I don’t think it’s an sRGB color space issue:
The original out-of-cellphone photos are bright and colorful.
Once loaded into gigapixel for face recovery, it is dull and dim, all colors desaturated.
I processed 1 70 photos of an event taken by numerous attendees on different cellphones.
The color space exif tags include:
Untagged
Display P3
sRGB
sRGB IEC61966-2.1
It did not seem to matter. All photos rendered dim and desaturated.
(using i7 processor w 256gb ram and rtx3080)
Hi Roger,
Thanks for the details. Based on the info you provided, the issue likely stems from a mismatch between how the images are displayed in your editor (which may have custom color settings or monitor profiles) and how Gigapixel renders them in its own display environment. The way the images appear in the Gigapixel preview shouldn’t affect the final exported file.
You could try enabling the “sRGB fallback” option in Gigapixel’s preferences to see if it helps, but it might be better for us to take a closer look at some original image files. If you reach out to help@topazlabs.com, we can dive into the details of your setup and help pinpoint what might be causing this—whether it’s the monitor, the editor, or how Gigapixel interacts with your display.
Let us know if you’d like to send over some files, and we’ll take it from there!
I’m sending some original (out of camera ie out of cellphone) photos and the screenshots I took of the results of my using the beta Gigapixel. I’m not registered as a beta user as my license had expired on my purchased products, so I could not save from Gigapixel, but the on-screen rendered image was dark in all cases, as seen in the screenshots.
I tested various colorspace originals and went through the gigapixel settings carefully to see if there was an option to match or anything that I could find.
I love the gen2 face recovery, especially on “creative” in the low-res AI model, set to about 66% recovery. That would be heavy-handed for a normal quality photo taken with a real camera, but this was a collection of photos from an indoor event where various users took cell photos and submitted them, and the quality of most was very poor. Gigapixel did a pretty good job of recovering all except the most cartooned (from the cell phone’s noise reduction and sharpening algorithm) without making them look too artificial.
The reason I chose Gigapixel for this test was because of a two-year CONFUSION I have had, even as a licensee of the bundle of 5 tools, about what the purpose of Gigapixel is. The bundle included Photo AI which is advertised as doing exactly what each of the 3 specialty tools do. Thus, knowing the installation of any beta products blows away my licensed version (I had 6.3.3 of gigapixel), I opted not to try a beta of Photo AI and lose that tool, so I installed beta Gigapixel (since I never used it when I had an active license). To this day, I still don’t know why you included 3 “specialty” photo AI tools when you also describe Photo AI as having each of those features.
Roger
I provided details in my other reply. This is just a couple more examples.
Thanks!
BTW great job on the new face recovery.
Hey Roger,
Thanks for the detailed explanation and for sharing those screenshots and original photos. It sounds like you’re dealing with a preview issue in Gigapixel, but no need to worry—it likely won’t affect your final exports.
Go ahead and try enabling the sRGB fallback in Gigapixel’s preferences, which you can still do in the trial version. That might resolve the desaturation you’re seeing. If that doesn’t fix it, the issue could be related to how your monitor or system is handling color profiles.
As for the confusion with the tools—totally understandable. Photo AI is the all-in-one solution, while Gigapixel, DeNoise, and Sharpen AI give you more control over specific tasks, though there’s definitely some overlap.
It’s great to hear you’re getting solid results with face recovery in Gigapixel, especially on those lower-quality cellphone photos. Gen2 face recovery really does work wonders!
If the issue persists, feel free to reach out to support at help@topazlabs.com, and they’ll be able to assist further.
Best,
Good news and bad news.
Good news is the sRGB fallback fixes the desaturation problem. It works fine.
The bad news is i’m so frustrated I’m shaking. When I got the beta tool I scoured the settings and ensured I was up to date on the interface and I never saw anything that appeared to deal with colorspace selections.
I spent hours trying to make Gigapixel work so I could buy it and process the over 185 photos taken at the event. I disappointed a ton of people when I threw in the towel, as the desaturation ruined the results. I promptly entered the bug report.
The setting was there all along. Normally I’d blame myself, but I have a 4k 40" monitor and it appeared to me that all the settings were fully displayed on my screen in the small undersized settings box. I cannot believe that there’s a slightly light colored scroll bar to the right. You know of it so you can’t help but see it. But if you don’t expect the ridiculous underuse of space on the screen and assume all settings are displayed because there’s a ton of room on the screen to do so, you aren’t apt to notice it.
So it was buried below the fold. The scroll bar doesn’t stand out, and it’s arguably the most important setting !!
Far more important than whether gigapixel’s background is light or dark.
HOURS. I spent at least two hours reading about the different color spaces, trying to find some solution. I tried changing their colorspaces in Adobe Bridge and Lightroom since they do bulk processing. I’m fairly competent in camera raw, photoshop, illustrator, etc., as well as photo AI and video AI which I still have a valid license for (not up to date, but perpetual use of my version) and have never encountered this. I couldn’t make Gigapixel work.
And to know it was an easy but out of view fix all along is absolutely a gut kick.
R
Hey Roger,
I completely understand your frustration—honestly, that hidden scroll bar gets more people than you’d think. It’s one of those UI quirks that’s easy to overlook, especially when you’re expecting everything to be visible in such a large interface. I’m really sorry to hear it caused so much lost time and effort on your end.
I’m glad the sRGB fallback fixed the desaturation issue, but I get that it’s frustrating to learn it was just out of view the whole time. I’ve passed along your feedback about the settings layout. You’re right—critical options like that should be front and center, not tucked away. I’ll make sure the team is aware of how this affected your workflow, especially given your experience with Adobe tools and other Topaz products.
If you decide to give Gigapixel another shot or need any further assistance, just let me know. We’re here to help get you up and running smoothly.
Best,
