Thank you once again Chris for your efforts here!
Between you and Andrew I am understanding that Gigapixel renders its results and wraps them in the DNG envelope (if one chooses that option) without the original RAW data that the user may want or need for further work in a RAW-friendly editor. Depending on the desired end use, I am going to assume this may or may not be an issue, and certainly isn't for those salvaging JPEG or TIFF sources, yes?
I'm also curious how other developers (ON1, Exposure, Skylum, Serif, etc.) are handling this workflow.
While we await the Gigapixel engineer's comments on the matter, I return to my original premise:
IMO and in my own testing, aside from the color profile issue, Gigapixel is giving superior upscaling results when compared to Adobe's Super Resolution and even ON1's new Resize feature.
I just did some tests using a CR2 image I shot YESTERDAY (usually I am scraping around in my almost 50 years' worth of rough image files for examples ;-) ). Here's what I got (images attached):
Adobe "Super Resolution". Very little control is offered and the results "don't seem" to be very good in either the preview or the exported DNG. Original details are more "natural" but still mushy. I don't understand how this different from their older methods.
ON1's new Resize at 6X (much better than Adobe in terms of clarity but some finer details are lost).
Topaz Gigapixel at 6X. Offers 5 different upscaling models (4 shown) along with full control of magnification factor, noise removal, etc.
Gigapixel result exported as DNG and reopened in Camera RAW: The colors don't seem garish (?). I left all values at default.
Here is my original CR2 file for those interested in testing my results.
So again, as I see it, we are dealing with two topics here: Color management and output quality. Adobe gets one right and not the other, Topaz the opposite.