Sharpen AI vs. Sharpen Pro Adjustment vs. Detail In Studio

Topaz Products
1

I’m still fairly new to Topaz, and it was very confusing as a newcomer trying to understand the differences and interworkings of the Studio platform, Pro adjustments, Plug-ins, In Studio packs, etc.

I own both Detail In Studio and now Sharpen AI, both of which are sharpening tools. But I see there is also a separate “Sharpening” Pro Adjustment. So what does this Sharpening pro adjustment do that neither Detail In Studio (which is based on the “Precision Detail” Pro Adjustment) nor Sharpen AI already do, and do I really need it if already own the other two?

2 Likes
2

All very confusing to me as well and Topaz needs to Clarify and explain.

1 Like
3

I have been playing with Sharpen AI for the last day trying to understand what it can do better than the Sharpening Pro Adjustment. It seems overall the Sharpen mode and Focus mode in Sharpen AI give similar results although I guess Focus is more for pics that are a bit out of focus. The results of these two modes about equal the Sharpen Pro Adjustment - at least if you use the Lens Deblur mode. While I’m still testing this all out I have gotten Sharpen and Focus modes to give me me finer detail over what the Sharpen plugin will do. I don’t use Unsharp Mask as it creates more noise and can give some halos.

Stabilize mode seems to be the most different and it has worked well for me in saving pics where there was motion blur.

I have no experience with Detail. I’m getting the impression many of these plugins overlap a lot so I just pick/buy what I will really use and need.

1 Like
4

I’ve compared a few landscape images using both Sharpen AI and Detail. My images are typically quite sharp, shot on a tripod, ISO 100, with a Canon 5Dsr. I’ve been happy with Detail, typically using it as a layer in Photoshop and applying a mask to enhance only particular parts of the image. However, I have been very impressed with Sharpen AI so far. In particular, when viewing images as 50% or 100% on my monitor, the differences (improvement) in Sharpen AI over Detail become apparent. So far the results with Sharpen AI bring out detail that I didn’t know/think was present… and it does this in a natural way, no weird artifacts, very impressive so far. I haven’t tried a printing comparison yet… will do that soon.
Processing times are quite reasonable on my computer.

2 Likes