Today's radical landscape enhancement

[plugsnpixels]

iPhone photo of the mountains (see them out there?) while running errands this afternoon.

Radically enhanced with Topaz Gigapixel's new Redefine option at 4X, then post-processed with Luminar Neo.

[tsinsf]

Looks totally fake to me.

[plugsnpixels]

Intentional "artsy" was added, especially with Luminar. Wasn't meant to be a straight up clean enlargement.

I went back to the original image in Gigapixel and screenshot some "clean" 6X views. In the mountains there is some watercolor effect but other areas are pretty smooth (autopilot settings).

If you want to play with the original I can send it to you.

[plugsnpixels]

Here is a 100% view of the mountains with Gigapixel Redefine applied at moderate (not 0) levels, before Luminar.

So we see that Redefine takes Gigapixel's "classic" upscaling a bit further, and you can push the sliders to get modified and even unnatural results, as also shown with high levels of Creativity.

[digitaldog]

Still looks like an illustration, not a photograph. If that's your goal, great. But virtually no (trained, savvy) photographer would buy this as a photograph.

[Frans Waterlander]

Still looks like an illustration, not a photograph. If that's your goal, great. But virtually no (trained, savvy) photographer would buy this as a photograph.

Totally agree.

[plugsnpixels]

Here is the 100% crop view from Photoshop alone. The original iPhone image already has some of that "artsy" effect present due to the lo-res distance capture.

The point of the original post was to show how you can use 3rd party options to "do something" with this type of source, not necessarily to sell documentary photographs.

As an "artsy" scenic for wall hanging, it should pass, for use as evidence in court, no.

[digitaldog]

Sale on another product to "do something" like make fake-looking photos:
https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/11/15/black-friday-mega-sale-36-off-ai-photo-enhancer-for-8x-bold-sight?utm_medium=rss

Black Friday mega sale: 36% off AI Photo Enhancer for 8x Bold Sight. Get the best AI photo enhancer at huge discounts and bonus freebies today. Aiarty Image Enhancer will give you total control over your past and future photos thanks to AI.

[plugsnpixels]

It all depends on what you're doing, what you personally like and what your clients/friends/family may want.

There's nothing wrong with enhancing crappy old photos with "AI" if done well (attached).

If you're creating digital art from actual photos or AI renders, there's nothing wrong with reinterpreting and/or upscaling them as well.

If you're a purist and don't want to go anywhere near any of this stuff, that's also fine!

But none of us can make a pronouncement for anybody else here or elsewhere, only express our opinions which will be either subjectively accepted or rejected by others.

This thread is posted in a section that includes "Post Processing" in its title, so this is not going to be straight stuff out of the camera (or phone in this case).

[dgberg]

Booming business for us lately has been printing iPhone pictures and I mean big. Several pictures below of a half dozen iPhone shots (None larger than 3mb) and we printed them all to 36x48”. 12 sq.ft. prints and they look amazing. I would have turned that work away 10 years ago, not today. She took these files to a photo store that did printing and they turned her away, said it could not be done. Printed on Epson s80600 solvent 64” on canvas through the Onyx rip. Processed in Topaz Ai Gigapixel.

[Manoli]

Booming business for us lately has been printing iPhone pictures and I mean big. Several pictures below of a half dozen iPhone shots (None larger than 3mb) and we printed them all to 36x48”  […] Processed in Topaz Ai Gigapixel.

What were your settings ?
Gigapixel 8x and a 100ppi ?

[dgberg]

Not sure the x factor, did not use that. Resized to 36x48 @150 dpi. File size was only about 325 mb after the up res.
2 of the six are on the edge but as soon as you look at them from 4 feet they are perfect.
Proper viewing distance for these should be 10 feet (Twice the diagonal) but they are a whole lot better than that.

[Manoli]

@dgberg

Thank you for the info. From your shots they certainly look, as you say, excellent. I’m not overly surprised, Gigapixel, has been my go-to since its release. Just renewed my subscription to version 8 but, as yet, no experience.

Thank you again for the insight.

[Jeremy Roussak]

Interesting, Dan. Kevin Raber has done similar things, I think on paper rather than canvas, with similarly excellent results.

Jeremy

[plugsnpixels]

A new iPhone photo shot after a meeting today, just for this adventure ;-). On a small crop I used Gigapixel>Redefine>Realistic @ 6X and finished off with Radiant Photo.