Interesting. I’d be interested in looking at it myself. Could you kindly upload your original files to Dropbox or such, to see if your results can be duplicated?
I am not sure where you are going with this as the focus point is the background left, it isn’t an out of focus image, and it is so highly compressed there is very little chance of sharpening the face.
I would raise a support request as this type of image was not what Sharpen AI was designed for. You are trying to reconstruct a face and not sharpening the image.
If you feel it is broken … raise a support request as this is a user to user forum where staff for Topaz occasionally visit.
That looks really pretty good considering what you had to start with.
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I just simply reduce the resolution by half in Faststone. 
Then use Sharpen AI, Stabilize, Max. Sharpness ? with CPU.
Finally use Gigapixel AI, Normal 2x, Max. Sharpness to restore the resolution with CPU.
I just played around it for a few seconds for fun. 
So I can’t remember all the values I used.
I usually start with the Auto setting first, if I found it is not sharp enough, I will set to Max. sharpness. If the result is too rough, I reduce the sharpness to somewhere between Auto & Max.
I just tried your steps and got a mostly soft and blurry face like the original.
So no matter what I do I can’t get this Detecting Objects dialogue to go away. It pops up 2 seconds after I click the Mask button (i dont click anything else) and it just stays there. If i press cancel it doesnt do anything. Happens with every image. I have to use task manager to force close sharpen AI. I dont see any options in there to turn off auto detect and I’ve uninstalled sharpen ai several times. I’ve also tried deleting any folders I could find associated with it as well. For example in my user appdata folder and the installation folder. I can’t seem to find anything about this issue on the forums.
Also I notice my CPU is hovering around 15% usage when this happens as well. And it stays that way until i force close the program
You have Find Objects active, click on it to turn it off.
When I open the mask tool, find objects is not highlighted, and this detecting objects still pops up and gets locked. If I click the find objects button it turns to a highlighted icon but the detecting objects dialogue is still froze at 2%. This happens with portrait shots with people as well it. If I click remove mask while that dialogue is up, it closes the mask menu but the dialogue stays on screen and ihave to force close.
Ok I changed my gpu to OpenVino and then clicked mask and for some reason this cleared the error. I was even able to switch back to my rtx 3080 without problems. So strange
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You need to use the mask tool and only sharpen the colt. The background is out of focus and needs to stay that way.
Of course, that’s an option. But the other modes don’t show this kind of behaviour. Additionally, when zoomed in it is too easy to miss such artefacts (although this is extreme)…
IMHO, this does not sound like a workable approach unless he makes a really precise mask. Otherwise, say, he wants also to decrease noise, and as the result will have different noise in masked/processed and not processed areas. Taking it simple, the program produced an artifact in the area where it definitely was not expected. Well… The AI is not as good as the real I.
I’m really a bit frustrated that there seems no attempt to rectify the halo problem of SharpenAI 3.0.3 when using a GPU. I use a Nvidia Geforce GTX 1050Ti with 4 GB RAM, a very normal and common type of GPU IMO. After trying everything I now switched as a last resort from the Nvidia Game Ready driver to the Nvidia Studio driver (latest version of course, 462.31 dated April 14th), but again I get those horrid halos when I use SharpenAI 3.0.3.
I uploaded a sample of a pic treated with both versions here: Topaz - photosan
From left to right you can see here: a) original file, b) SharpenAI 2.4.2, stabilize, extra NR, auto values, c) SharpenAI 3.0.3, stabilize, extra noisy, auto values, GPU used, d) same as c) but CPU used.
You can clearly see the huge halo that is introduced with the GPU rendering. Problem is that 2.4.2 runs considerably faster in CPU mode than 3.0.3 does, so it’s not really an alternative for me. Is there any fix under way for this GPU induced halo problem?
Its a bit exhausting to switch back and forth between the old and new version for another tryout, and I have not found a method to install both versions at the same time with both working.
My understanding is that the online installers typically are a faster install than the full installers b/c you have less to download.
If I’m wrong, someone else pls amend this …
The bug continues :
- Base picture in 16 bits, tiff, ProPhoto.
- apply random setting, save, while keeping tiff 16 bit (set specifically when saving), Prophoto.
- Saved in jpg.
This behavior seems random.
