I’m a Sharpen owner, and tried a demo of 5.8.0 Giga. It works standalone, but from Lightroom CC it fails to Apply by saying “The File is Locked”.
I decided to give this demo a try, it seems that it’s quicker but theres definitely some bugs if you don’t have the option “allowing model downloading,” there are artifacts in square blocks as mentioned above by another person. In addition the results from version 5.7.3 seems to be a bit more detailed & sharper than version 5.8. The texture makes everything looks very smooth on 5.8 which could be a good but bad in some scenarios, I personally think version 5.7 is better overall even though it’s slower than the new one.
3 Likes
allow model download.
I get intermittent flickering when I move the cursor over an image in split view.
Mac mini M1 Os Monterey
Still occasionally hangs for me on M1 Mac when processing a folder of ~100 images. After completing about 40 images it just sits on “Processing” on an image. If I close the app and try that single image it works fine, so it’s not the image that is the problem.
Memory and CPU appear to be unstressed when it sits in this “Processing” state.
To begin with, the term “fast” models was not invented by me. This is very common in user messages.
I am not a native English speaker, so there may be distortions of concepts introduced by the translator.
“Fast” models, as I understood after reading the forum topics, are, in my understanding, models optimized for faster image processing on my PC. They are smaller also.
These models are not included in the installation package and are downloaded automatically as needed if the model download function is activated.
If this specified function is not activated, then the models included in the installer package are used.
At least I could verify this by working with previous versions of Gigapixel.
I should clarify that with my computer configuration, I have always obtained the highest quality image processing result using the “CPU” processing mode only. Using the “GPU” mode significantly reduced the detail in the output image. At least with my RTX 3080Ti.
Working in the mode described above, I used Gigapixel version 5.6.1 (Best results for me) with the model loading function disabled. Moreover, I could start working immediately after completing the installation process without downloading any optimized (fast) models.
That is, “OUT OF THE BOX”.
Once, while working in the “CPU” mode, I accidentally turned on the model loading function, after which the main model that I used was automatically replaced with a newer and smaller one. I immediately noticed that the processing quality has become much worse than it was with the previous model. I was forced to reinstall the program and disable loading models.
I repeat, the latest version of Gigapixel 5.8.0 could not work “OUT OF THE BOX” without loading models in any way. At least in my configuration.
One way or another, but I had to turn on the loading of models and the program works without failures.
Now I am comparing the results of image processing with the new version of Gigapixel with the results of processing the same images with the older versions of the program.
Regarding the processing speed, in my humble opinion it is more in demand in VEAI than in Gigapixel.
At least many forum users in previous posts dedicated to older versions of Gigapixel spoke in favor of higher processing quality, instead of increasing processing speed.
2 Likes
Finally GPU almost matches CPU for at least 10x faster with my RTX3090.
This is maybe the best version so far. I’ve just noticed that the final output is slighter brighter than the original. This can lead to clip some highlights in images where there are already pushed to the limit.
In the days of film photography, the question of “speed or quality” could not arise in principle.
The photographer was limited to 36 or 24 frames of film and could not afford defective frames.
The development of technology has made high-speed SLR cameras, and then mirrorless cameras, available to a wide range of people.
Now it is enough for a model in a photo studio to wrap around herself once and a photo shoot of fifty photos is ready.
It is not surprising that hundreds of photos require post-processing and correction of defects.
Demand determines supply.
And there are tons of offers. But in fact, none of them can do more than a standard RAW editor.
That is, the developers of these programs cannot offer anything better, even if they want to.
With Gigapixel and with the Topaz package as a whole, the situation is completely different.
Topaz developers can offer the highest quality of photo and video processing that is not available to other programs,
but for marketing or other reasons, they sometimes choose speed at the expense of quality. And it’s upsetting.
2 Likes
Conducted tests, evaluated the speed of work and the quality of processing.
Great job!
Many thanks to the developers!
Forgive the old man his grumbling 
1 Like
I updated Gigapixel and idk if it’s supposed to happen but it’s been on the “deleting rollback history” for quite some time now
nvm it just finished
I’ve been batch converting HEIC and JPG files to DNG with v5.8.0 on macOS (2021 MacBook Pro, M1 Max, 64 GB), and it crashes a lot, even if I drastically reduce the number of files. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, but no luck. Sent Crash Report, System Report, and screenshot to TopazLabs Support. Here’s hoping a future update improves the stability.
Hi there, I thought I’d give it a go, but I am unable to replicate your issue. I was able to convert about 130 low res JPGs to DNG without a crash. I was upscaling to 2200px vertical (ranging from about x2.5 to over x3.5) and using auto. I am sure this is not like for like, but the processing was pretty quick even under Rosetta 2. I went off to have a light breakfast and it was all done by the time I got back to my M1 Mac Mini 16GB.
Are you running the JPGS and HEICs together? Maybe the latter is the problem.
The only issue I have discovered so far with this version is that the images flicker in the preview panel. Do you get that?
I have another question for you that is off topic a bit. Do you find converting from JPG to DNG offers many advantages? I’d always thought that, if the detail isn’t there in the first place, there is little point in doing so. Maybe I should look at the results in my test folder: these were all low res scans of colour slides from the 1980s. This is what I have been mainly using GPAI for and have generally found it does a remarkable job in improving the images. The last time I ran GPAI on that folder was in Nov 2020, so I don’t know what version it was. I think I will upscale JPG to JPG again and take a look to see the differences. Thanks for your input.
For me, I am missing the Save Image button - but get an apply button instead, which overwrites the original file. Anyone an idea how to change this back? In the settings, it don’t find the appropriate way to change it back…
Thank you.
Andri
Ooh, I got a trust promotion… images it is…
Why I went back to 5.4.5 (crops from larger image, 4x, GPU (RTX2060), model downloading allowed, use max quality models, memory usage medium, Auto settings, Reduce Colour Bleed, Face Refinement):
Note image details are at top of image (in case run into the above image)
Also note the front/bottom stubble on the latter two…
Any ideas how to get 5.8.0 close to 5.4.5 - I have many other images that are similar?
(Oh and lots of images were in the Zip I uploaded to the DropBox address given above, per my previous message.)
The original (769x1024) image is in this Twitter post:
twitter dot com /EilidhBarbour/status/1459520258772025344/photo/1
IMHO there’s lots of interesting things in the image:
Three faces
The Poppy pins/brooch (for remembrance day)
The sign on the far wall
The zip on the jumper
The stubble on the gentleman on the left’s face (which 5.8.0 falls off a cliff on)
The posters on the right wall
The hair
The eyes
The teeth, especially the lady in the middle (which you can over-do)
I don’t know if this is a bug, but when I batch converted a bunch of low-res JPGs and selected JPG for output, they all had severe JPG artefacts in them. When I re-processed and chose Preserve Original Format the result was fine
I converted a couple of random v low-res files to DNG and the result was decidedly “off”. Bringing down the highlights brought out the blue in the sky, and it was a lot smoother than the JPGs admittedly. But the result is very blocky in comparison. Of course, for other types of image, a JPG taken on a modern phone perhaps, you can achieve a better result.
I had that same issue of the Save Image button missing, with an Apply button that when chosen overwrote the original file. What I found worked, for me anyway, was to go to the File Menu and upload an image via Choose Images, instead of drag & drop. When I did this the Save button returned, and after my adjustments a separate file was saved with the adjustment parameters included in the name. Hope this helps!
I’ve used the new version for past few days. No problems. But this morning, it is crashing. Four times in a row. Strange. When I load one file, it is okay. But when loading over 100 jpg files, it sits there - cursor spinning, crash. I will reinstall. Not sure why the change today.
This is the reason why I reverted back to 5.7. The “allow downloading models” would just load a different render look onto the program and make everything look less detailed than in previous version. However it’s also about 10 times faster when loading the models though. I’m rocking a AMD 5950x and RTX 3080 in perspective. It’s a battle between quality vs. speed. In some scenarios, version 5.8 would be better because there are little differences between some images, but in lower quality images previous version would do a better job at creating a higher quality upscale.
