I saw something the other day which made me question the “ORIGINAL” preview in AI Clear. The ORIGINAL preview is softening the image, which makes the split screen and processed preview look like it’s making more of an improvement than it really is.
To test this I loaded up a very sharp, detailed image into AI Clear. I saved screen images of the true original from PhotoShop, the “original” in AI Clear, and the HD processed preview.
Firstly is the Original a RAW image or a JPEG, TIFF etc.?
Secondly, if it is a RAW image, different RAW converters apply different levels of Noise Reduction and Sharpening. As far as I know Studio applies no NR or Sharpening when it processes the RAW image.
The original I used for these images is a JPG I exported from a PSD in Photoshop. I then brought the JPG back into Photoshop and opened Topaz Studio from the Filters menu. I tried loading the JPG directly into Studio without going through PS and got the same results.
You may need to raise a Technical Support request at the Topaz Labs website. Although the Quadro’s are more suited to CAD applications it should be OK.
I did enter a support ticket - the reply suggested I update graphics drivers. This all is taking place when a new laptop showed up - so I can’t do a proper followup on the original machine, but I will say that the new rig does not demonstrate the same behavior. The ORIGINAL image in AI Clear is not soft. FWIW, the new laptop is a Lenovo P52, 4K display, Quadro P3200 GPU. The old machine has been decommissioned and all software uninstalled.
