply to the other two plugin issues, but that doesn't really matter since I very seldom use them. Taking into consideration the load of emails they have been receiving in reference to Sharpen AI and JPEG to RAW, I think the timing of the reply was actually very good, as usual.
Gary
-
On my mac High Sierra 13.6+ Radeon RX 480 8192 MB - it only uses the GPU not the CPU and takes 10 minutes to process a d850 image ( 46MP) ( a 600€ GPU is 2x the speed- so still 5 minutes)
The results are not so interesting.. almost unchanged. Maybe it works on special kind of unsharpnesses better than others... ( like a clear movement of the whole image - not by a part)
Anyway the slowness makes it not workable for me.
PS it takes all he processing power of the GPU making my computer to slow to do anything else
-
still no fix for "stripping EXIF" problem
-
On my mac High Sierra 13.6+ Radeon RX 480 8192 MB - it only uses the GPU not the CPU and takes 10 minutes to process a d850 image ( 46MP) ( a 600€ GPU is 2x the speed- so still 5 minutes)
The results are not so interesting.. almost unchanged. Maybe it works on special kind of unsharpnesses better than others... ( like a clear movement of the whole image - not by a part)
Anyway the slowness makes it not workable for me.
PS it takes all he processing power of the GPU making my computer to slow to do anything else
I'm having a similar experience: I have a 1-year-old iMac Pro and each processing of a Canon 5Ds image (50MP) takes nearly 2 minutes. It's frankly unusable.
Jeremy
-
I am mostly interested in sharpening landscape images for output to a printer, shot with my Canon 5Dsr; prints are often 24 in x 36 in, or larger. I am also finding Sharpen AI processing times are relatively slow on my 8 month old Maingear Vybe computer (i7-7820x, Turbo, 32 GB RAM, SSD drives, nvidia-Quadro P2000 5B)... typically about 2 min. However, this is relatively short compared to the 20 or 30 minutes it might take for a print to complete! With limited image inspecting on my monitor only (so far) I can clearly see differences between the following sharpening programs: Photokit Output Sharpener 2/Glossy, Topaz Detail 3 (Overall Detail Light 2), Topaz InFocus (e.g. Est Blur (0.75,0.65, 1.15), and Topaz Sharpen AI (0.8, 0, 0).
For monitor views at 50% and esp 100% the Sharpen AI results are most pleasing to me... for lack of a better description, they seem more refined and natural, more detailed without the artificial microcontrast build up produced by Photokit Sharpener and Topaz Detail 3. Topaz InFocus, with appropriate settings, comes closer to Sharpen AI in what I've seen so far. The real test for me is what it does for color and B/W prints. I don't have result for that yet. I don't expect any of these sharpening methods to have any effect on my website images (I always shoot on a tripod so the "Stabilize" mode of Sharpen AI probably won't be needed). I should also mention that I do find Topaz Detail useful for website images on occasion vs. it's possible use for prints. Also, I have see some possibilities for Sharpen AI with my Pentax 67 film shots, although I doubt Topaz trained the algorithm on film images.
-
I am mostly interested in sharpening landscape images for output to a printer, shot with my Canon 5Dsr; prints are often 24 in x 36 in, or larger. I am also finding Sharpen AI processing times are relatively slow on my 8 month old Maingear Vybe computer (i7-7820x, Turbo, 32 GB RAM, SSD drives, nvidia-Quadro P2000 5B)... typically about 2 min. However, this is relatively short compared to the 20 or 30 minutes it might take for a print to complete!
Hi Ken,
Yes, while 'Sharpen AI' isn't fast, nobody said it would be, even on recent GPU accelerated hardware. But relative to the rest of the workflow, things could be worse. But it's output quality seems to dwarf many alternatives. That's what counts for a lot in my book.
Would I like it to be faster?
Sure, who wouldn't?
Will it become faster?
Maybe a little, depending on how many people buy it and thus justify/encourage the folks at TopazLabs to invest resources in the further development of the application.
With limited image inspecting on my monitor only (so far) I can clearly see differences between the following sharpening programs: Photokit Output Sharpener 2/Glossy, Topaz Detail 3 (Overall Detail Light 2), Topaz InFocus (e.g. Est Blur (0.75,0.65, 1.15), and Topaz Sharpen AI (0.8, 0, 0).
For monitor views at 50% and esp 100% the Sharpen AI results are most pleasing to me... for lack of a better description, they seem more refined and natural, more detailed without the artificial microcontrast build up produced by Photokit Sharpener and Topaz Detail 3. Topaz InFocus, with appropriate settings, comes closer to Sharpen AI in what I've seen so far.
You have a keen eye for detail. The terms I use trying to describe the differences with results from most of the other applications you mentioned (except for 'InFocus' and 'Detail') are that they accentuate the structure, whereas 'Sharpen AI' enhances the texture. Micro-highlights get sharpened even better than some Deconvolution sharpening algorithms can achieve, without halos or ringing, because the texture is replaced (by plausible replacements) instead of mathematically restored (which is the next best thing if no information was lost, which it usually is).
Topaz Detail does something different, namely, control the amplitude of certain ranges of spatial frequencies and thus allows more of a Creative kind of 'sharpening'.
The real test for me is what it does for color and B/W prints. I don't have result for that yet. I don't expect any of these sharpening methods to have any effect on my website images (I always shoot on a tripod so the "Stabilize" mode of Sharpen AI probably won't be needed). I should also mention that I do find Topaz Detail useful for website images on occasion vs. it's possible use for prints. Also, I have see some possibilities for Sharpen AI with my Pentax 67 film shots, although I doubt Topaz trained the algorithm on film images.
Indeed, it's unlikely that film images were part of the image training set. However, after first taming the graininess a bit, it might see the remainder as digital (photon and electronic) noise. We won't know until we try ...
Cheers,
Bart
-
It’s slow to the point of being useless on a Mac. Picure plus was a bit slow but gave great results.
Topaz Sharpen AI on a MacPro running High Sierra takes up 12 to 15 minutes to process a D850 16 bit file.
On my much older PC much faster times.
It’s apparent Topaz must have developed on a windows machine and ported to Mac.
Issues were similar with uprez AI software. It’s still slower on a Mac but has gotten better with updates. Hopefully Topaz will do the same with Sharpen AI
Paul C
-
It’s apparent Topaz must have developed on a windows machine and ported to Mac.
I wouldn't know. Maybe it has more to do with the design restrictions for software developers put forward by the Mac OS guidelines (which seem to be quite restrictive, I've heard).
Issues were similar with uprez AI software. It’s still slower on a Mac but has gotten better with updates. Hopefully Topaz will do the same with Sharpen AI
I suppose that people can vote with their wallets. I'm sure that the folks at TopazLabs will listen (and who could blame them?) ;)
Cheers,
Bart
-
It’s slow to the point of being useless on a Mac.
It’s apparent Topaz must have developed on a windows machine and ported to Mac.
Windows has 88% market share. MAC has less than 10%. If you were running a software company where would you put your emphasis?
-
Windows has 88% market share. MAC has less than 10%. If you were running a software company where would you put your emphasis?
Ferrari has around 18% market share in the luxus segment.
Their target groups are different that those of VW ;D
More seriously, I wonder what is the market share of Mac among photographers and graphic artists, other users maybe care less for sharpening and the like
-
Topaz Detail does something different, namely, control the amplitude of certain ranges of spatial frequencies and thus allows more of a Creative kind of 'sharpening'.
Indeed, it's unlikely that film images were part of the image training set. However, after first taming the graininess a bit, it might see the remainder as digital (photon and electronic) noise. We won't know until we try ...
Cheers,
Bart
Yes... I have used Topaz Detail in some of my images on a masked Photoshop layer as a way to hopefully draw the viewers attention to specific areas. Used this way I feel it is similar to local applications of tools like saturation, constrast adjustment, dodge/burn, etc. In my small test sample of Pentax 67 Velvia Film images I noted Topaz Sharpen AI did increase film grain, but this was only detrimental in the sky, where the unwanted sharpening artifact was easily masked out. Image areas where there was detail were sharpened successfully (again, no print tests done yet).
-
I use the program on a Windows PC and everything is very fast. It would be nice if the program would allow viewing at lesser magnifications such as 25% or 50%. AI Giga files need some additional sharpening before printing and viewing at 100%, for me, is very ineffective. I much prefer 50% or even 25%. It is, though, one of the few programs that work on files as large as AI Giga produces - almost all others crash with PS smart sharpen being my go to exception.
Victor
-
I'm using AI Sharpen on an iMac 4.2GHz i7 and Radeon Pro 580 8192MB, run on a 2TB SSD. It's mostly fast enough. Slower than Piccure, but it takes maybe a minute or less on a huge Tiff generated from a 43MB Sony RAW.
For it to be much more than a curiosity, it does need to get much faster otherwise multiple file processing will take forever.
Also, what is up with the math test when posting to the thread? Supremely irritating.
-
I use the program on a Windows PC and everything is very fast. It would be nice if the program would allow viewing at lesser magnifications such as 25% or 50%.
There are some other users that have also requested that. Maybe the developers at Topaz will find time to add that to the application, who knows?
AI Giga files need some additional sharpening before printing and viewing at 100%, for me, is very ineffective. I much prefer 50% or even 25%.
Gigapixel AI is currently undergoing a new version's beta test, and sharpening is being investigated (amongst others).
Cheers,
Bart
-
Here are 2 comparisons, based on the same image-crop. The image was taken on a sturdy tripod, but an aperture of f/16 was used. That narrow aperture caused diffraction blur (with resolution loss) and, additionally, a tiny bit of subject motion blur (despite my trying to shoot when the wind induced subject motion was at its minimum) was caused by the required exposure time of 1/8th of a second.
The first composite is from a straight Raw conversion with an excellent Raw converter without any additional sharpening, with first a Sharpen mode correction and then a Stabilize mode correction applied to that same crop. the first attachment shows these, side by side.
Click on the attachments to view them at 100% zoom, and make sure that your browser doesn't zoom in itself. Maybe it's better to download the images and view them in an image viewer or editor at 100% zoom setting.
Due to the softness and resolution loss caused by narrow aperture diffraction, Sharpen mode already produced a significant improvement in the first composite, but removing the tiny amount of subject motion blur with Stabilize mode helped it even a bit more.
The Raw converter I use (Capture One Pro) also offers a feature called "Diffraction Correction", which usually does a very good job of applying automatic Deconvolution sharpening (like the Topaz InFocus or FocusMagic plugins do), to compensate for the diffraction induced blur. I also used that setting for another Raw conversion of the same crop, again without adding any additional sharpening.
This time, see the second attachment, the Raw converter already took care of most of the Diffraction induced blur. Therefore the subsequent Sharpen mode adjustment only produced a tiny bit of additional sharpening, as it should. By using the Stabilize mode, again a slight improvement was achieved. One may need to pixel-peep to see the differences.
This demonstrates that if an image needs more help in regaining the original scene's sharpness, Topaz Sharpen AI will make more of a difference. If that same image is already reasonably sharp, then the gains will be relatively small.
Hope that helps.
Cheers,
Bart
-
Also, what is up with the math test when posting to the thread? Supremely irritating.
It will go away after you've made a few more posts - it is apparently a countermeasure against signup, spam and run accounts.
-
That is very interesting Bart and thank you for posting this.
Interesting that C1 can do in seconds (or less) what Sharpen ai does in minutes.
-
Oh by the way, are these 100% crops?
When I use C1 deconvolution I see quite a difference with Sharpen AI at 100% but at normal viewing the change is hard to see.
Will be interesting to see if prints are different
-
That is very interesting Bart and thank you for posting this.
Interesting that C1 can do in seconds (or less) what Sharpen ai does in minutes.
Well, it does something different (and at the raw level based on the aperture metadata in the file), but the differences are very interesting in this particular image.
Since Capture One doesn't remove subject motion (caused by slight wind induced branch movement), if adjusts for diffraction only, which also kind of sharpens (removes diffraction from) the motion blur. This may result in what might look like somewhat overcorrecting for diffraction. But it indeed comes a lot closer (but not quite there) to what we'd hope to achieve in the end.
Sharpen AI, on the other hand, replaces both diffraction blur and subject motion, if set to Stabilize mode. That results in a significantly more subtle sharpening, which I kind of like better (in this case).
So, while I apply Diffraction Correction almost by default in Capture One conversions, I'm now paying more attention to potential subject motion in the source image and may decide to switch it off, because we now have a tool that can address that very well in post-processing.
Cheers,
Bart
-
Oh by the way, are these 100% crops?
Yes, unless mentioned to be otherwise, always 100% zoom.
When I use C1 deconvolution I see quite a difference with Sharpen AI at 100% but at normal viewing the change is hard to see.
Yes, but there is more than only Diffraction blur to remedy, although C1 does that bit quite well if that's all there is to do (and it is, on many stationary subjects like architecture or product photography shots).
Will be interesting to see if prints are different.
Yes, but that would require additional Output sharpening as well, or else the differences in improvements may be too subtle. A properly Capture Sharpened image, can tolerate more Creative 'sharpening' and Output sharpening before creating artifacts as well.
Cheers,
Bart
-
Sharpen AI, on the other hand, replaces both diffraction blur and subject motion, if set to Stabilize mode. That results in a significantly more subtle sharpening, which I kind of like better (in this case).
So, while I apply Diffraction Correction almost by default in Capture One conversions, I'm now paying more attention to potential subject motion in the source image and may decide to switch it off, because we now have a tool that can address that very well in post-processing.
Bart,
Sharpen AI is promising, but I have been unable to find any documentation on how to adjust the parameters or in what order to apply the corrections if one is using more than one of the three algorithms. Any guidance would be much appreciated.
Best,
Bill
-
Here is another example (attached) that I wouldn't have been able to do without the spatially variant capabilities (it treats different regions of interest differently in the same image) of Sharpen AI in Stabilize mode.
The first attachment is of the full image at reduced size, then sharpened.
The second attachment is a crop (100% zoom) of an image where the leaves are slightly wiggling in the wind with different directions and speed.
The third attachment is the same crop with Sharpen AI v 1.1.0 Stabilize added. I'm not sure if it's better or worse than the previous version 1.0.9 .
There is some color fringingvisible that can be solved by using the sharpened file as a layer with Liminosity blending, but I'll try if the folks at Topaz can fix it and prevent it from happening in the first place.
The ability to stabilize allowed to get a bit additional sharpness out of those regions that were in focus. The image was taken on a tripod with a full 35mm frame sensor and a 200mm lens at an aperture of f/5, so DOF was limited and there are branches with leaves that are simply out-of-focus (OOF). Shutterspeed was fairly short, but there was still some subject-movement.
Cheers,
Bart
-
Bart,
Sharpen AI is promising, but I have been unable to find any documentation on how to adjust the parameters or in what order to apply the corrections if one is using more than one of the three algorithms. Any guidance would be much appreciated.
Hi Bill,
There is a very minimalistic "Product Tour" when opening the Stand-alone version (it can also be called from the Help Menu). Opening the application, with Photoshop closed, should add the app as a plugin to Photoshop.
There is not that much to tell.
One uses one of three modes wich chooses between three different AI models.
- Sharpen sharpens the most sharp pixels in the image.
- Stabilize does the same. but at the same time attempts to remove motion (subject motion or camera shake) blur up to 10 pixels long in any direction.
- Focus attempts to refocus images that missed critical focus when the shot was taken (defocus creates a different type of blur/PSF).
So in principle, it only takes one of the three. Of course one can try to save a shot and reload it for another pass, but that's not how it's intended to be used.
There is currently a risk that Focus will pick up details that do not belong to the plane around best focus, like parts of the background. That's why it has been requested to add some sort of masking control. When a lens design e.g. creates spurious background resolution, it will be mistaken for OOF blur. The folks at Topaz are looking into that. For the time being, just use a masked layer to hide any overzealous attempts at refocusing.
Because it takes a relatively long time to process the entire image, the preview area only is processed to save time, when you hit the "Update Preview" button. So zooming in will require fewer pixels to be processed and that speeds things a bit up. When the preview is moved, or the zoom percentage changed, one has to hit update again. The space bar, or the icons in the top menu bar toggles between processed and original image view. There is also a Split-view preview possible. Only when Saving the image will the entire image be processed, which can take some time.
With the controls, one tries to match the amount of blur, or noise, in the source image. More is not better, but a match gives the best results. That takes a bit of guessing, but one gets the hang of that after a bit of trying on one's own images. The Add Grain control can add a bit of uniform grain back to the image to avoid too smooth gradients. To learn, one can start at 0 and update (which only does a little) then 10 and update, and so on to try and find a sweet spot which is just enough to not produce nasties, like halos or stair-stepping. I usually see something useful happening at 20 or 30, or at 70, but that depends on image content. Undo/Redo steps through the changes.
Hope that helps.
Cheers,
Bart
-
Ran a test with the newly updated version today. It's literally unusably slow. Prior version would render a save in a few minutes. This version is taking close to 10 minutes.
Anyone else notice a huge slowdown in processing speed for v1.10?
It also doesn't save back to LR. I have to navigate to the Library -> Target Folder -> Synchronize -> Develop, and then check it out.
Seems like a better idea on paper, than in practice so far. No offense to anyone.
-
Anyone else notice a huge slowdown in processing speed for v1.10?
I've already written off Topaz AI Sharpen, but still have a few days left on my trial. And I kept several samples from the original version with good notes. I can confirm that the "new" version released yesterday (1.1.0) is considerably slower than the original.
On three images where I ran Stabilize with settings 7-0-0, the time averaged 150 seconds on the original version and 260 seconds on the new version. An increase of 73%, This is on a Win10 system with 16gb memory and an Nvidia GTX 960 GPU, processing 8 bit images of about 6,000 X 4,000 pixels.
The new version also produces significantly different results. Hard for me to tell if it's better or worse as both versions produce poor results over about 70% of the image, with only 30% being OK. Unfortunately the OK areas are often so partial to be unusable. For example, on a soft focused portrait, it would do OK on half an eyebrow, but leave the other half either still soft or full of artifacts.
I also noticed that the new version produces darker tones overall, most noticeable in solid, flat backgrounds. Darker than the input image.
-
I ran a test today to see how long it would take to do my typical pano, which turned out to be about 21 minutes.
Two-image stitch from an IQ3100. ~19400x8700 pixels. I usually flatten the stitched layers but don't flatten the sharpening layer, so the file size is 3.4gb w/ those two layers.
2018 MBP
Mojave 10.14.3
32gb
Radeon Pro 560x 4gb
Topaz Sharpen AI 1.1.0
I didn't think that was too bad. As someone else pointed out, not that big of a deal compared to the overall processing and printing time.
Dave
(http://www.davechewphotography.com//temp_images/2019/DChew_190313_007851_C1_P2-FrameShop.jpg)
-
plug-in still locks up PS CC 2019 for me.. iMacPro Mojave
-
started standalone with a Tiff... took a jog around the block... was finished by the time I got back. :)
the real problem is that it grabs 100% of the GPU rendering my machine completely I/O bound, except for Sharpen AI of course.
-
AI, as we know; it is not real intelligence... ;)
I tried some more and have mixed results:
On high iso images the Focus option does a good thing making almost grainless 3200 asa images (skin works well) with more delicate detail,
However on parts were there is no structure it introduces some kind of texture...and false detail, especially when used too strong.
Because of its AI it decides what needs sharpening and what not, resulting in a oneven/ unbalanced sharpening over the whole image.
i have a d850 camera ; On an A4 print i cannot see any difference compared to my normal technique and on a 140 cm wide print i see a bit less grain, but also this uneven sharpening that i do not like.
On screen i cannot see difference on websized images but there is a lot of difference on 100% full size.
Grain is much more of a problem on screen than it is in print and i do not really mind some grain.
I can see some improvement when I use it together with other sharpening techniques resulting in a mixed better result.
All in all i think i stay with my old sharpening techniques, and just make sharp images to begin with.
timing: sharpen 3min stabilize 8min focus 12min
-
so I just tried a 36Mpx TIF that used to take 3min with 1.0.9 now takes 9min with 1.10.0
iMac Pro (2017), 3.2 GHz Intel Xeon W 8-core, Radeon Pro Vega 56 8176 MB
-
It's not Mac friendly at all. Try a 150MP file. or 100MP file. can't handle it.
You are correct it grabs 100% of both GPU's on a MacPro, but still is very slow and IMO inefficient. Works fine on any windows machine I have so just move to them when I need to sharpen.
This is just like Gigapixel AI when it first came out. Topaz did speed it up a bit, but still much slower on Macs.
Paul C
-
One reason certainly is that most mac graphic cards aren’t that new or fast.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
-
Neither are most of my windows cards they run circles around my MacPro. macs do fine with Video editing, and to be honest that takes quite a bit of processing also. It's more an issue of code that is just not written well for a mac. Happens all the time.
Paul C
-
Hi Dave,
Your 21 minutes is about the same I see for a similar file. I guess I am an exception to the rest. To me that just way too long and it totally locks my mac down. Focus Magic can process the same file in 4 minutes, no AI, and all, but it still does a pretty good job.
Nice shot BTW,
Paul C
-
Neither are most of my windows cards they run circles around my MacPro.
iMacPro is quite a bit more processing power than the old MacPro
also before 1.1.0, 1.0.9 took me 3min with a 36Mpx file
-
Thanks Paul. It was a quick image I grabbed for a torture test of luminosity and color range masks in both C1 and LR. Turned out to be a good test for Topaz too.
I guess I’m a little forgiving on the speed issue. I agree it would be quite annoying if I had to sit and watch it.
-
i have a mac /windows machine ; so the same hardware
Radeon RX 480 topaz in standard settings
46MP 16 bit tiff
MAC High Sierra sharpen 3min stabilize 8min focus 12min
WIN10 sharpen1,5min stabilize 4min focus 4min
-
i have a mac /windows machine ; so the same hardware
Radeon RX 480 topaz in standard settings
46MP 16 bit tiff
MAC High Sierra sharpen 3min stabilize 8min focus 12min
WIN10 sharpen1,5min stabilize 4min focus 4min
Hi Pieter,
Thanks for sharing these interesting results. Which again shows that also code optimization can make a significant difference with these calculation intensive procedures. That might also mean that improvements can be made for the MAC (if OS restrictions can be circumvented).
BTW, are you running Windows under Parallels on the MAC, or is it a dual boot system?
Cheers,
Bart
-
I should have clarified, Sharpen on my Mac takes about 5 minutes on a 100MP or file or large multi segment D850 image. Focus or Stabilize are the ones that take so long to run, especially focus. I also agree with others that focus works very well depending the image, if there are areas that are smooth or lacking in detail, it tends to create a grid pattern or other type of strange pattern.
Paul C
-
i have a mac /windows machine ; so the same hardware
Radeon RX 480 topaz in standard settings
46MP 16 bit tiff
MAC High Sierra sharpen 3min stabilize 8min focus 12min
WIN10 sharpen1,5min stabilize 4min focus 4min
My process times for a 16MP file on a straight-up WIN10 machine, with an EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB GPU, are similar to those you reported for WIN10. On another WIN10 machine with a more recent EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB GPU, those times are reduced by about 35%.
-
My process times for a 16MP file on a straight-up WIN10 machine, with an EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB GPU, are similar to those you reported for WIN10. On another WIN10 machine with a more recent EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB GPU, those times are reduced by about 35%.
Than it probably works faster on nvidia GPU's -
the Radeon 580-8GB is about the same age/speed as the GeForce GTX 1060 and about as fast as the Radeon480RX -8GB
-
As noted in other comments, the Stabilize mode performs a more complex process than the Sharpen mode. In my limited testing so far, I've seen some cases where Stabilize seemed to extract more detail and texture than Sharpen, even on images of static subjects. Perhaps it was compensating for slight camera movement during handheld shots. But I've also seen examples where Stabilize performed worse than Sharpen on images where I thought motion blur would be present. The attached example was cropped from a small area of a shot made with a not-very-good zoom lens at 400mm. There are artifacts that look a bit like spatial ringing around the aircraft. Stabilize mode was set to (0.8, 0, 0), purposefully too high to make the artifacts more visible (although JPG conversion adds fuzz). On images with more complex backgrounds, such artifacts might not be as obvious, but they could create false detail.
By the way, this is not a composite. The Blue Angels really do this.
(http://julian.marmotandweasel.com/photos/090801_0715-stabilize.jpg)
-
Great picture, but why are they doing stunts with landing gear deployed?
Richard Southworth
-
... why are they doing stunts with landing gear deployed?
That's not landing gear, that's spatial ringing, a sharpening artifact, false detail.
-
Slobodan: Good one. ;D
Richard: Navy fighter jocks are trained to land on aircraft carriers, even at night, even in the presence of heaving seas. That requires precision flying with gear extended. I'm guessing this stunt is designed to showcase that skill.
-
The attached image samples are taken from some tests that I ran today, comparing Topaz Sharpen AI with the deconvolution sharpening in Photoshop CS6 ACR. This is a reduced size JPEG of the whole image. The original is a full frame RAW file, captured with a Nikon D800E and Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G. This lens has significant field curvature at 24mm, and I suspect that's the reason why some areas of the frame are soft, even though the center is reasonably sharp.
(http://julian.marmotandweasel.com/photos/20150607_0960_small.jpg)
Here are the descriptions of the 100% crops, from left to right. The first was processed with no sharpening in ACR or Photoshop. The second image was sharpened in ACR (35, 0.7, 100, 0). For the third one, no ACR sharpening, and Topaz Sharpen AI was used in Stabilize mode (0.4, 0.3, 0). The fourth one was converted in Capture One 12.0.2 with all sharpening disabled, and then exported to Photoshop, where it received the same treatment as the third image. I didn't attempt to perfectly match the tonal balance and colors of the third and fourth images - but there are other obvious differences.
(http://julian.marmotandweasel.com/photos/20150607_0960_crops.jpg)
To my eyes, the Topaz software is extracting (or synthesizing?) image detail that I could not obtain with the sharpening tools in Photoshop and ACR. I did try other settings and other tools in the Adobe product. I am showing the results from the Stabilize mode in Topaz, because it produced a better result than the Sharpen and Focus modes, for this particular shot.
Because Topaz Sharpen AI works in a different way than other methods, it might require changes to your workflow. I suspect that it may be wise to apply it after adjusting highlights, shadows, tones, colors, blurring, and noise reduction. Since the software employs pattern recognition, you want to prepare its input data so that the desired patterns are recognizable, and the undesired ones (e.g., noise) are attenuated.
Topaz Sharpen AI is not a one-click panacea. It may take some trial-and-error to find the appropriate mode and settings for an image. Like any sharpening tool, bad settings can produce artifacts and ugly, crunchy results. It won't save shots that have tragic levels of blur. Masking may still be needed to control the level of correction in different areas of the frame. But I am finding that, on some images, this product can produce remarkable improvements.
-
[...]
To my eyes, the Topaz software is extracting (or synthesizing?) image detail that I could not obtain with the sharpening tools in Photoshop and ACR. I did try other settings and other tools in the Adobe product. I am showing the results from the Stabilize mode in Topaz, because it produced a better result than the Sharpen and Focus modes, for this particular shot.
Indeed, it can be worthwhile to test Stabilize mode, because it seems to pick up asymmetrical (non-isotropic) blur a bit better. Whether that blur originated from motion- of lens distortion, Sharpen AI doesn't really care.
Because Topaz Sharpen AI works in a different way than other methods, it might require changes to your workflow. I suspect that it may be wise to apply it after adjusting highlights, shadows, tones, colors, blurring, and noise reduction. Since the software employs pattern recognition, you want to prepare its input data so that the desired patterns are recognizable, and the undesired ones (e.g., noise) are attenuated.
Yes, that's also a new angle to Capture sharpening that has occured to me. Because Deconvolution does best with the as-Raw-as-possible image data, in as many bits precision as possible, also for the subsequent calculations, we want to do it early in the process. But with Sharpen AI we may employ a different strategy.
Topaz Sharpen AI is not a one-click panacea. It may take some trial-and-error to find the appropriate mode and settings for an image. Like any sharpening tool, bad settings can produce artifacts and ugly, crunchy results. It won't save shots that have tragic levels of blur. Masking may still be needed to control the level of correction in different areas of the frame. But I am finding that, on some images, this product can produce remarkable improvements.
I'm not sure, but I get a feeling that "selective sharpening" is on the agenda of the folks at TopazLabs.
Cheers,
Bart
-
The attached image samples are taken from some tests that I ran today, comparing Topaz Sharpen AI with the deconvolution sharpening in Photoshop CS6 ACR. This is a reduced size JPEG of the whole image. The original is a full frame RAW file, captured with a Nikon D800E and Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G. This lens has significant field curvature at 24mm, and I suspect that's the reason why some areas of the frame are soft, even though the center is reasonably sharp.
(http://julian.marmotandweasel.com/photos/20150607_0960_small.jpg)
Here are the descriptions of the 100% crops, from left to right. The first was processed with no sharpening in ACR or Photoshop. The second image was sharpened in ACR (35, 0.7, 100, 0). For the third one, no ACR sharpening, and Topaz Sharpen AI was used in Stabilize mode (0.4, 0.3, 0). The fourth one was converted in Capture One 12.0.2 with all sharpening disabled, and then exported to Photoshop, where it received the same treatment as the third image. I didn't attempt to perfectly match the tonal balance and colors of the third and fourth images - but there are other obvious differences.
There appears to be a significant difference between the third and fourth crops, where the only difference is the raw converter, ACR v. C1, and the TIFFs were exported without sharpening. One would not expect a difference, but it's possible that C1 is still sharpening the exported file, even when you disable sharpening.
-
There appears to be a significant difference between the third and fourth crops, where the only difference is the raw converter, ACR v. C1, and the TIFFs were exported without sharpening. One would not expect a difference, but it's possible that C1 is still sharpening the exported file, even when you disable sharpening.
When I exported from C1, I used a Process Recipe with sharpening set to "Disable All", because I wanted to isolate the effects of Topaz Sharpen AI. However, some people have noticed that C1 seems to produce a sharper output from its demosaicing process than Adobe's. That effect is probably not disabled in the Process Recipe.
-
When I exported from C1, I used a Process Recipe with sharpening set to "Disable All", because I wanted to isolate the effects of Topaz Sharpen AI. However, some people have noticed that C1 seems to produce a sharper output from its demosaicing process than Adobe's. That effect is probably not disabled in the Process Recipe.
That's correct. Capture One often produces somewhat higher resolution output, with fewer artifacts. That is even the case when "Diffraction Correction" is not enabled.
Cheers,
Bart
-
After a dozen emails over two years I continue to be scrooged: Clarity and now InFocus, the two plugins of theirs I use the most, don't upgrade to the new version for me, says I don't own them when attempting to log in. I sent them everything, including credit card statements of the purchases, I never heard back. The mess created by their switch to Studio and different logins two years ago continues.
Not a happy camper. Not using their new plugins. I feel scrooged, so not buying new ones either.
Jack
-
Jack,
I would strongly suggest you send in a new request. I have had a number of interactions with Topaz and they have always been responsive to the content of my request if not always the most efficient and rapid in their replies.
My guess is that with all their new product introductions they are inundated.
Bill
-
After a dozen emails over two years I continue to be scrooged: Clarity and now InFocus, the two plugins of theirs I use the most, don't upgrade to the new version for me, says I don't own them when attempting to log in. I sent them everything, including credit card statements of the purchases, I never heard back. The mess created by their switch to Studio and different logins two years ago continues.
Not a happy camper. Not using their new plugins. I feel scrooged, so not buying new ones either.
Jack
Hello Jack,
I had somewhat the same issue a few weeks ago, no indication of Sharpen AI being free if one has a license for In Focus. I also discovered that a couple of other Topaz plugins were no longer working. They were all listed on my Topaz account page, but for some reason In Focus didn't have a license number attached. I emailed Topaz with the issues and within a week ai had a reply with a direct link to Sharpen AI and also download links to the other two that weren't working. They suggested that I download the others again and reinstall, which I did and they're working fine now.
IMPORTANT: When I sent the original email I also included my License number for In Focus, which turned out to be very useful. I would suggest perhaps you should follow this procedure. Topaz has always answered any emails I've sent and always fixed any issues I've had.
Gary
-
After a dozen emails over two years I continue to be scrooged: Clarity and now InFocus, the two plugins of theirs I use the most, don't upgrade to the new version for me, says I don't own them when attempting to log in. I sent them everything, including credit card statements of the purchases, I never heard back. The mess created by their switch to Studio and different logins two years ago continues.
Not a happy camper. Not using their new plugins. I feel scrooged, so not buying new ones either.
Jack
How long ago did you send in the request? I had a similar problem recently and also sent in a request to take care of it. It took about a week and half, but they did get back to me and resolved it; as well as apologized for the delay, which they said is due to being overwhelmed with customer requests related to the new AI products.
-
After a dozen emails over two years I continue to be scrooged: Clarity and now InFocus, the two plugins of theirs I use the most, don't upgrade to the new version for me, says I don't own them when attempting to log in. I sent them everything, including credit card statements of the purchases, I never heard back. The mess created by their switch to Studio and different logins two years ago continues.
Not a happy camper. Not using their new plugins. I feel scrooged, so not buying new ones either.
Jack
I too didn't get automatic free update of Sharpen AI and purchased it with their personal introductory price to me (thinking it must be a best deal). After contacting them they resolved the issue, refunded my money gave me a link to update etc. I think the plug ins, stand alones, studio etc is complex but I've always found them to honour their products and where compatibility issues have arisen (mainly studio) they have sorted out things in a time reasonable considering its been at product introduction time etc.. Additionally I think patience is a quid pro quo for having the advantage of perpetual products.
Cheers
Brandon
-
That's correct. Capture One often produces somewhat higher resolution output, with fewer artifacts. That is even the case when "Diffraction Correction" is not enabled.
Cheers,
Bart
That sounds to me like under the hood sharpening even when you think it is disabled in outputting to a TIFF.
-
That sounds to me like under the hood sharpening even when you think it is disabled in outputting to a TIFF.
Hi,
Not quite. I've attached a comparison I made a long time ago, between the at that time current Lightroom 5.7 and Capture One 8.0.2. The green circle on the resolution test is the Nyquist limit (no reliable detail exists within the circle, it's mostly aliasing artifacts). CaptureOne resolves right up to the limit, whereas Lichtroom/ACR starts aliasing (and showing false color artifacts) before reaching the limit. Both conversions were made from the same Raw file.
That's real resolution, not sharpening.
Cheers,
Bart
-
How long ago did you send in the request? I had a similar problem recently and also sent in a request to take care of it. It took about a week and half, but they did get back to me and resolved it; as well as apologized for the delay, which they said is due to being overwhelmed with customer requests related to the new AI products.
Hi Jack,
Yes, it took anywhere from one and a half to two weeks for the initial reply, but it was obvious that they were becoming overwhelmed with requests and issues with their AI products, so I was expecting a longer wait for feedback. Not a problem, and they were very good about fixing all three issues I brought to their table. Over all of the years I've been dealing with Topaz Labs they have never let me down with a request or perhaps an issue with one of their plugins.
Gary
-
Hi,
Not quite. I've attached a comparison I made a long time ago, between the at that time current Lightroom 5.7 and Capture One 8.0.2. The green circle on the resolution test is the Nyquist limit (no reliable detail exists within the circle, it's mostly aliasing artifacts). CaptureOne resolves right up to the limit, whereas Lichtroom/ACR starts aliasing (and showing false color artifacts) before reaching the limit. Both conversions were made from the same Raw file.
That's real resolution, not sharpening.
Cheers,
Bart
It would be interesting see that test rerun after using the Enhanced Detail conversion of the file into a DNG in LR. Would it level the playing field?
-
It would be interesting see that test rerun after using the Enhanced Detail conversion of the file into a DNG in LR. Would it level the playing field?
It might (should?). I do not have the latest version of ACR converter, so I cannot test it myself.
I'll check with a friend and see if his wife has the latest Lightroom version.
It always helps to have an optimal baseline before further editing.
Cheers,
Bart
-
I had a very interesting bug show up when using Sharpen AI on my Mac. I have a MacBook Pro 13" that I installed Sharpen AI on just to see how it would work with respect to speed. Granted it was fairly slow but the image I was using it on ended up with a pixel wide vertical line on the right hand side that was definitely put there by Sharpen AI. No matter what setting I used or whether or not I left layers in place the line always occurred.
I tried this same image on my PC ( 35 seconds vs. 10 minutes ) and I ended up with a perfect image. This is no big deal to me as I don't really expect to use Sharpen AI on my Mac but the fact that the artifact is there could be of interest to someone else.
Victor
-
I had a very interesting bug show up when using Sharpen AI on my Mac. I have a MacBook Pro 13" that I installed Sharpen AI on just to see how it would work with respect to speed. Granted it was fairly slow but the image I was using it on ended up with a pixel wide vertical line on the right hand side that was definitely put there by Sharpen AI. No matter what setting I used or whether or not I left layers in place the line always occurred.
I tried this same image on my PC ( 35 seconds vs. 10 minutes ) and I ended up with a perfect image. This is no big deal to me as I don't really expect to use Sharpen AI on my Mac but the fact that the artifact is there could be of interest to someone else.
Hi Victor,
There have been a few other reports of vertical lines appearing on the righthand side of the image, so this will be looked at by the folks at Topaz. These typically point to memory related issues. But since there are so many possible hardware configurations, it might help them if you file a service request, describing your specific hardware and the setting you used.
Cheers,
Bart
-
1.1.1 is out.
Trying it now.
Not sure if I’m seeing anything new yet...
-
Here's another example and a few more thoughts about Topaz Sharpen AI.
It won't help much on images that are really botched, of course. But if the blur is within the correctable range of the software, the improvements can be dramatic. For this example, exposure was 1/30 second and f/22. The image is degraded by diffraction and camera shake (hand-held shot, buffeted by wind). From left to right: reduced size full image, unsharpened 100% crop, sharpened crop via Stabilize mode (0.5, 0.3, 0).
(http://julian.marmotandweasel.com/photos/waterfall_test.jpg)
Most user complaints are about its sluggishness. My computer (maxed-out "Late 2014" Retina 5K iMac, running Sierra) can take 20 minutes to process a full frame D850 shot. PC users are reporting much quicker results. One of the Topaz support reps told me that I would not see significant performance improvements if I replaced my current computer with a newer Mac.
Looking inside the Sharpen AI application package, I found components from the Qt cross-platform framework. I've never used it, but I've seen comments from developers who gripe that their Mac products built with Qt are running considerably slower than their PC products.
It's possible to get a speed-up for preview updates by reducing the preview image area, using the View > Zoom In menu command. Of course, this does not improve the time required to process the entire image. I noticed that when the program opens a small image file, the preview area can span most or all of the image. But if I process a preview, and then immediately choose to save, the program restarts the same process. Seems like it should already have what it needs in a buffer.
More gripes: Once I start a preview update or a save, there is no way to pause or cancel, other than doing a force quit of the application. I'm also finding, that while Sharpen AI is doing its thing, all other processes are virtually paralyzed. I can't do anything useful in another app. Surely, the Topaz geeks can fix this, and I'm hoping that they can eventually produce a build with faster processing on a Mac.
-
Here's another example and a few more thoughts about Topaz Sharpen AI.
It won't help much on images that are really botched, of course. But if the blur is within the correctable range of the software, the improvements can be dramatic. For this example, exposure was 1/30 second and f/22. The image is degraded by diffraction and camera shake (hand-held shot, buffeted by wind). From left to right: reduced size full image, unsharpened 100% crop, sharpened crop via Stabilize mode (0.5, 0.3, 0).
Great improvement indeed! In my view Topaz Ai can be a big hit and a big miss and everything in between. To see what it is requires 10 minutes on a mac...
This waterfall is beautiful ; where is it?
-
Yosemite, Vernal Falls, the wet trail. Full summer from the look of the crowds.
The sample shows a few of the issues others have reported on this software.
Look at the tall tree by the trail, you will see a haloing type of artifact going along the tree, similar to what the Aircraft landing gear had in a previous example.
Look at the grass along the trail and you can see a mazing/grid pattern.
You see this more with the Focus and stabilize options, than the sharpen.
Both of these have been shown in previous examples. Hopefully with time Topaz can fix these issues.
As for the processing time on a Mac, for me 20 minutes is really unacceptable on a D850 single image. Try working on a IQ3100 file or multi shot D850 pano, time taken is just too long. And the Mac (even a less than one year old MacPro) will be almost frozen until the app has finished. Which is strange since the software is only using the Video card supposedly. Radeon 580. Same card in a 3 year old PC takes 1/3 of the time and PC is not frozen to other apps.
Paul C
-
I have experimented with Sharpen AI on several X1D and IQ180 files and compared the results to my standby, Focus Magic. Regrettably, the results with Focus Magic are slightly, but discernibly, better. When you factor in the time on a Mac to process the preview with different settings and the time to apply the chosen settings to a file, Sharpen AI is a no go for me. Perhaps things will change in the future as they work on Sharpen AI, but not now. Focus Magic is just so good and so easy to use.
-
I have experimented with Sharpen AI on several X1D and IQ180 files and compared the results to my standby, Focus Magic. Regrettably, the results with Focus Magic are slightly, but discernibly, better. When you factor in the time on a Mac to process the preview with different settings and the time to apply the chosen settings to a file, Sharpen AI is a no go for me. Perhaps things will change in the future as they work on Sharpen AI, but not now. Focus Magic is just so good and so easy to use.
Agreed. Processing a single image is INCREDIBLY slow.
Focus Magic works well, and Piccure+ (RIP) was excellent - both using a fraction of the resources/time Sharpen AI uses.
It's a good effort but seems more like a solution in search of a problem at this point.
-
I agree. It took 10 -5 minutes to process one image,
In addition, I did some simple High Pass sharpening on a couple of images and compared it to Sharpen Ai results and found the simpler High pass method to give similar results with fraction of the effort.
On the other hand, iused Sharpen AI on some Iphone images taken in relativley low light using the "Stabilize" option. these images took several minutes to run but the result were pretty nice
MDIJB
-
Focus Magic is just so good and so easy to use.
Unfortunately for me, the makers of Focus Magic say that it does not work on Retina Macs running Photoshop CS6.
-
This topic is starting to become so long as to be unwieldy and I'm a little hesitant about throwing in my two cents but I'm going to do it anyway. I got a free upgrade to Sharpen AI because I bought Topaz InFocus 8 years ago so kudos to Topaz for offering that. I never liked or used InFocus but I think Sharpen AI deserves a place in my toolkit. All of the criticisms about the product being incredibly slow and often introducing artifacts etc. etc. seem to me to be valid and I have only gotten good results with the Stabilize mode. But on a few of the images that I have tried Sharpen AI appears to create realistic detail where none seemed to exist to be recovered. Most of the time, and on most parts of an image, it seems to me you can get equally good results using Lightroom or whatever other tool is your favorite and with a much faster and easier workflow. But on some images Sharpen AI really works wonders.
Here are 100% crops of a soft edge of a picture taken with the new Fuji X-T30. The two images are crops from Sharpen AI and Focus Magic. All my other sharpening efforts were worse than these two. I tried sharpening with LR alone, LR's Enhanced Details and then further sharpening in Lightroom, Sharpen AI, and Focus Magic which I am just learning. Enhanced Details makes a big difference in permitting further sharpening in Lightroom with the Fuji Trans-X files but had no impact when I tried it with Sharpen AI. I am just learning Focus Magic but it seemed to give cleaner results than LR Enhanced Detail with additional sharpening. Sharpen AI achieved slightly better results versus Focus Magic and Lightroom Enhanced with added sharpening in the center but Sharpen AI made a significant improvement in the soft edge.
Bottom line for me is that Sharpen AI is a very imperfect and time consuming tool that is still worth trying on problem images.
-
If you look at Stockjock's Topaz shot, and examine closely the boundaries between the buildings and the sky, you will see the halo artifacts (what I call "spatial ringing") mentioned elsewhere in this thread. So far, I have seen this effect only when using the Stabilize mode.
-
I have to say I've been looking at all these images at 200% and never noticed that "spatial ringing" until you pointed it out, but I do see what you are talking about. It doesn't show up in the other sharpening methods I tried. Since it closely matches the color of the surrounding sky I'm not sure you would ever see it in a print but it is there. For me, I'm pretty sure that the improvement in the sharpness of the buildings would outweigh this very minor haloing but I can see why you might find it objectionable.
-
I have to say I've been looking at all these images at 200% and never noticed that "spatial ringing" until you pointed it out, but I do see what you are talking about. It doesn't show up in the other sharpening methods I tried. Since it closely matches the color of the surrounding sky I'm not sure you would ever see it in a print but it is there. For me, I'm pretty sure that the improvement in the sharpness of the buildings would outweigh this very minor haloing but I can see why you might find it objectionable.
Hi,
I wonder if Sharpen AI creates the ringing (which is unlikely), or whether it just amplifies what is already there ...
Cheers,
Bart
-
I agree. It took 10 -5 minutes to process one image,
In addition, I did some simple High Pass sharpening on a couple of images and compared it to Sharpen Ai results and found the simpler High pass method to give similar results with fraction of the effort.
On the other hand, iused Sharpen AI on some Iphone images taken in relativley low light using the "Stabilize" option. these images took several minutes to run but the result were pretty nice
MDIJB
Perhaps Sharpen AI only excels compared to other options such as Focus Magic when you are sharpening lower quality images, or images that are degraded from camera or subject movement. That is consistent with my experience with Gigapixel AI when I compared it to Photoshop's own Preserve Details option with high resolution files.
-
Hi,
I wonder if Sharpen AI creates the ringing (which is unlikely), or whether it just amplifies what is already there ...
Cheers,
Bart
This is a crop of the file that I ran through Topaz Sharpen AI in Stabilize mode at 60. The starting file had been put through Adobe Enhanced Details but had all other sharpening turned off. I did try the same file without Enhanced Details and it made no difference to the output from Topaz Sharpen AI that I could see and both had this haloing.
Even if you apply quite a bit of sharpening in LR to the starting file you won't find similar halos although lots of other artifacts show up that are absent in Topaz Sharpen AI.
-
Perhaps Sharpen AI only excels compared to other options such as Focus Magic when you are sharpening lower quality images, or images that are degraded from camera or subject movement.
I disagree. 'Sharpen AI' also does a great job on high-quality images, but there may be less to gain. I think that a lot of people still do not have a firm grasp of what 'Capture sharpening' is supposed to do. It is not the last step, it is one first step in the entire sharpening process.
That is consistent with my experience with Gigapixel AI when I compared it to Photoshop's own Preserve Details option with high resolution files.
Wait till you see the next version of Gigapixel AI (a free upgrade, as usual). The current beta cycle appears to be coming to a close, and a much-improved version is about to go into public release when some of the final wrinkles for this round of improvements have been ironed out. This is not a finished product yet, I expect more improvements will be made, and bugs will be squashed ...
Cheers,
Bart
-
I disagree. 'Sharpen AI' also does a great job on high-quality images, but there may be less to gain. I think that a lot of people still do not have a firm grasp of what 'Capture sharpening' is supposed to do. It is not the last step, it is one first step in the entire sharpening process.
Cheers,
Bart
Thanks. I have a very good understanding of when and how Capture Sharpening should be applied to files, and I have been using Focus Magic for that purpose for over 12 years. I have always evaluated my Capture Sharpening settings with FM at 100%. I always start by exporting a TIFF from the raw converter to Photoshop with all sharpening turned off in the raw converter. That’s what i did when I compared Sharpen AI to FM on several high resolution image files. As I noted, the FM sharpened files looked just a little bit better than the Sharpen AI files, plus FM is way faster and produces fewer if any artifacts.
-
Thanks. I have a very good understanding of when and how Capture Sharpening should be applied to files, and I have been using Focus Magic for that purpose for over 12 years. I have always evaluated my Capture Sharpening settings with FM at 100%. I always start by exporting a TIFF from the raw converter to Photoshop with all sharpening turned off in the raw converter.
Yes, that's a similar approach to mine. The images that we start with are essentially undersampled in several ways, so we have to be very careful when we attempt to restore full 'per-pixel' resolution. Especially when the camera is not properly low-pass filtered, we already have aliasing artifacts baked into the image. Subsequent sharpening will not only restore capture-process blur, but also amplify aliasing artifacts and noise.
That’s what i did when I compared Sharpen AI to FM on several high resolution image files. As I noted, the FM sharpened files looked just a little bit better than the Sharpen AI files, plus FM is way faster and produces fewer if any artifacts.
Yes, that's, of course, possible depending on the image content and the Raw converter used. But there is no reason for 'Sharpen AI' to add ringing where there is none in the source image. There might be a 1 pixel kind of halo, which is not really a halo but a trade-off way to restore the actual edge resolution. In such cases it can help to reduce the amount of SAI's blur correction or even increase the noise reduction a bit.
Although this is a thread about Sharpen AI, another approach worth mentioning is the creation of a larger file with more resolution from one's source image, and then down-sample that. That allows to address the undersampled nature of our captures, and at a larger size we can more easily retouch any problems that are now more easy to see. For that purpose Gigapixel AI (https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=129688.0) shows a lot of potential, especially since version 4 which offers control over the amount of sharpening.
Cheers,
Bart
-
I was intrigued by Bart's comment that the "ringing" artifact might be present in an unsharpened file, and then intensified by Topaz Sharpen AI. So I downloaded the unsharpened image that Stockjock posted yesterday. I opened it in Photoshop CS6, displayed at 200%, and viewed each channel separately. The "ringing" is faintly visible in the blue channel, most obvious on the right side of the tall black building. I wonder what causes this?
Bart was right - the Stabilize mode in Sharpen AI is simply detecting and amplifying detail that is present in the file. Apparently, other sharpening methods are not as sensitive to this detail.
If you like the intense sharpening performed by Stabilize mode, it might be possible to create a Photoshop action that masks out this type of artifact. Perhaps something involving edge detection on the blue channel of the sharpening layer. But I don't have time to pursue it myself this week.
-
Here is another example of the Sharpen AI magic with version 1.1.2
-
Here is another example of the Sharpen AI magic with version 1.1.2
It's like magic indeed.
Cheers,
Bart
-
Here is another example of the Sharpen AI magic with version 1.1.2
Great results, absolutely! I'm wondering how this compares to Focus Magic......
Regards,
Jaap
-
Great results, absolutely! I'm wondering how this compares to Focus Magic......
Regards,
Jaap
Fair question. Focus Magic has two algorithms, one for focus blur and another for motion blur. I only use the former, as that is the one designed for photographs that are basically sharp. The algorithm for motion blur requires judgment/experimentation with the settings. Sharpen AI in Stabilize Mode may be easier to use in theory but the amount of time required to experiment with different settings would seriously compromise its utility.
-
I was intrigued by Bart's comment that the "ringing" artifact might be present in an unsharpened file, and then intensified by Topaz Sharpen AI. So I downloaded the unsharpened image that Stockjock posted yesterday. I opened it in Photoshop CS6, displayed at 200%, and viewed each channel separately. The "ringing" is faintly visible in the blue channel, most obvious on the right side of the tall black building. I wonder what causes this?
Is that a raw file? If so there should be no ringing at all. If not then it's probably introduced by whatever processing was applied. For instance the version of ACR/LR I have 'sharpens' raw images (https://www.strollswithmydog.com/raw-converter-sharpening-with-sliders-at-zero/) even when all relative sliders are zeroed.
-
Here is another example of the Sharpen AI magic with version 1.1.2
Did you save the .tiff image, and then re-import and apply the second sharpening process in Sharpen AI?
-
Did you save the .tiff image, and then re-import and apply the second sharpening process in Sharpen AI?
Currently, that's the only way to cascade sharpening runs.
Maybe in the future Topaz can add an "Apply" button, like they have in many plugins, that sets the current settings as the baseline for further changes. I'm not sure if there is a technical reason why they don't offer that yet, but it could be useful, as Michael's example shows.
Of course, there are more feature requests one can think of, like creating a Sharpening layer with a mask that allows to selectively disable/reduce the sharpening to certain regions (especially helpful when using the "Focus" models), or even change blending modes.
Cheers,
Bart
-
I suppose the slow runtime is the reason there is no "Apply" button.
-
I suppose the slow runtime is the reason there is no "Apply" button.
Yes, that's probably why. Another one could be that it would temporarily double the memory requirements, unless it can be applied in blocks of, say, 256x256 pixels. But it would be nice to have the option (one is not forced to use it ;) ).
Cheers,
Bart
-
Version 1.1.2 still strips off EXIF......
-
The latest update today seems to have speeded up processing (relatively speaking). Also, the program does not commandeer resources as much - you can work on other apps while it is running.
-
The latest update today seems to have speeded up processing (relatively speaking). Also, the program does not commandeer resources as much - you can work on other apps while it is running.
Just ran a test using the latest update. It's definitely improved, but it still renders the computer unusably slow - forget bout typing anything.
Still, a step in the right direction. :)
-
Even if AI Sharpen is speeded up, the fundamental problem is that it is still too slow if you factor in the need to experiment with different settings in the software on an image by image basis. I can wait 5 minutes for the program to apply the desired settings. I can't wait 5 minutes to experiment with various settings in each of the three modules. Using Focus Magic on high res files of 40-80 MP, I almost always use the same radius and amount settings in FM (2 and 100%). If anyone has worked out somewhat "standardized" settings for the various modules in AI Sharpen for high res files, I would love to hear about them. Perhaps AI Sharpen doesn't lend itself to "standardized" settings so well.
-
Even if AI Sharpen is speeded up, the fundamental problem is that it is still too slow if you factor in the need to experiment with different settings in the software on an image by image basis. I can wait 5 minutes for the program to apply the desired settings. I can't wait 5 minutes to experiment with various settings in each of the three modules. Using Focus Magic on high res files of 40-80 MP, I almost always use the same radius and amount settings in FM (2 and 100%). If anyone has worked out somewhat "standardized" settings for the various modules in AI Sharpen for high res files, I would love to hear about them. Perhaps AI Sharpen doesn't lend itself to "standardized" settings so well.
I understand the slow time to render the settings. What Ive noticed (and you may have to) is that if you dont move the preview pane at all, each of your different settings (eg from mode to mode or settings within the mode) are able to be toggled once you have rendered them once for that image. I find it helpful to compare the three modes, and then for my preferred mode to try different strength and blur reduction settings etc. One move of the pane and its back to rendering each one again. Adding grain is real time.
The preview is rather shorter on my machine (MacPro 2009, with GPU below Topaz specs) but sure the final rendering is slow.
That said Im finding that some images on small sensor cameras I used for "street shooting" in an African country some years ago are now much better on screen and revitalising my interest to print some, including those I downrated due to blur/movement artifact.
Regards
Brandon
-
Even if AI Sharpen is speeded up, the fundamental problem is that it is still too slow if you factor in the need to experiment with different settings in the software on an image by image basis. I can wait 5 minutes for the program to apply the desired settings. I can't wait 5 minutes to experiment with various settings in each of the three modules. Using Focus Magic on high res files of 40-80 MP, I almost always use the same radius and amount settings in FM (2 and 100%). If anyone has worked out somewhat "standardized" settings for the various modules in AI Sharpen for high res files, I would love to hear about them. Perhaps AI Sharpen doesn't lend itself to "standardized" settings so well.
I also use FM (2 and 100%) most of the time but always on a separate layer so that I can adjust downward at will. My newer setting is usually 2 and 75% for files in the 50 to 100MP range. They don't call it Focus 'Magic' for nothing.... It still is the de facto standard.
Victor
-
Focus Magic is still the standard for sure. The more sophisticated routines of Sharpen AI can produce interesting results, however as pointed out the time it takes to even refresh the preview on a Mac is basically ridiculous. Topaz finally was able to get Gigapixel AI to run a bit faster on the Mac, but still a 5 year old windows machine can run circles around a modern Mac.
The point about windows having 90 percent of the market, personally I don't find that believable, but even if so still many professionals working in video or photography are on a Mac.
If I need to run the software on larger files, from a D850 or above, I have to move platforms.
Paul C
-
Before I made my comparisons against Sharpen AI I was convinced Focus Magic was best-in-class. Not anymore now since the latest release of Topaz Sharpen AI.
My largest complaint with Focus Magic is that it’s also sharpening on and within smooth areas (i.e. bright cloudless sky, cars, reflection in windows, etc), creating them more noisy. I miss an offset function so to speak, not applying sharpening on areas with more or less equal RGB values, something that’s available in C1 and Photoshop-USM by default. Sharpen AI leaves all smooth areas untouched, giving a much cleaner result.
So suggestion w.r.t. a next Focus Magic release: implement an offset function.
Regards,
Jaap.
-
If I need to run the software on larger files, from a D850 or above, I have to move platforms.
Paul C
Not really..... why not have both? I can't imagine not having either my PC or Mac. They both have their place. :)
Victor
-
Even if AI Sharpen is speeded up, the fundamental problem is that it is still too slow if you factor in the need to experiment with different settings in the software on an image by image basis. I can wait 5 minutes for the program to apply the desired settings. I can't wait 5 minutes to experiment with various settings in each of the three modules. Using Focus Magic on high res files of 40-80 MP, I almost always use the same radius and amount settings in FM (2 and 100%). If anyone has worked out somewhat "standardized" settings for the various modules in AI Sharpen for high res files, I would love to hear about them. Perhaps AI Sharpen doesn't lend itself to "standardized" settings so well.
Well, it's still slow as molasses to try different settings with Sharpen AI, but I have now changed my mind as to whether it offers anything beyond Focus Magic. It does! I have been experimenting with several aerial photographs I took from a helicopter in Iceland with a Hasselblad X1D and a Sony A7RIII. These were quite sharp to begin with, because I used higher shutter speeds to compensate for the effects of the copter. However, using the Stabilize Module at a setting of 60%-70% Blur Reduction/0% for NR and Add Grain, the improvement in the sharpness that I was able to achieve with Sharpen AI was nothing short of amazing compared to FM. I didn't see this using the Sharpen Module, but the Stabilize Module is something else. The files are sharpened so well that the prints that I made using the Photokit Output sharpener at the default setting looked seriously oversharpened, so I have to rethink my printing workflow. I also made the prints at the native image size of around 20"x24". I haven't experimented yet to see how the files will bear up to upscaling to, say, 30"x36".
-
Not really..... why not have both? I can't imagine not having either my PC or Mac. They both have their place. :)
Victor
I don't disagree they both have their places, but to take 25 minutes to run a sharpening routine on a 3 part D850 pano or 5 part etc, in 16 bit is just too long, when I can take the same file to a 4 year old PC and have it run in 7 to 8 minutes.
And when run on a MacPro, the software totally ties up the machine, grinds to a halt anything else. For some reason only on a MacPro, where as on a 2.5 year old MacBook Pro, still takes a long time but I can work other applications.
Paul C