Is JPEG to Raw AI officially abandoned?

[ilikescience1]

Many users, including myself in communication with customer support via email, have noted that JPEG to Raw AI produces vertical stripes in images. This in effect makes the software unusable.

For example…

JPEG to RAW Streaky Vertical Artifacts

Hi all. I’m having issues with JPEG to RAW and I’m surprised that I’m not seeing any mention of the issue here. I’ve been experiencing this since at least July. Many of my DNG files produced by JPEG to RAW AI have vertical, streaky lines of red and blue. And while I appreciate the improved contrast, color, and reduction of JPEG artifacts, the new artifacts that are being introduced ruin the images and make them pretty much unusable. Most of the other AI apps have had several updates, but JPEG …

Jpeg to RAW / vertical line artifacts

I bought Jpeg to RAW recently and I found the better the Jpeg input the worse is the outcome. Really poor quality files gain from the procedure. But when I try to enhance good quality jpegs to RAW file the AI produce strange vertical lines. These outcome is not usable. Screenshot: left original | right output from Jpeg to RAW Any suggestions? [11]

Topaz JPEG to RAW AI produces unusable results

Here is a sharpened crop of results JPEG to RAW AI auto setting produces - see the vertical streaking? That certainly wasn’t present in the jpeg. I also tried manual settings with sliders at 0 and 1. The artifacts are still there. Also tried a few other images. I’m so unimpressed. I couldn’t trial this product because I guess I downloaded and trialed it before (I think I was unimpressed then too - I admittedly didn’t put it through its paces at that time) so I trusted Topaz’s description of it…

Topaz JPEG to RAW AI 2.2.1 Bug

I send the attached file, but there are vertical stripes like rain. I ran it several times, but I hope you improve this symptom. [Screen_Shot_2020-08-26_at_%EC%98%A4%ED%9B%84_6_31_37] [28_AK5I2773]

JPEG to RAW doesn't fix my image

Hi, I’ve just bought JPEG to RAW 2.2.1 since I tried the trial version an year ago and it worked extremely well on removing JPEG compression artifacts. However, I was puzzled to see that now it doesn’t seem to remove the JPEG artifacts in on of the images I need cleaned. Please see attached the image I’m trying to get rid of compression artifacts. I tried all slider settings and combinations. Any help is greatly appreciated. [2OR%20OCE%209018%20LP] Another thing I noticed is that it also does…

The suggestion offered to try disabling GPU mode doesn’t work, as others have noted.

Even currently the product page for JPEG to Raw AI states,

We’re continually training our JPEG to RAW conversion model with more data, which makes it better the more time passes. You’ll get the latest and greatest when the model improves.

Yet, there has been no update in well over a year. I believe I paid for this product as part of a bundle of four programs (the Utility bundle), but seeing as it has never been fixed, I suspect that it’s abandoned. Topaz – is a partial refund available if that is the case? If it’s not an abandoned project, will those who purchased it be allowed to upgrade for free even if the upgrade license has expired?

[AiDon]

@ilikescience1

If it’s not an abandoned project, will those who purchased it be allowed to upgrade for free even if the upgrade license has expired?

There is no upgrade license for JPEG to RAW and there has been no announcement regarding abandoning the product. Also you are not going to get an answer here as it is a user to user forum.

Note that not all users get vertical stripes in their images after being processed in JPEG to RAW. The details under the Help-> Graphics info. can help in finding a cause as the logs can. It is recommended that you press the Copy button on that dialog and post the results when raising a thread like this.

You also have the option to save as TIF not DNG on the output panel. Also, in the meantime, you can use Sharpen, DeNoise and GigaPixel to produce DNG files if you are finding JPEG to RAW produces compression or vertical artifacts. Artifacting is also a condition caused by the quality of the input image.

[zelenooki87 (Milan K.)]

try to use models from version 2.2.0 with 2.2.1 version jpeg 2 raw ai. it worked for me perfectly. models from 2.2.1 seems broken. just rename names accordingly if need

[ilikescience1]

@zelenooki87 How do I obtain the models from 2.2.0 and port them to 2.2.1?

[ilikescience1]

Ah, I was thinking of the affinity photo forums where the developers and tech support interact on the forums.

I’m aware I can feed jpegs to denoise/sharpen and produce a tiff or dng as output, but from what I understand JPEG to RAW AI has features geared towrds highlight & shadow recovery, and purports to increase the color from the sRGB gamut to ProPhoto as well as expand to 16 bit. The former feature I imagine is just re-encoding via an ICC profile conversion, but I’m not sure if the 16 bit is just re-encoding 8-bit data by padding or if values are interpolated. So maybe there’s no benefit here, but at the very least the features targetting highlight recovery, shadow detail recovery, and smoothing compression artifacts are of interest to me.

[WachauPhoto]

Is there any news on JPEG to RAW? The software becomes increasingly hard to use, since the Apple hardware transition. Currently, I keep an old Mac not updated, just to run the software when I need it. I would really like to have some kind of information on that topic.

[AiDon]

If you want that type of information you will need to raise a support request at the main website as this is a user to user forum.

[THX1965X]

Wow, it’s June 2022, the software is still available to download and hasn’t been updated in over 2 years. Problem is, I can’t even open it on my Big Sur running MacBook Pro (not even the latest macOS). I will write tech support. This is more than strange and not what I am used to seeing from Topaz Labs.