After invisible sliders this is my next biggest gripe. In Super Focus there is a box to move to the area a user wants ‘super focused’. Shape is not adjustable unfortunately. Before doing anything more a user has to back off the very aggressive ‘super focusing’. But when finished with the AI stuff, not only is the area a user wants ‘super focused’ enhanced, but the whole darn image develops weird patterns. For example in a bird image the bird gains the focus - good. But the background with, say, leaves has to be removed because of the weird patterns which develop. So why bother with the box if the whole image is going to be worked on? Perhaps it is still in Beta? To provide encouragement I should say that results are occasionally usable.
You know that you can set a mask with super focus defining on which part of the image it should be applied?
Hi.
Super Focus acts as an alternative solution for those stubborn and more difficult images that cannot be enhanced through Topaz Photo’s other sharpening models.
It is recommended by Topaz to try the other Sharpen options first, as it’s much faster and can be implemented in batch processing, whereas Super Focus cannot.
The Box you move around the Preview Area isn’t a Selection box it’s a box for the user to select an area they wish to preview before committing to the final Render which as you have already mentioned takes time and once the Render has finished then, you may make your selection either with one of the selection options Subject, Background, Portrait, Landscape, Sky or use one of the custom Brushes to make your own selections.
Here’s a link for more information about using Super Focus
Hope this helps
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Hi: Thanks for your effort. I’ve been doing everything right although I don’t see any post Render options such as Subject, Background, etc. I will have another look. But the real problem is that the preview looks reasonable but the finished render is weird and ghastly! I imagined that the preview would be at least similar to the finished render. I’ve tried pulling the effect back from the 50 to 10 or 15 without much improvement. But how do we stop the thing sharpening the whole image rather than just the subject?
Thanks
I am puzzled about super focus. We have a rectangle through which to preview the effect that super focus may have, and are advised - when we choose this filter - only to toggle off “Subject only” if we desire to improve focus for the whole image. Or words to that effect.
My confusion comes from the fact that I can’t see the toggle. I first looked at the control window for super focus; it’s admirably concise, and makes no mention of what is (or isn’t) to be focused. Then I checked the preferences. Again, no mention of super focus by name. Now my prefs for Photo and Photo AI do have a sharpening (I took this to be for all sharpening modes) preference of “Subject”.
Is this toggle applied to Super Focus as well, and if so, are we to use Sharpen’s subject editing tools to define what Super Focus processes?
I must admit that the ‘instructions’ are a bit/very vague. Where is this ability to select, say, Subject in Super Focus. It would be very useful if the rectangle actually allowed a user to select the Super Focus area. Additionally, it would be good if the result kinda, vaguely matched the preview. It doesn’t! I will give TopazLab the benefit of the doubt seeing as they have just abstracted the annual dues on my credit card. And people complain about the cost of Adobe subscription! Topaz isn’t a lot different now! The day that Adobe gets decent sharpening and noise reduction, it is goodbye TopazLab. Well, based on current behaviour!
Post Selection:
Once the full Render has finished on your computer you then need to click again on the Super Focus Tab/Layer then you’ll be able to choose the Selection options from the drop-down window
Preview Box vs Full Render:
The last I heard Topaz were investigating this issue sorry I don’t know anymore then that
Hope this helps
Thank you And-E. And thanks to you I finally see how Super Focus works! And it works very well. But, my goodness, it does need some work as none of this is obvious. Who would think of adjusting output after the generation. I now wonder if processing would be faster if a user could select the subject before the rendering. Anyway, much happier and don’t feel quite so bad about giving TopazLab money for another year!
Thanks
Donald
Hi Mike.
Super Focus v1 works slightly differently in Topaz Photo AI then, it does in Topaz Photo
The only difference is in Topaz Photo AI you can choose a selection before and after Rendering the image however, it doesn’t make any difference as the whole Image is Rendered regardless of your selection and that’s why you can’t do this with Topaz Photo.
Super Focus v2 works the same in both applications with smaller images you can either Render your image on the computer or in the Cloud no Preview and with larger images you have the ability for previewing the image with the option of a small, medium or large preview box again the whole Image is Rendered either on your computer or in the Cloud
If, you want to make a selection of a particular area you can do this by re clicking on Super Focus Layer/Tab and select either one of the selection presets or using one of the selection brushes and painting a custom selection yourself.
You won’t find any options within Preferences for Super Focus in either application.
Here’s some information about Super Focus from Topaz
Hope this helps
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If I understand, Super Focus in Topaz Photo is going to try and sharpen the whole image whatever action I take or fail to take.
So are you saying that the Tip part of the pop-up message that appears when I mouse over the words “Super focus” is misleading/redundant/a bug? Regrettably, I am not Windows techie enough to provide a screenshot.
You need to read the responses. After Rendering you then go back to the right hand panel and Select Super Focus again. There you will see a box with “All” in it. There is a down arrow, click on it and you are presented with several choices. One is ‘Subject” click on it and Lo and Behold, Super Focus doesn’t touch the background. It is remarkably unintuitive and TopazLab needs to fix it. Probably if you could select the subject before rendering it could speed up processing. See previous posts!
Interesting I can only say it’s a redundant message and is referring to previous versions where we had the ability to select the subject before Rendering.
Here’s the official information on Super Focus Selection
The Selection panel will be available once the render is made. The Super Focus AI model is designed to render the whole image, and will allow you to tweak your selection once the render done. You will not need to reprocess when you customize and tweak the affected area in the Selection panel. Once Selection options are applied, the in-app preview and file output will only apply to these affected areas.
Here’s some information about Super Focus Selections
The Selection panel will be available once the render is made. The Super Focus AI model is designed to render the whole image, and will allow you to tweak your selection once the render done. You will not need to reprocess when you customize and tweak the affected area in the Selection panel. Once Selection options are applied, the in-app preview and file output will only apply to these affected areas.
Hello. I like the Superfocus option, but I’d like to suggest a change.
I take some of my photos at F2.8, which will give a clean focus on a person but throw the background out of focus, thereby making the subject of the photo “pop”. When I use Superfocus, it tries to focus the people in the background, which looks horrible since they are way way out of focus by design. F2.8 with a telephoto has a very narrow focal plane, so being slightly out of focus on a moving subject is not unusual. If you could add an option that lets me pick what/who to focus, that would be great.
You can already do this, once Super Focus processed you will see the option to do Custom or Subject Selection. You can refine this selection without the need to reprocess. Then you can export or continue editing. I can add this as a feature request to see about forcing Subject to be selected by default.
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Thanks! That worked, it wasn’t obvious to me that I could do that.
I think it’s less important to change the default and more important to make it clear to users (i.e., in the UI) that they can change this (subject/background/custom/etc.) after the SF render.
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thanks! I’ve relayed to the development team to add a mention!
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Superfocus is the only (unless I just missed on) filter that uses 2 steps of windows. With everything else, you get a popup and complete all options on the same screen. With SF, you get a preview screen with a render button and after you run SF you get another window with all of the options. That makes for this (and related) questions popping up here frequently, especially with first-time users.
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I agree. relayed to dev!
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