I’ve noticed in ALL Topaz products, sharpening of small details, especially letters and numbers, in a photograph is absolutely terrible. This has been a pervasive issue with every Topaz program I’ve used so far. Generally a readable set of small letters and/or numbers are rendered UNREADABLE when the program “sharpens” them. Because of this, I’ve tried (unsuccessfully) to use the brush tool with the “Refinement Brush” selected in the “subtract” mode to undo the Topaz effects on small numbers and letters. I click on the “apply” button and…no change. The sharpening over the selected “subtract” areas still happens. End result; the refinement brush has no effect AT ALL! I end up having to take the image into photoshop to correct what the Topaz program screws up. Both the sharpening issue with small numbers and letters and the non-functioning refinement brush should be addressed.
Additional info: Started with Topaz in Windows 7.
Currently using the latest versions of Topaz on a Windows 10 PC. The issues I’ve encountered have not changed. The software still can not resolve small letters and numbers during the sharpening process and there appears to be no way to exclude select areas of a photograph from the software’s processing…i.e.the refinement brush doesn’t work.
The “Ideas” section as opposed to … what? If I’m posting in the “Ideas Section” it’s only because trying to figure out how to get constructive feedback to Topaz has been essentially impossible. This was the only avenue I could find after an hour of searching that offered any place to even comment. The Topaz family of software has a glaring deficiency. It can’t sharpen small sized numbers and letters without distorting them into indistinguishable scribble. It’s a real issue and it’s been a problem with Topaz since I started using it several years ago. Supposedly, the software allows you to exclude specified areas from Topaz processing using the Refinement Brush but that brush is essentially non-functional. That’s the issue I was bringing up. As for “what idea or new functionality” am I proposing? Just this…fix the problem!
From there you can also raise a support request … note that the response takes about 8 business days through that channel. Support usually answer on this Forum (Bugs and Issues) within 2 business days.
For fine details such as text you will want to use this AI filter which we released last month.
AI that does generative processing such as upscaling and sharpen are known to alter text and numbers, which is why we created the Preserve Text filter to fix that exact issue.
The Refinement Brush for Subject Selection currently affects Sharpen only.
I’m using the latest version of the Photo AI software.
If I want’ to engage the denoise and sharpen functions in Photo AI and I want to preserve small letters and numbers in their most readable form, the only option that works for me is to take the Topaz rendered image into photoshop and clone in the small letters/numbers in question from the original, unaltered image. Depending on the image(s), that process can become quite tedious.
BTW, your dedicated programs Denoise AI 3.7.2, Sharpen 4.1.0 and Gigapixel 6.3.3 can’t handle Nikon RAW files from Nikon’s latest mirrorless cameras. Nikon did something to alter their RAW file format when they went mirrorless. I never had an issue with Nikon’s NEF files out of their DSLRs. For some reason their latest NEF (RAW) files can’t be rendered by your software, other than Photo A.I. Bottom line: Denoise, Sharpen and Gigapixel programs can not successfully render the Nikon’s newer NEF files. Is this something Topaz intends to fix or are the dedicated Denoise, Sharpen and Gigapixel programs no longer being updated? If that’s the case, that would be unfortunate. Your Photo AI program is currently a “jack of all trades” but master of none. While it performs the functions of denoise, gigapixel and sharpen adequately, it doesn’t yet perform any of those functions as well as your individual dedicated programs do.
Yes that makes sense. The Preserve Text filter was built specifically for these issues so I highly encourage you try it and see what the results are like.
Topaz Photo AI is the only application we have that currently supports the Nikon HE* compression files. We will not be updating the individual applications with HE* file support.
We are looking to improve Topaz Photo AI to get comparable or better results compared to the individual applications. I’m curious what the difference is results is.
Do you have a comparison and some feedback about how DeNoise AI results are better than Topaz Photo AI for example?
