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Author Topic: Sharpen AI by Topaz  (Read 30883 times)

kirkt

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #80 on: March 02, 2019, 04:38:21 pm »

...
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
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brandon

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #81 on: March 02, 2019, 11:47:27 pm »

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
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #82 on: March 03, 2019, 05:06:41 am »

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
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MichaelEzra

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #83 on: March 03, 2019, 01:07:10 pm »

One more successful sample, this time using Stabilize:

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Arlen

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #84 on: March 03, 2019, 01:15:56 pm »

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.
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brandon

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #85 on: March 03, 2019, 03:31:49 pm »

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
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aderickson

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #86 on: March 03, 2019, 09:20:33 pm »

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
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MichaelEzra

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #87 on: March 03, 2019, 10:36:43 pm »

I am on Win-64, i3930K, 64 GB RAM and GTX 1060/6 GB, no system issues with Sharpen AI on 200 MP images
« Last Edit: March 04, 2019, 09:08:35 pm by MichaelEzra »
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #88 on: March 04, 2019, 09:17:40 am »

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.

Quote
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
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bwana

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #89 on: March 04, 2019, 10:05:54 am »

[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.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #90 on: March 04, 2019, 11:11:12 am »

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
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brandon

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #91 on: March 04, 2019, 01:36:26 pm »

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.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #92 on: March 04, 2019, 06:25:43 pm »

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
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bwana

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #93 on: March 05, 2019, 10:13:05 am »

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.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #94 on: March 05, 2019, 11:10:16 am »

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
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brandon

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #95 on: March 05, 2019, 03:29:37 pm »

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
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #96 on: March 06, 2019, 01:18:52 pm »

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
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brandon

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #97 on: March 06, 2019, 01:56:19 pm »

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".
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bernie west

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #98 on: March 06, 2019, 10:01:42 pm »

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:
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bernie west

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Re: Sharpen AI by Topaz
« Reply #99 on: March 06, 2019, 10:08:48 pm »

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.
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