I have been using AI Clear as the first step in my workflow on pretty much all photos and have noticed something that I don’t believe has been mentioned in any of the threads in this forum.
Photos are sent from Capture One as a tif and then edited in Topaz Studio. AI Clear is used (almost always at default settings) and then “Apply” is selected to create a second tif where further adjustments are applied. When “Apply” is selected should the resultant image not be identical to the image that had AI Clear used on it? That was my understanding of how Studio works. In any case there is a slight loss of sharpness in the resultant image - as if only 95% of the effect has been applied. Not a huge problem but it is definitely noticeable. Is this something anyone else has noticed?
Spooky - I’m just playing around with this! I came across it myself last week (though a few have mentioned it on the FB page). I’d say it’s a lot less than 95% though. Try clicking on the HD Preview button - that seems to sort it. I’m in the middle of sorting out some example images to show what I’m finding.
I just tried a few things and this is probably not an AI Clear issue but rather an issue with the “Apply” selection. The same problem occurs with Sharpen, Precision Contrast, Precision Detail - and probably all of the Adjustments. It’s just that it is most noticeable with any of the sharpening Adjustments.
For reference I import 16 bit tif files using Adobe RGB.
I was told to turn HD Preview ON to see the real changes and that with HD Preview OFF I was seeing sharpening not from AI Clear but from some other thing related just to the display window.
When I turn HD Preview on, I do get the final results that I see in the display window.
In order to speed up processing time to be able to see a preview, down sampling is applied and the the adjustment is applied to the down sampled image being displayed in studio. When hitting apply, the adjustment is being applied to the full scale image. What this means is, there could and typically is a difference between the preview being shown in studio and the output. HD Preview still has the issue as it is allowed to not down sample to the degree as the regular preview thus allowing it to be slower.
This is something that we are aware of and many of us don’t like, but it really comes down to being able to quickly show a preview when changes are made in an adjustment. Depending on the size of an image results can vary.
