Topaz Photo AI

Orias wrote in post #19468980
Thanks both, interesting to get real-world feedback.

A lot of my photos to contain fur! The ones I posted above came out very well I think, but a few others I've tried have come out with the artefacts that you mentioned. They almost look "cartoony" or "sketched", but it can be mitigated fairly well by adjusting the level sliders a bit.
The other thing I take a lot of photos of is planes (air shows etc), which is why your original image with the radio controlled plane caught my eye... that was impressive!

I do like the fact that they seem very active with updates and refinements, which gives me a lot more confident about parting with that much money + getting the updates in the future.

I'll dig through my archives and mess about with some aviation photos on the Trial version too, to see what I can come up with. The problem is that I am fairly strict with deleting anything that's even slightly blurry, so not sure what trial subjects I might have!

Thanks again

NP. PAI can do excellent things but also drop the ball. Currently they are 1.1.7. With these weekly updates there will be about 30 more by my renewal time. You figure they would have it worked out by then. Kinda of a pain but I'll stick it out. If PAI fails on a file then I'll use PureRaw.

Maybe just getting Sharpen AI for now will help you with your air shows, however they are not updating like they used to. I'd test it out.

Here is another example. Last October when I sent this file to PAI this area had a square patch of pure awful. Completely unusable.

With 1.1.7 it's OK.

Final cropped

Ooh, that's done a great job there. I actually ran a wolf through it earlier too, and I think it went a bit too excessive on the sharpening-side of things.

I look at it here on the site, and it doesn't look too crazy, but at 100% on a big monitor, it looks a little like someone's gone to town above his eyes with a thin-tipped black liner . Even if I tune-down the sharpening, the patch right at the top of the image on the right still looks "dodgy".
But it's done a great job on, and around, the eyes!

Orias wrote in post #19469031
Ooh, that's done a great job there. I actually ran a wolf through it earlier too, and I think it went a bit too excessive on the sharpening-side of things.

I look at it here on the site, and it doesn't look too crazy, but at 100% on a big monitor, it looks a little like someone's gone to town above his eyes with a thin-tipped black liner . Even if I tune-down the sharpening, the patch right at the top of the image on the right still looks "dodgy".
But it's done a great job on, and around, the eyes!

Hosted photo: posted by Orias in
./showthread.php?p=194​69031&i=i176704894
forum: RAW, Post Processing & Printing

Yes that is where it falls apart. Sometimes I think it is trying to compensate for motion blur where it does not exist. Did you try the same file and not engage sharpening? I have yet to explore refining the masking for that but I really shouldn't have to. Hope Topaz corrects that soon.

I was going to try masking but Auto Pilot gave me this. I didn't touch anything. I guess I was trying t squeeze out more sharpening in the wing but at 700mm DOF is also shallow. The eye is always the key to this.

If the posted photos on the last few pages are any indication of what artificial intelligence can do (both Topaz and DXO), I'll stick with Photoshop and my own intelligence.

Pippan wrote in post #19469078
If the posted photos on the last few pages are any indication of what artificial intelligence can do (both Topaz and DXO), I'll stick with Photoshop and my own intelligence.

LOL

I've downloaded the demo and I think I'd like to buy PAI. However, can someone tell me what my workflow would be like?

Currently I import, cull, correct and crop in DPP. When I am done with a batch I batch export them to JPEG and put them up as a web album.It's pretty rare that I run any of them through Photoshop. I use whatever NR and sharpening DPP has, which is OK but nothing like what PAI can do.

How would I incorporate PAI into what I do? I simply do not use LR.

AntonLargiader wrote in post #19480393
I've downloaded the demo and I think I'd like to buy PAI. However, can someone tell me what my workflow would be like?

Currently I import, cull, correct and crop in DPP. When I am done with a batch I batch export them to JPEG and put them up as a web album.It's pretty rare that I run any of them through Photoshop. I use whatever NR and sharpening DPP has, which is OK but nothing like what PAI can do.

How would I incorporate PAI into what I do? I simply do not use LR.

It works as a standalone product so you can run .jpgs through it as needed. It will also work as a PS or LR plug in. It will batch process if needed.

AntonLargiader wrote in post #19480393
I've downloaded the demo and I think I'd like to buy PAI. However, can someone tell me what my workflow would be like?

Currently I import, cull, correct and crop in DPP. When I am done with a batch I batch export them to JPEG and put them up as a web album.It's pretty rare that I run any of them through Photoshop. I use whatever NR and sharpening DPP has, which is OK but nothing like what PAI can do.

How would I incorporate PAI into what I do? I simply do not use LR.

Like gonzogolf said just export jpegs like you normally do and then run them through the app. I have read it does a good job with jpegs. You may want to experiment with applying or not applying NR using DPP. See what you get.

Thanks for this thread; just found it when I queried POTN about Photo AI since I'm considering buying it. I have the current Topaz Trio, so I can get PAI + a year of free upgrades for all my Topaz products for $99.

I have been very impressed with Sharpen and Denoise for many situations, even making illegible text in distant signs readable after treatment. I don't recall ever using Gigapixel, but it came in the deal.

I've downloaded the PAI trial version (now v1.2.4) and what impresses me quite a bit is its speed updating sharpening functions on-screen: several times faster than SharpenAI. (DenoiseAI was always pretty fast; my main machine is an I7 with 16 GB + an 8GB video card, on Win10.)

Another appealing thing is the convenience of having all the functions in the one app; and - if not using Autopilot - you can easily alternate between noise reduction and sharpening levels (strength, clarity, and details sliders) to get the balance that best suits your image.

As noted above in this thread, there are fewer adjustments/sliders than in the stand-alones, but I've found that the AI choices in the four SharpenAI model options usually worked well without much sliding. Also, the "Too Soft" and "Out of Focus" models in Sharpen AI seem to have been rolled up into one in PAI ("Lens Blur"). One annoying thing I've found (so far) is the limited screen zooming options. In PAI, there is no zoom point between 100% and 200%, that I can find anyway, whereas the mouse wheel in the stand-alones made very slight zoom adjustments possible.

For interest - a surprising effect of the "Recover Faces" AI option in PAI is shown my uploaded images, below. I've used the quite nice engraving on the 10 Yuan note for several years to test, compare and pixel-peep different lenses. So I loaded a sample I had into PAI to see how it compared to Sharpen AI. The effect shown below on the right is what I got when I switched on "Recover Faces". It almost turned the Yuan's line engraving (left) back into a photograph! Not something I expect to use it on very often but kinda neat.

(Original mages were taken with a zoom lens at 300mm, highly cropped, then saved as screen grabs from PAI).

It is getting better every week. The 1.2.4 version is now offering a non AI brush.

Yesterdays update may help with some of the sharpening concerns.

I picked this up since I'm a software junkie...

Went back to an OLD file from a Sony A100 (I said old)

Here are a couple 100% crop/zoom.