With some images during sharpening the result can have white edges and even some white specks appear. Reducing sliders or changing models can avoid some of that, but also gives up some of the desirable sharpening of other areas.
I wish there was a way to lessen the very brightest results (that I see as white) but retain other sharpening within the images. Perhaps something like protecting highlights or avoid white extremes could be an added control.
I agree, sometimes the white contrast areas become very ugly, same basically with complete black areas when sharpening, I also notice added CA when combining shaprpening and denoise in PhotoAi for example. Fixing this would be a very valuable to already fantastic bunch of software
Topaz is probably the best photo recovering software available, but it has the same probem as any other sharpening tool I have used, the white halo contrast line. If you can fix that Topaz would be unbeatable. Also the high ISO color noise that is sometimes accompanied with smudge/clunky result, fixing that would make Topaz the greatest!
I agree with what has been said above. Even in the release version of TPAI 4 sharpening (even sharpening with super focus) can produce speckles of highlight and some halo.
Hi Mike.
If it’s possible, it would certainly be interesting, to see a before and after example or two and the steps involved
Thanks
D6709201.ARW (42.1 MB)
I am starting this reply with my original RAW shot from 2 days ago. To start with, here are the before and after shots when I begin my workflow in Photo AI.
That’s enough for one post. I’ll find an example of a halo that seems to be from sharpening itself; even if I have to reload it from the bloody memory card (because the TIFs I save from Photo AI take up so much hard disk space!).
Hi Mike.
Thank you for the image
I’m like you a keen bird photographer but, unlike you I don’t shoot Sony only Canon and currently have two cameras EOS R5 & R6 mark II.
Apart from stating the obvious Reduce Slider Strength, try different Sharpening Models and Masking different areas then applying different Sharpening Strengths to those areas and so on..
Spots
I’m afraid I was unable to replicate this behaviour at first with either camera in Topaz unless I took the Strength Sliders to the extreme however, the strangest thing happened although, you supplied screengrabs as soon as, ( I hope you don’t mind ) I loaded, your first image the before and after image into Photo AI v4 low and behold, after Autopilot had finished processing the spots appeared in the Before image and were obviously gone from the After image.
With my initial experience I noticed that, adjusting the settings and changing the Enhancements in Photo AI in my case, Denoising was the culprit. I wasn’t having a problem with Sharpening, the Sharpening was only enhanceing the issue not causing.
Obviously I could be wrong it’s not exactly scientific, different Cameras and scenarios even so, a short term solution could be a two pass workflow approach with Denoise at least, until Topaz fixes this phenomenon.
I noticed on closer inspection that you had photographed the bird with a higher ISO setting and as luck would have it, I still had my R6 mk II high ISO RAW test images from ISO 12’800 to 204’800.
I was in this instance, able to recreate this behaviour or at least something similar, starting with my only image shot at ISO 51’200 and even then, I had to force RAW Denoise to reveal the spots by putting Photo AI’s RAW on Strong because, the spots seemed more prominent with that setting then, moving the Strong Strength Slider to One, the Remove Large Grain Slider on Zero and the Minor Deblur slider to One Hundred, that last one was only to emphasize the spots and I also, noticed in my case holding the Space-bar to see the original image it seems to me the spots manifest after the colour noise has been removed.
From this starting point, I experimented and found that, moving the the Strength Slider to Thirty Three the Minor Deblur Slider to Thirty Three and here’s the kicker by moving the Remove Large Grain Slider which, was the most effective to Six the spots disappeared.
Having said that, although the Remove Large Grain Slider had the most effect it’s worth noting that moving the Slider to Ten, Twenty or above then, the image started to become mushy even then, moving one of other Sliders will have an effect on the overall image.
Basic Conclusion
Although there are no easy solutions, with your predicament and I’m not saying I’m offering that either in this instance, perhaps a little helpful maybe.
Besides, it’s a good thing you have DXO that helps
Because, you’re having these issues with Super Focus and Sharpening and mine’s with Denoising even then, any snippets of information goes along way to help the Support and Development Team in, investigating this issue.
Speaking of Super Focus, as you already know and I’m stating this for the wider community Super Focus as it’s name implies is only ment for super blurry, out of focus images and some images with minor Motion Blur that needs correcting which would involve, some kind of sharpening to counteract the blurriness and by definition adding more sharpening can only enhance any anomalies, artifacting within the source image bearing in mind that, even denoising adds a little bit of sharpening because, any form of denoising including AI denoiseing will invariably add softening to your photographs so, there’s three lots of sharpening that could be applied for any Images.
Ultimately, the downside of all this is you’re literally going to have situations where, over sharpening halos and artifacts may manifest or rear it’s ugly head within the image.
Lens Correction could be another contributing factor because, using an image editor such a Lightroom which, has it’s own Lens Correction then sending your image to Photo AI which also, allows for Lens Correction aswell, can cause conflicts like adding halos simply because two sets of Lens Correction have been used on an image disabling one of these probably the Topaz one would help.
Lens Correction is only implied / suggestive anyway. Allow me to explain, companies like Adobe, DXO, Lensfun and others have to simulate copy Camera Manufacturers proprietary RAW Recipes basically because, most Camera Manufacturers won’t give up their secret sauce.
In other words Adobe for example, has to try and Reverse Engineer those recipes and come up with a version for any particular camera that works with Adobe Camera RAW it’s the same with DXO and Lensfun admittedly, their versions are very good and you’ll be hard pressed to tell the difference.
Never the less, each companies versions are slightly different from one anothers hence, the reason it’s not a good idea to apply or have enabled more than one Lens Correction at the same time.
Briefly, I noticed on your second image there is a slight halo around the original image before Adjust Lighting is applied
Hope this is useful
Hi And-e
I think you might have put your finger on at least one of the problems I have been seeing - double dose of lens correction. That said, I can now supply an image that has only been through Photo AI, and which still has a (OK, very slight) halo.
D6700110.ARW (36.5 MB)
Here is a result using only Photo AI (Raw denoise, crop, super focus on subject (boost=none, 50), and upscale to 6193 wide.
Cheers
Mike
Hi Mike.
Thank you kindly for the original RAW
The good news this can be easily fixed in Photoshop sorry
The second bit of news with one little change I was able to achieve a better processed result with Photo AI still not perfect never the less, better here’s a quick example before I explain.
Your example
My example
The only difference is yours was with Select Subject and I chose All as my Selection and that’s it, the problem occurs when you have your Subject against a clear Blue Sky it isn’t, as straight forward or as simple as Bird / Sky.
Because, the image is constructed from millions of square coloured dots there has to be a transition of varying colour dots between the two (anti-aliasing).
This is particularly true with circles and curvatures in general, if this was a square box for example then, there would be no transition because, there would be clearly defined edges on both the horizontal and vertical resulting a perfect selection.
So, when you choose Select Subject the subject is actually chosen correctly it’s that combination/transition if you like of varying coloured dots that are partly selected which, Photo AI is struggling to smooth out/feathering between, the selected Bird and the unselected clear Sky.
Because, your image has motion blur and is out of focus you have to admit and to be fair what Photo AI has been able to achieve is incredible.
Topaz Photo AI has proven to be an invaluable and extremely useful Image Enhancement application with some small editing and making capacities so, shouldn’t be considered a competitor or alternatively to Photoshop or any other image editors indeed think of Photo AI more as a companion for Photoshop.
Allow me to explain more although, Photo AI’s Super Focus has done a fantastic job of enhancing the image the only downside is the halo has also been enhanced. Yes you can spend hours playing around with the settings to get a slightly better result but, what would be the point when any image editor free or otherwise can achieve far more accomplished results quickly and easily.
Here’s My Photoshop example
.
Here’s how I did it with clouds using Photoshop
Open the Photo AI Enhanced image within Photoshop
Press Command/Control J to Duplicate the Background Layer with the top Layer selected either click on Select Subject from the Contextual Bar
Alternatively, choose Select Subject from the Select Menu. If this is done correctly you’ll see marching ants around the Bird
Once the Bird has been selected goto the menu bar click on Layer > Layer Mask. > Reveal Selection
A new Layer Mask will be created next to the selected Layer here’s a close up of the newly created Layer Mask
Once the Layer Mask has been created Click on the Eye Ball icon next to the active Layer to temporarily turn it off
Next Click on the Background Layer again and press Command/Control J to Duplicate the Background Layer once more then, using the Lasso Tool and holding down the Left Mouse button draw a large Selection around the Bird
With the Layer still active Click on Edit Menu and from the list select Content-Aware Fill no need to use Genaitive Fill
The Bird will be removed and replaced with Sky
Now simply Click on the Eye Ball icon next to the Bird Layer with the Layer Mask to make the bird visible once more
And that’s it we’re done (I’ve zoomed in so you can see the Bird close up) the Enhanced Bird on the original clean clear blue Sky without any Halo’s
.
Finishing Touch let’s add a hint of clouds 
With the upper most Layer selected goto and Click on the Layer Menu > New > New Layer and a new Layer will be created
With the new Layer active select the Marquee Tool from Photoshop’s Toolbar or press M on the keyboard
With the Marquee Tool selected hold down the Left Mouse button and draw a small box anywhere on the screen see image below
With the Selection still active, goto the Edit Menu and from the list select Fill
A small window will appear with some options from the Contents drop-down select 50% Gray and Click on OK to fill the box with 50% Gray
Don’t panic this isn’t affecting the image
Still with the Selection active Click on the Filter Menu go down to Render and from the fly out choose Clouds
The small box will now be filled with random little fractal Clouds
Now press Command/Control D to deactivate the selection (again this won’t affect the image) and press the V key to select the Move Tool (incidentally the reason the V key is picked for the Move Tool is because, of the V in moVe) and place the Arrow inside the little Cloud box then, Click and hold the Arrow with the Mouse inside the box avoiding the corners or middle and move the cloud box to the top left hand corner of the screen
Next with the Mouse Hover over the bottom right hand square and when the cursor changes into a Double Headed Arrow Click and hold with the Left Mouse button on the bottom right hand corner square and drag out with the Mouse until you’ve filled the screen and let go. You should be left with a Layer with gray clouds
These eight little squares in the corners and middles of the box are called handles
Incidentally the Cloud Filter will sometimes render darker clouds and other times and more ideally lighter clouds if this happens simply make sure you have the Cloud Layer active and press Command/Control I to invert the clouds.
Alternatively goto and Click on the Image Menu then, come down to Adjustments and choose Invert from the fly out menu
Here’s the inverted clouds
Next still with the Clouds Layer active chance the Blend Mode from Normal to Soft light
If the effect is too strong then change the Opacity to 50% by simply Clicking on the 100% to highlight it and type 50 or Click the down-arrow and move the slider until it reads 50% more or less your choice
Finished
Use Transform and Perspective on the Clouds Layer for added effect although, I’ve used Photoshop these tips and techniques can easily be adapted for any image editor of your choice
Apologies for the delay hope this helps
Andy
Andy, that’s a very comprehensive explanation, so thank you. I guess I can reproduce the masks you have in Photoshop with Affinity Photo 2 (yes, I am a bit of a photo software junkie!).
Cheers
Mike
