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Author Topic: Comparison of Upsizing Programs  (Read 9284 times)

JaapD

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Re: Comparison of Upsizing Programs
« Reply #1 on: October 01, 2019, 01:38:59 am »

For me personally I still can’t accept the artifacts that Gigapixel AI provides, very unnatural. I am positive that Topaz will get there in the end and since the money has been spent I’ll be patient  ;)

In the mean time I need to settle for second best. For small upscale factors I’ll use PS and C1 but for larger upscales I’m leaning towards Photozoom Pro8.

Same is applicable w.r.t. Denoise AI and Sharpen AI. NeatImage and FocusMagic give me less unwanted artifacts and a more natural, ‘real’ image.
So far my investment in the Topaz AI bundle hasn’t been successful. Nevertheless I find the technology behind it promising for the (near) future.

Regards,
Jaap.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Comparison of Upsizing Programs
« Reply #2 on: October 01, 2019, 01:45:35 pm »

For me personally I still can’t accept the artifacts that Gigapixel AI provides, very unnatural. I am positive that Topaz will get there in the end and since the money has been spent I’ll be patient  ;)

Hi Jaap,

I'm not sure what kind of artifacts you are talking about, but I have noticed some differences in results between CPU processed results and GPU processed ones. The CPU processing, has recently been sped up a lot for Intel CPUs, by the use of the optional Intel OpenVINO. Check out the Advanced Preference settings. Even my older generation Intel CPU processes images more than 2x faster (or less slowly ;)).

Quote
In the mean time I need to settle for second best. For small upscale factors I’ll use PS and C1 but for larger upscales I’m leaning towards Photozoom Pro8.

Like Jim Kasson, overall I prefer the Gigapixel results. Do take into account the actual size the image detail will have in the output. It will look much better than when pixel peeping the zoomed-in pixels at close proximity on one's monitor display.

Cheers,
Bart
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JaapD

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Re: Comparison of Upsizing Programs
« Reply #3 on: October 02, 2019, 06:57:02 am »

Hi Bart,

Most of the artifacts I see are around high contrast areas, i.e. tree branches and leaves against a bright sky, resulting in various kinds of artifacts. Also around edges of buildings and lamp posts, resulting in a kind of ghostly images many pixels away from the original edges. To me this is so unnatural that it is not usable.

For completeness I need to mention that I’m taking special care not to oversharpen my images.

I only apply GPU processing with my Geforce 1070Ti card. I have zero speed issues.

I fully agree with you that on Jim’s images Gigapixel AI is preferable over the rest.

Regards,
Jaap.

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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Comparison of Upsizing Programs
« Reply #4 on: October 02, 2019, 08:11:40 am »

Hi Bart,

Most of the artifacts I see are around high contrast areas, i.e. tree branches and leaves against a bright sky, resulting in various kinds of artifacts. Also around edges of buildings and lamp posts, resulting in a kind of ghostly images many pixels away from the original edges. To me this is so unnatural that it is not usable.

I understand.

Try no sharpening. I'm a Capture One user, so that still produces high resolution conversions (potentially with added 'structure'), and it reduces the risk of sharpening noise. Upscale that with Gigapixel (which still adds resolution and offers to increase sharpness), and optionally sharpen that result. When the source image has low noise, the noise reduction in Gigapixel can be set to very low levels, which brings out more detail and structure where it's supposed to be.

Cheers,
Bart
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earlybird

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Re: Comparison of Upsizing Programs
« Reply #5 on: October 06, 2019, 12:23:05 pm »

Here are some GPU vs CPU results with Win 7 x64 i7 4700MQ with Nvidia GeForce GT 740M and/or Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 running on an old Toshiba laptop.

Gigapixel seems to "see" the Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 in its Graphics Info dialog.

Gigapixels GPU processing creates artifacts as exemplified in the attached images. The images were upsized in Gigapixel approximately 2.83x. The crops shown here are 200% pixel peeps. You wouldn't see the artifacts in a 300dpi print, but they are still disconcerting.


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MfAlab

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Re: Comparison of Upsizing Programs
« Reply #6 on: October 08, 2019, 05:15:58 am »

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.
« Last Edit: October 08, 2019, 05:23:24 am by MfAlab »
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Pavel

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Re: Comparison of Upsizing Programs
« Reply #7 on: October 20, 2019, 12:47:35 pm »

This is of recent interest to me, so thanks for all the hard work some of you have put in.

Just thinking out loud, I wonder if there is a clear winner when one processes files from different camera brand raw files.  In particular the Fuji X-Tran sensors seem to get significantly different looks from different Raw processing programs, and even different version of the same converter.

I wonder If that is also something to be factored in, with these resining programs?
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rdonson

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Re: Comparison of Upsizing Programs
« Reply #8 on: October 20, 2019, 05:05:58 pm »

IMHO many RAW processing products do a mediocre or merely an acceptable job demosaicing Fuji X-Trans files.  The best I’ve found for my X-Trans files is Iridient X-Transformer.  Normally I use it on my files that have a need to show details.  Others may feel differently.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Comparison of Upsizing Programs
« Reply #9 on: October 21, 2019, 04:38:20 am »

This is of recent interest to me, so thanks for all the hard work some of you have put in.

Just thinking out loud, I wonder if there is a clear winner when one processes files from different camera brand raw files.  In particular the Fuji X-Tran sensors seem to get significantly different looks from different Raw processing programs, and even different version of the same converter.

I wonder If that is also something to be factored in, with these resining programs?

Hi Pavel,

Topaz Gigapixel AI will work on whatever it gets presented, so the better the input quality, the better the output quality will be. I don't have personal experience with X-Trans files, but FWIW I've heard positive reactions about Capture One conversions.

Cheers,
Bart
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JaapD

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Re: Comparison of Upsizing Programs
« Reply #10 on: October 25, 2019, 12:59:21 am »

Topaz Gigapixel AI will work on whatever it gets presented, so the better the input quality, the better the output quality will be. I don't have personal experience with X-Trans files, but FWIW I've heard positive reactions about Capture One conversions.

I can confirm this. But be very careful with (pre)sharpening. I get best results applying no sharpening at all in C1, otherwise Gigapixel creates nasty artifacts.

Regards,
Jaap.
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brandon

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Re: Comparison of Upsizing Programs
« Reply #11 on: October 25, 2019, 01:46:47 am »

I can confirm this. But be very careful with (pre)sharpening. I get best results applying no sharpening at all in C1, otherwise Gigapixel creates nasty artifacts.

Regards,
Jaap.

Likewise.seems to work well with Xtrans (no presharpening)
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Denis de Gannes

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Re: Comparison of Upsizing Programs
« Reply #12 on: October 25, 2019, 08:34:37 am »

Interesting discussion, just so I can keep my understanding in line a simple question. Does GigaPixel work with raw file data?
Or does one have to use their raw processor of choice to create a tiff to send to Gigapixel?
« Last Edit: October 25, 2019, 08:38:39 am by Denis de Gannes »
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JRSmit

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Re: Comparison of Upsizing Programs
« Reply #13 on: October 30, 2019, 12:34:59 pm »

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.
Interesting research. However it is not in-line with my findings. Too often funny artefacts with gigapixel. Also the image appears not real anymore. (Do not know how to word how it appears to me). So i do not use it anymore. I still use the tool developed in Lula in 2014, or Photoshop.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Comparison of Upsizing Programs
« Reply #14 on: October 30, 2019, 12:44:03 pm »

Interesting discussion, just so I can keep my understanding in line a simple question. Does GigaPixel work with raw file data?
Or does one have to use their raw processor of choice to create a tiff to send to Gigapixel?

Hi Denis,

Yes, Gigapixel AI does read Raw files, but it doesn't offer color balancing or lens corrections. So for best quality, I'd feed it a TIFF conversion with minimal (if any) sharpening.

Cheers,
Bart
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MfAlab

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Re: Comparison of Upsizing Programs
« Reply #15 on: October 31, 2019, 12:50:24 am »

Interesting research. However it is not in-line with my findings. Too often funny artefacts with gigapixel. Also the image appears not real anymore. (Do not know how to word how it appears to me). So i do not use it anymore. I still use the tool developed in Lula in 2014, or Photoshop.

Gigapixel has strange artifact when it made a bad guess of object in image. Mix photoshop preserve details 2 image is better way in practice. I will do frequency separation on gigapixel image, bottom layer is preserve details 2 image. Now I have 3 layers, gigapixel low frequency layer is masked some "too clean" area to show a little noise from preserve details layer. And Adjust opacity of high frequency layer from gigapixel to optimize more nature look. I can apply mask to block some artificial area if necessary.

Gigapixel is not a perfect tool yet. But AI computing is the future way.
« Last Edit: October 31, 2019, 01:23:26 am by MfAlab »
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Martin Kristiansen

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Re: Comparison of Upsizing Programs
« Reply #16 on: November 03, 2019, 01:21:32 am »

I am playing around with various AI labeled software options. Turns out the Topaz plugins I bought ages ago and wasn’t using entitled me to various upgrades such as Sharpen and denoise. I decided to buy AI gigapixel at the same time as I upgraded the free stuff and paid for AI masking.

I am actually astonished at some of the results I am getting. Not sure all the software is ready for prime time but I agree that it is the future. Sort of a computational set of tools for serious photographers. It has actually caused me to reassess some camera gear upgrade plans. 
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Comparison of Upsizing Programs
« Reply #17 on: November 03, 2019, 04:03:55 pm »

I've downloaded Gigapixel AI and have been experimenting with it.  One trivial question.  I do most of my work and all my printing with LR.  When you export a RAW file converted to a TIF for Gigapixel, does it matter what color space it's in?   I will be exporting back into LR following uprez.  I ran a couple yesterday and it seems to go fairly smoothly.  I have a pretty fast i7 CPU but the graphics card has only 2GB RAM and this might make me upgrade.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Comparison of Upsizing Programs
« Reply #18 on: November 03, 2019, 11:13:55 pm »

I've downloaded Gigapixel AI and have been experimenting with it.  One trivial question.  I do most of my work and all my printing with LR.  When you export a RAW file converted to a TIF for Gigapixel, does it matter what color space it's in?

Hi Alan,

Gigapixel AI is supposed to recognize the (e.g. TIFF) embedded Colorspace, and it offers to convert and tag the resulting image in a few  commonly used colorspaces, or keep the original colorspace.

Cheers,
Bart
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Comparison of Upsizing Programs
« Reply #19 on: November 04, 2019, 07:50:05 am »

Hi Alan,

Gigapixel AI is supposed to recognize the (e.g. TIFF) embedded Colorspace, and it offers to convert and tag the resulting image in a few  commonly used colorspaces, or keep the original colorspace.

Cheers,
Bart
Yes, that part was apparent.  I guess since LR uses ProPhoto as the colorspace, I should export in that and there would not be any issues upon importing the up-rez file. 
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