Comparison of Upsizing Programs

[Timur_Born]

I have a pretty fast i7 CPU but the graphics card has only 2GB RAM and this might make me upgrade.

At this time Gigapixel does not make full use of GPU memory (yet?). Upscaling to maximum pixel resolution of 32000 px (8 bit) / 22000 px (16 bit) on one side (3:2) uses 58.8% of my 8 gb GPU memory when GP is set to "High" memory consumption. So 4 to 6 gb should be sufficient for the time being, with 8 gb being more future-proof.

[kers]

In my test between 6 software: Adobe Photoshop (CC 2018), BenVista PhotoZoom Pro 7, ON1 Resize 2018, Topaz Gigapixel AI, Alien Skin Software Blow Up 3, Qimage Ultimate 2019.119, Gigapixel AI absolutely gets best performance.

I tested 22 interpolation methods and 3 upscale ratios on 4 images, that's 264 images. full test article here: part 1 | part 2

Conversely, for downsize application, bicubic is good enough.

Hello MfAlab,
Thank you for the comparison,

There are two things i do not like about Gigapixel AI;
1 it changes local contrast- more than the other approaches.
2 it produces false detail and simplifies the image; making it look like a vectorimage
In my own tests these two problems were visible on print as well- and that makes it serious.
I am in favour of photoshop 2.0...

Here some images of you to stress my point- and thank you for providing them.
for local contrast i introduced a gaussian blur to make it a bit more visual.

[digitaldog]

I guess since LR uses ProPhoto as the colorspace....

Not really. But we can go there.

I should export in that and there would not be any issues upon importing the up-rez file.

You should export in the color space you desire for the task at hand, that may very well be ProPhoto RGB from the internal color space LR uses for processing which isn't ProPhoto RGB (close but no cigar).
If you really, really wanted to export using LR's internal processing color space, that is possible.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Hello MfAlab,
Thank you for the comparison,

There are two things i do not like about Gigapixel AI;
1 it changes local contrast- more than the other approaches.

Hi Pieter, there have been several updates on the AI models. Maybe it has changed in more recent versions?
 

2 it produces false detail and simplifies the image; making it look like a vectorimage

Try reducing the amount of noise reduction in GAI, and Gigapixel AI will create lots of subtle detail. This may not result in smooth skies/gradients, but that's a trade-off (or one could do 2 renderings and combine them in a masked Layer blending). Also try CPU processing and compare it to GPU processing. CPU processing can result in more detail.

Cheers,
Bart

[Alan Goldhammer]

Not really. But we can go there. You should export in the color space you desire for the task at hand, that may very well be ProPhoto RGB from the internal color space LR uses for processing which isn't ProPhoto RGB (close but no cigar).
If you really, really wanted to export using LR's internal processing color space, that is possible.

All I want to do is export it in a form that won't screw things up down the line.  I'm just in the testing mode right now with this software and wanted to see how it performs before spending the $100 for a license.  After doing the up-rez, I will import back into LR to see 1) if anything else needs to be done on the image, and 2) to print it.  I would be creating an image that is set for a specific print size and ppi.  I'm on a Canon Pro-1000 (17 inch printer) so any large images would be set for 300 ppi.  Most of the Z6 images are 24 megapixel so there would no large increases to get to the desired image size since I would likely have either 15 or 16 inch to get to where I want.  I have a lot of older images from my Nikon D300 which are smaller in pixel size and might benefit more.  I'm just curious how much better this is than the LR up-rez I have used in the past.  I pretty much follow Jeff Schewe's approach to up-rez of images.

[MfAlab]

Hello MfAlab,
Thank you for the comparison,

There are two things i do not like about Gigapixel AI;
1 it changes local contrast- more than the other approaches.
2 it produces false detail and simplifies the image; making it look like a vectorimage
In my own tests these two problems were visible on print as well- and that makes it serious.
I am in favour of photoshop 2.0...

Here some images of you to stress my point- and thank you for providing them.
for local contrast i introduced a gaussian blur to make it a bit more visual.

I set every setting bar at the middle (or default) for every software to do a "preset test". But it's too much for AI gigapixel. The detail and contrast problem can be reduce by tuning the settings. AI gigapixel updates continually. I was tested on 2.X version. Maybe newer version perform better.