General question about Photo AI

Topaz Photo AI General
1

I am looking to get Topaz and have demoed the AI Sharpening tool. My question is… does Photo AI replace AI Sharpening? Does it offer the same level of function? I know it does a lot more than just sharpen, but does it offer the same sharpening features that the standalone app does? And can it be used to batch a large amount of photos at once like Sharpening does.

I have always been confused between sharpening and de noising. the De Noise app also sharpens. So does one need both apps when one app does both tasks?

I notice that Photo AI has been getting a lot of updates lately, while the other apps have not been.

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It is a moot point whether Topaz will continue to support SAI and DNAI in future. I suggest you download a demo of TPAI and give it a whirl. The latest version has the option to restore the legacy sharpening features that have separate lens blur and motion blur sliders. Many think this better than the newer algorithm. PAI gets an update on a weekly basis, whereas the other two haven’t had one for months! I myself would be loath to pay for them without the knowledge that support will continue.

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I tried PAI, but unless I am missing something, I cannot find a way to batch my changes. Mostly if I want to sharpen, in SAI I could either set the sharpening to auto or manual and then have it cycle through 1000 photos at once. With PAI, while I can load multiple photos., I cannot seem to figure out how to batch the settings from one photo to all of them like in SAI. I seem to be only able to select one photo at a time, do what I need and then go to the next. Then save at the end. Not really usable when I want to batch 100s or 1000s of photos at a time.

Or is there a way and I have not figure it out?

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Try right clicking the image and choose Apply → Current Settings to All.

CleanShot 2023-04-21 at 17.41.57@2x

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I managed to find it and am currently playing around with it. Just a few thoughts so far…

1 - Coming from SAI, it seems to be slower to process the images. with my 5DIV files, on SAI it would take between 4-6 seconds per photo to sharpen. With PAI it seems to take between 10-12 seconds. I disabled pretty much everything except the sharpening. I don’t want to automatically upscale the images, and i don’t want it to detect faces etc.

2- With custom save folders, The display of the folder in the dialogue box is truncated so I only see part of it. So when I come to add more photos to the folder i want to confirm the folder is correct, so I click on the browse, but it defaults to the windows pictures folder, not the last folder used. SAI would only do that if the last used save folder no longer exists. If the folder exists, then it should automatically go back to that folder

As you can see from the screen cap below, sure it says ewfoundland, which I know means Newfoundland. But the whole folder is d:\photography\edited\2022.06.20 (Newfoundland). I cannot see that from the image. This is fine, but if I click on location to change location, the dialogue box that comes up should bring me back to that folder (unless it no longer exists). It is a pain to have to go find the folder all the time. I never use the windows picture folder, so I always have to go pick my folder. It just makes it a longer process compared to SAI.

image

3- Still waiting on a verdict on this… with SAI, and the latest drivers for my video card, if i used automatic sharpening, the program would crash after about 800ish pictures. Without fail. All the time. If i chose manual processing and have all the photos sharpened with the same settings, it would work for thousands and never crash. So I am hoping that PAI will have solved that particular problem.

4- During the save process, it does not have a counter like SAI does. ie… picture 4 of 1000 or whatever, so you know where you are in the process

5- SAI displayed how long each photo took to process, PAI does not do that. Not a big thing, but nice to see.

6- I believe SAI during the save process would display the sharpening settings used as the photo is processed. Would be nice to see that again.

Thanks

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Another thing i noticed…

If i go to preferences/Autopilot… If I have Subject detection enabled in any way, the AI will never sharpen. It will only do remove noise. No matter if the photo is in bright sunlight or star photography. It will only remove noise. If I set subject detection to none, then it will only Sharpen. it will never remove noise. I tried with photos in bright sun and doing star photography.