Topaz Photo AI v1.0.0

Anyone else seeing EXIF data wiped out? Canon EOS90D, CR3 files. Opened file directly in PAI, processed with default settings for noise and sharpen, saved as DNG. Same thing if saved as TIFF.

MacOS Monterey (12.5.1), MacBook Pro (M1)

Is that why itā€™s gotten so slow?? Even if we switch to manual settings in PAIā€¦

Plus, I canā€™t use Sharpening at all. Even when Sharpening is needed. Because a single, incremental digit increase in sharpening looks like Iā€™ve cranked the sharpening up by a factor of 50 or more. I get harsh black lines surrounded by wavy, hardish-edged white lines (eg, the contrast is set to be way way too much to ā€˜fakeā€™ or give the perception of sharpening). My photos look instead like illustrations. A guy who posted a pic of a truck, above, had the same happen to his image (though I donā€™t know if he realizes itā€¦).

The denoising & sharpening need to apply much more incrementally across the entire spectrum of their respective sliders! I would still much prefer a slider start point of 0.0 in the center of the slider bar (especially if too tough to spread sharpening/denoising across a full sliderā€™s length) and be able pull rt to increase the desired function & left to lessen it (ie, reduce contrast/sharpness, add noise). That would be killer coupled with manual Brush Masking!

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Do you have AMD or Intel CPU?

It seems that Auto Pilot is what holds up everything upon loading an image. Without it active, the user could immediately decide which module is needed/wanted and get right to work, since ā€œThe Big 3ā€ are already included in one app.

I only use PAI on the M1 MacBook Pro, and even there it is unusually slow. Iā€™ve given up using any Mac with an Intel processor for this. I also tried an older i7 PC build with dedicated GPU (which is usually pretty fast) and it too struggled with PAI.

As for the sharpening halos, especially when combined with denoising ā€“ I called that out very early in the beta process.

The good news is, Topaz devs always keep improving the apps so we just need to hang in there :wink:

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Hi - can you please send me the original image through Dropbox? Thank you.

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Intel CPU ( i7-12700K), Windows 11 Pro.
But I just heard back from Topaz Support: they suggested that the problem might be related to a custom color profile (which I indeed have set due to calibrating my display). Without the custom color profile (or when using one of the Windows standard one), Photo AI loads the image file and processes it ok.
Note that the same custom color profile does not cause any problems for Sharpen, Denoise and Gigapixelā€¦

Thanks for that info. I too have my EIZO display calibrated and use a dedicated color profile. Can you tell me exactly what you did to get Photo AI working for you?
thanks

Holy moly, it really works!
I disabled default color profile (created through calibration) in color management and everything works. Both standalone and Ps plug-in perform as intended.

My biggest gripe, still, is that I donā€™t want my color management to be off. So, for quick testing with Photo AI it might work just fine to get the flavor of whatā€™s available in it but I do not want to sacrifice my color management especially that itā€™s a non-issue with Denoise, Sharpen or Gigapixel AI.

Anyway, for those experiencing similar issues go and switch off your color management. As simple as that.

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Thanks to the Topaz Labs team for their hard work on this first release of Photo AI. Iā€™ve tested it for a couple days now and find some intriguing behavior. Iā€™m using high resolution raw files from a Canon 5DSR. Fwiw, Iā€™m working on a Dell Precision 5550 portable workstation running Windows 11.

The autopilot does not do a good job, alas. For example, on a raw file with lots of fine details of aspen trees in a landscape, it sets the Remove Noise level far too high, destroying most fine detail. I therefore turned all the sliders off and started experimenting manually. Alas, even putting the Remove Noise slider at 1 destroyed far too much fine detail. Itā€™s as if Iā€™d want another 25 to 50 steps between what is now 0 and 1 on the Remove Noise slider. Now to the more interesting partā€¦ I turned the Remove Noise slider back to 0 and then turned the Sharpen slider from 0 to 1. Not only did the image sharpen nicely, but a ton of noise disappeared. I tested this on other images and confirmed the same behavior. The output seems excellent, but itā€™s startling to find the Sharpen slider removing noise at the same time. Is this an intended behavior? As with the Remove Noise slider Iā€™d want way more fine tuning from the Sharpen slider. Iā€™d again want about 25 to 50 additional steps between what is now 0 and 1 on the Sharpen slider. Itā€™s just a blunt force as it now stands.

I can see where this app can go, and it makes sense and looks super promising. I look forward to watching this grow and improve. Thanks again for all your hard work at Topaz Labs!

Even though QT was kept nicely up-to-date, other dependencies like OpenSS, DirectML, CUDA, OpenCV were not.
Next to that a dev build was used of OpenVINO, which might not be a good decision for a first major version (since it is considered to be bad practice).

Keeping these heavy libraries up-to-date will have a big impact on the performance and stability.

Well maybe itā€™s time for a new product line ā€œDesharp AIā€ for oversharpened images :grin:

Iā€™m laughing but this could be useful to recover a natural look without losing details of images that have been oversharpened.

Gaussian Blur/Darken blending method can work well but only to a certain point. In fact I suggest to use this as a pre-process before using Photo AI on images that already look well sharp.

This is why I would have dreamed that Photo AI would be instead a Topaz Studio V3 with the traditional image editing tools and implementation of the AI tools (Denoise, Sharpen, Gigapixel, Mask) where the user could process an image using the filters he wants in a specific order he has chosen.

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See, there you go! I try to be forward thinking!!! :wink:

Just not another separate productā€¦

So many posters have commented on how they donā€™t want Autopilot ā€œhelpingā€ too much by sharpening everything. I could definitely envision the value of either selectively softening parts of an image for a bit of faux bokeh or undoing the sharpening done by A.P. where itā€™s not desired (though real masking could take one back to starting level, but not beyond it if using a cheapie lens)ā€¦

Ditto for lessening noise reduction! Some amt of noise (in shadows particularly) can help viewers perceive details (or produce a more old-timey look to a contemporary photo).

Ergot (thatā€™s a snail, right? :snail:), both a more noise & less sharpening direction to a slider can serve such purposes. And, alas, should also fit with a pre-processing vs post-processing (aka, creative) software product IMOā€¦ I rest my case. :clinking_glasses: :slightly_smiling_face:

[BTW, a DeSharp product to undo the over-sharpening done by PAI A.P. seems like genius mktg!!! Itā€™s the s/w tech counterpoint to buying razors then having to buy tons of blades as an aftermarket purch. Only to discover theyā€™ve discontinued the style of blade needed for the razor handle you ownā€¦]

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who has iphone 14 pro max? pls attach how topaz processing huge dng file

I love what it does. It is nothing short of amazing. I am seeing an issue with multiple .cr3 VR180 8191x5463 RAW image files making it crash repeatedly.

Hi, Iā€™d like to add my voice to the request for a selection brush to refine the subject. It is difficult sometimes to get the subject selected using the present tools. I would also like the ability to invert the mask, for example to add noise reduction just to the sky.

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Still unable to use Photo AI as a Photoshop plug-in, at the moment using it from ACR. I wish the Sharpen AI refine option in PAI has the same options of the stand alone Sharpen AI, as refine option in PAI is as good as useless.

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Need dehaze as well.

I get crashes on windows (laptop with Xe graphics and i7) when turning knobs on/off before the software has had time to reprocess everything.

The results are really really good. But - the App is very unstable. I have a lot of crashes and hang ups.

My PNGā€™s are saved as 8 bit? Is there any way to save them as
16 bit PNGā€™s?
Thanks.

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