Topaz Photo AI v3.0.0

[dakota.wixom]

Hello,

We’re excited to announce the release of Topaz Photo AI version 3.0.0 today. Photo AI’s creative potential has been unlocked in this version, allowing the creation of your own workflows for the first time with presets, flexible ordering of enhancements, panel docking & collapsing, enabling RAW color and lighting adjustments, and a standardized Topaz UI across all of our applications.

You can grab the latest download through the in-app updater, or by directly downloading it using the links below:

---

v3.0.0
Released April 11th, 2024
Mac: Download
Windows: Download

---

Here’s a breakdown of what to look for in this update:

Presets

Save your commonly used filter combinations into a single stack, including the filter settings and selections. Presets will then appear in the enhancement menu so that you can reuse your favorite settings and selections across any of your photos with a single click. This will speed up the process of editing large batches of hundreds or thousands of photos at a time. You can also delete old presets by hovering over them in the enhancement menu.

Docking & Collapsing

You can now dock the floating control panel on the right side of the viewport for easy access, or undock it and move it to where you need on top of your working preview area.

The right panel is also now collapsible, making more space for viewing your image while editing. For maximum space, try undocking the control panel while in collapsible mode.

Reordering

You can now re-order and combine your enhancements in any order on the right panel, allowing you to more dynamically chain effects together. For example, you can now sharpen the entire image first before denoising the background and then sharpening again with just the subject. Changing the order of the filters will affect the way the output is processed, and this freedom will allow you to achieve results that otherwise were not possible within Photo AI.

RAW Balance Color & Adjust Lighting

On top of RAW Denoise, you are now able to adjust the color balance and lighting for RAW files inside Topaz Photo AI using our AI-based filters. This allows you to get the best quality possible out of your image straight from the camera and inside the application without having to make these adjustments in an external application even for RAW files.

Other Updates

On top of these exciting updates, both Face Recovery and Preserve Text can now be applied to the image multiple times, allowing you to control the strength of the effect on different subjects and areas of the image independently. We have also added other performance improvements and fixes under the hood. Take a look at the full changelog for more.

UI Refresh

Topaz Photo AI has been updated with a standardized Topaz UI framework, with new colors and icons coming to Topaz Labs apps for a unified, streamlined look.

What’s next

We much in store for Photo AI, including expansions to presets, editing and selection capabilities, improvements to the RAW workflow, more intelligent autopilot, even better sharpening, and more.

Stay tuned for more exciting updates.

Cheers,

Dakota Wixom
Product Manager, Topaz Labs

---

Changelog

• Refreshed user interface with Topaz UI style
• Implemented drag and reorder enhancements
• Implemented basic preset functionality
• Implemented docking and undocking feature
• Enabled Text Recovery to be added multiple times
• Enabled Face Recovery to be added multiple times
• Enabled Adjust lighting for RAW images
• Enabled Balance color for RAW images
• Fixed Adjust lighting crash on M3 with macOS 14.4 and above
• Fixed switching models on Denoise not updating the preview
• Fixed export output suffix not matching enhancements order
• Added preference for RAW Adjust lighting strength
• Added camera profile for Panasonic G9M2
• Added noise profile for Sony ILCE-6700

[golder-50350]

@jacob.muchow
Using Plugin Extras from LrC output is a TIFF not a DNG!!! When used as a standalone will be able to output as DNG. Is there something I can do to change the output to DNG? Am I missing something?
WIN10 Pro

[david.123]

Nice update, but I have to mention that the memory leak reported in 2.4.2 is still present when batch processing images:

Memory use before 1st batch:

After first batch (34 images):

After second batch (24 images):

Application performance starts to degrade noticeably after about 50 images.

Thanks

[michael-3397]

I need help with TPAI 3.0

I have 52 TIFF images that I’ve exported from a short video clip. I want to import them to TPAI and use the “Adjust lighting” function on each image. The goal is to export each of these adjusted images to a folder that I can then use as input to TVAI to reassemble a video from the adjusted images. If I can get this to work, I will process the entire video in this manner so each frame gets the ‘Adjust lighting’ treatment.

TPAI processes a few images, then hangs.

Here’s my workflow:

1.Settings>autopilot>turn off “automatically apply filters”
2. Import 52 images
3. Check “select all” - the entire row of preview thumbnails indicates all are selected
4. Click “add enhancements”
5. Click “adjust lighting” - first thumbnail and preview image indicates the enhancement has been applied
6.Close the adjust lighting flyout by clicking the ‘X’ in its upper right corner
7. Click “export 52 images”
8. Confirm export destination folder, format (TIFF), compression (none), bit depth (8)
9. Click “save”

Results:

Image 000000: marked “Complete”
Image 000001: marked “Skipped: no edits applied”
Image 000002: marked “Skipped: no edits applied”
Image 000003: marked “Complete”
Image 000004: marked “Processing” (and hung here for 25 minutes so far)

All other images are marked as “Queued”.

Am I missing something in getting TPAI to apply one single enhancement to a small batch of images?

[steven.b.meisel]

Many of us are happy with 2.3.2 and are uninterested in such features as lighting and color balance or stacking or ordering. We just want autopilot with an opportunity to tweak.

I am content sticking with version 2.3.2 but want assurances that the promised improvements to autopilot and sharpening will be enabled for that version.

If I am forced to upgrade to 3.0 or beyond in order to continue to get upgraded models, I will need to consider dumping Topaz and switch to DXO.

Can you assure us that the sharpening, denoising, and upscaling models will be updated regardless of the software version??

[cleuton.4k (cleuton)]

Why is the bar so wide? reduce the size

[jacob.muchow]

Thanks David! We’ll look

[jacob.muchow]

Thanks for the detailed steps Michael. We will look into this!

[jacob.muchow]

Autopilot upgrades with opportunities to tweak and customize workflows is something we’ll be working on soon! Very excited about that one. The filter ordering creates a strong foundation for this and many other exciting ideas for the future.

Model updates and other feature upgrades will be released along with minor and major version updates to the app. If your license is still valid (within 1 year of purchase date) when those are released, you should have access to those versions.

Appreciate the feedback!

[steven.b.meisel]

Thanks for the quick reply. But it really did not answer my question. I understand upgrades and other “enhancements” will be coming and that Topaz is very excited about that.

But, I am perfectly happy with 2.3.2. My question related to sharpening and denoising and upscaling models. As those are improved, will they be automatically applied to version 2.3.2? Or will I need to upgrade to the latest software version in order to have the most current models??

[michaelezra]

Denoise is still leaving large color blotchy artifacts that I reported earlier; This is easy to see on a very noisy image in smooth out of focus areas.

This works much better in Denoise AI.
When is this being planned to get fixed?

[firstzarathu]

I am using an M1Pro. I kept looking to upgrade because, while Topaz 2.4.2 was sort of moving along, now it’s like lightning. Exporting goes zip instead of waiting for a long line to move. When using the the brushes to change the subject or modify it, I no longer have to make the photo really small first. It movers along nicely. Command-Z has been added for easy "un-do”.

I have to get used to the menu changes, but I am delighted about the serious speed increase. It is now optimized for the Apple neural engine ----finally.

[michaelezra]

BUG: selecting a preset is ADDING preset content to the adjustments that were already present on the image. This could be useful, but should not be a default behavior when deleting a preset.
By default, applying a preset must REPLACE all adjustments with those from the preset.

It may be worth preserving the current behavior but when a Shift modifier key is used.

[michaelezra]

BUG: I reported this many times - please fix the camera matrix for Nikon Z8 camera. Currently TPAI renders incorrect colors were is a a very strong color shift.

[samb15]

Nice update… Overall, it is MUCH better. This is the first one that truly shows off the new UI as an improvement. On my Mac, this one is faster and smoother. Autopilot also seems to be better at doing the right things to more images.

I have not tried batch processing, so the memory leak has not been tested here.

Unfortunately, in both .jpg and raw, Preserve Text had little or no effect.

More observations will be coming later, after more pictures have been tested.

…Sam

[andymagee-52287]

Text Recovery, in terms of its effectiveness, is still not nearly what it used to be when this was first introduced. The new version introduced in Gigapixel this week is slow but it actually works to make text look like text again.

Also, I’m not sure I understand what the new Desktop Icon design is all about.

[michael-3397]

Forgot to give this info: MacBook Air M2, 24GB, 2TB, Ventura with all updates.

[leonardo.lacchini]

no new 2.4.x, so topaz left the broken version!
Very professional

My support contract has expired, I will not renew it now or ever

goodbye topaz you will never get my money again

[samb15]

In a direct comparison to 2.3.2, this version is just as quick, and Auto Pilot is as accurate. Except for text, the results are identical, for an image which did not the extra layers or selection capabilities of the version 3.0. This is a raw image, at fairly high ISO, after sunset in low-light conditions. This is excellent, because it means we get the advantages of multiple selections, presets, etc, without any loss of speed or quality for easier images.

It is on an M1 Mac, and no size change was done to the image.

The only place it falls short is text preservation…

Above is the original…

The text from 3.0 is slightly distorted, and Preserve Text makes absolutely no difference at all.

In 2.3.2, text preserved. It cannot be much better than original, but it is not degraded, weird or distracting from an overall image.

…Sam

[ducky124]

I just came here to report the same thing. I just tried a batch and it crashed after 64 images. It’s a shame a company care so little about releasing quality software. Topaz used to be good.

[plugsnpixels]

Another exciting Topaz release day, thanks! Let’s try it out. And BTW, I am going to point out a bunch of “stuff”, but the fact that I am taking all of this time to do so (yet again) shows my dedication and investment into what you are doing

andymagee-52287 mentioned the icon:

I think it’s very clever and slick. The juxtaposition of the pixel and camera (?) is close to the design of Gigapixel (a pixel and an enlarged pixel-?). It’s definite improvement upon the “underpants” icon from before

Note: The PAI 3 icon in my Mac Dock (Ventura) didn’t update after the in-app update until I launched PAI, maybe that’s normal:

I’m still offput by the version designation number by the GP and PAI app names; it looks like I have 3 messages from Topaz:

Anyway, let’s fire it up!

I drag an image from my Finder into the GUI (after first testing Load image, which is not just the button, but the entire interface is a “button”, as before).

The first thing I notice: The New Features presentation (which was not there a moment ago) now overlays my image:

I would have expected to see this information immediately upon first launch, not at this point where it is blocking my work.

Upscaling, which is “always processed last”, is the first thing to happen on its own, ha!

Notice also that the Upscale options are by default collapsed and hidden to the user – I would prefer they are presented open and ready for adjustment. So right here is my first “extra click”, assuming I wish to keep the autopilot-offered Upscale option at this point. It would be THREE more clicks if I wanted to remove it and choose another Enhancement…

No matter which direction I choose to go (keep Upscale or close it and try something else), part of my image is covered by the intrusive panel and I see the tons of wasted space, STILL!!! The open panel cannot be dragged into the wasted space (we used to be able to do that), only moved to block some different area of the image:

Balance Color always (in my experience) makes the image look worse, how about a basic generic Levels dialog instead? (Today I am using one of my AI renders as a test image.)

Good thing I also have Photoshop on hand!

Back to PAI:

Adjust Lighting is more useful but still not as much as Levels. I maxed it out here and got a good result, but have very little control overall (no shadows/highlights, etc.):

Now I will Upscale, where PAI and GP always shine:

The autopilot result:

And WHERE IS THE QUICK SELECT PANEL FOR THE MODELS? You mention “a standardized Topaz UI across all of our applications”, but PAI does not match the new GP layout in this respect! This was your perfect opportunity to get this fixed since we’ve been going on about this for some time now and you just put out the rebranded versions. Now you will need to rebrand again sometime soon…

I think I like PAI’s High Fidelity v1 better than what Autopilot chose but I have to peck around in the pulldown list to compare, because there is no Compare and of course no Models panel-! Not efficient.

And speaking of comparing, let’s see what GP does with this same image:

“High Fidelity” (mystery version) in GP is not exactly the same and the sliders offered do not have the same names in both apps, were I to try and manually match them with each other.

I noticed again the lack of a 6X preset button in PAI (why “MAX” instead of 6X?).

The next step scares me but I will try to do some Remove…

I still think the button should say “Process selection”, because “Remove” means what? Leave a blank hole? Take the object away and use the background to fill? Replace it with another random object? As I write I don’t really know what will happen here!

Here’s what I got:

Not bad at all! At least a car or monster didn’t appear

Note that if I wanted to try again I’d have to redraw the selection because Undo = Clear Selection, when they are actually 2 different processes (I mentioned this in beta testing…). There is also no Redo.

Another try (because the selection wasn’t so hard to draw) gave a consistent result with the first, which can be good or bad - depending on whether you liked the first result or not and wanted an option. We are spoiled by PS’s multiple Generative Fill options using a single selection.

Anyway, there is my report for the release! I should have just written a blog post… I will get to that ASAP!

[plugsnpixels]

PS: Your Photo AI web page still shows v2 and seems in the middle of an update…

[marco.b]

I confirm too
batch same 5 photos, upscale 2x (from 24 to 48 Mpxl)
photoai 2.3.2 85"
photoai 2.4.2 120"
photoai 3.0 120"

[marco.b]

how to delete a preset?

[Tostanica-fezanamu]

Will the new Gigapixel AI 7.1.0 models be put in Photo AI too?

https://community.topazlabs.com/t/gigapixel-7-1-0-and-beyond/67359

[plugsnpixels]

Right-click on the saved preset. It’s an invisible secret handshake like Apple does

[saikaboty]

You’ll have to upgrade

[andymagee-52287]

The new icons are indeed simple, but their meaning , and relationship to Topaz Labs’ products, was not obvious to me.

Here’s how they’ve evolved over time.

The colorful gem shaped large letters still make the most sense to me.

[hao.tang]

Could you please supply the full edition of install package? It’s difficult to download components during installing process.

[weiglmonika]

Furchtbar ! auf das Update kann ich verzichten.
Wozu das zweite Paneel zusätzlich im Bild ? oder zusätzlich am Rand ?
Rechts unten ist genug Platz dafür !
Vorher konnte das zweite Paneel unten rechts angedockt werden und war o.k.
Das Bild steht im Vordergrund !
ich möchte freie Sicht auf das Bild haben ! ohne Irgendetwas durch die Gegend zu schieben.

• bitte wieder zu vorher ändern - rechts unten andocken !

[Harald.De.Luca]

Hi. For those who want it (who don’t like the new PAI icon logo), I redid an icon from the old one. Both for Windows and for MacOS
PAI icône Win-Mac.zip (961,4 Ko)

[jacob.muchow]

Like saikabot said, you will need to upgrade app versions to use new models

[Luis_Shore (luis.arellano gomes)]

After the new update to 3.0.0 exporting is slow. After working on 20 Images and then exporting them, the software is very slow. Nobody can work with that speed!

[michaelezra]

FEATURE SUGGESTION: This drop down menu should be accessible via a “…” icon on each preset

[michaelezra]

Poor performance of High Fidelity V2 and Standard V2:

Original image (NEF):

High Fidelity V2 - see the edge of the wing:

High Fidelity V1 (better edge):

Standard V2 - same problem:

Standard V1:

[Luis_Shore (luis.arellano gomes)]

I would prefer the color purple for the icon. Blue is Adobe Photoshop. And please keep the color gradient. Its too mus “less is more”!

[rayinsanmiguel (Ray)]

there is still the issue with the ‘ghost’ faces when applying face recovery to a cropped image:

[ducky124]

The app still has the memory leak issue. Why bother adding new features if the “core” program is not usable. Tried to run 2 different batchs. one crashed after 64 images. Then tried intalling the non official v3.01 and it crashed after 63 images. Why is it that Topaz does not reply to any of the memory leak comments. It’s pretty much seems like they do not care. It’s a shame that it might be time to start looking for other options.
On a side note, I have seen a few replies complaining about the new icon. This is what you people worry about when we have been given “Alpha” level software

[prostokrsvchk]

Greetings Topaz team, thank you for the great update, I really like the direction you have started going in.
I would like to draw your attention to a few things about the workflow.

1. A lot of people wrote about it, you need to solve something with batch processing, the program crashes after processing large packets of images.
2. My main work in Topaz Photo AI is to process images from noise, I am fond of night shooting, and also there are often images at very fast shutter speeds, which requires high ISO. Now, the noise reduction models of Topaz do not show the best results, the latest DxO 4 (I am also a user of other products) shows much better results in this area, in addition it does not distort colors. Also the noise reduction model is built into Lightroom and it shows a level either comparable to the Topaz model DeNoise or a little worse, but it does not distort the colors of the image, which makes the noise reduction in Lightroom more advantageous.
   As for DxO, they mention the DeNoise of the Topaz program right on their product website and unfortunately, the result is true. I would really like to have all the RAW tools I need in one program. But now I have to use several, remove noise in DxO and work with everything else in Topaz.

[TPX (Thomas D.)]

Below is from v2.4.1

I use DxO DPXD2 too but for high iso i would prefer TPAI.

But everything is written below.

---

Images in Camera RAW only adjusted for exposure.

I am currently not satisfied with TPAI in the professional area when it comes to weddings (RAW denoise), simply because it is not yet suitable for this.

As a supplement, however, it is vastly superior to the other programs (also as 2nd stage denoising for weddings).

But here i did RAW denoising.

ISO 10.000 EOS R3

---

TPAI 2.4.1

---

Pure RAW XD2 (40 / 10)

---

How to: see below

---

---

---

---

---

---

Now Processed with Capture One (both are edited the same way in C1) -

and i am not kidding or wanting to cheat

Again sharpened and denoised via TPAI 2.4.1 in Photoshop (as Plugin)
Full workflow: TPAI 2.4.1 → dng → Capture One → tiff 16bit → Photoshop → TPAI 2.4.1 Plugin

---

DxO Deep Prime XD2 (PureRAW 4) & Capture One Pro.

---

Added a curve

[cooler.tim22]

Please make a design with rounded corners and transparent surfaces and such. The previous versions looked much better and in my opinion also clearer. Except for the new icons and the app icon, the design has rather deteriorated

[Parker]

Is there a reason why Topaz needs to redownload Models EVERY time I re-use it? I’ve reported this bug in 2.4.2 and Beta 3.0. Am I the only one experiencing this? Or is this the new normal?

[TPX (Thomas D.)]

@Parker

Or is this the new normal?

Reach out to the support.

If it would be the NEW NORMAL the forum would be FULL of this info.

[Paul_Coddington]

An odd thing: the “standardized Topaz UI” is not standardized across all apps, leading to some useability issues.

Photo AI and Gigapixel AI can no longer be snapped into convenient layouts by window managers such as Windows PowerToys FancyZones, making them tedious to manually adjust to manageable sizes on the fly to fit changing needs of workflow. Video AI can be snapped into any preset size and position with a quick shift+drag motion as normal.

Photo AI and Gigapixel AI cannot be resized when first opened, grabbing and dragging the edges of the windows fails for multiple attempts and then, finally, the mouse can grab the edge and resizing becomes possible. It is not clear what random mouse action in the attempts to grab the edges makes the windows finally become resizable. Quite frustrating.

Photo AI and Gigapixel AI have square corners, Video AI has round corners.

So, there is something different about Photo AI and Gigapixel AI where their windows are no longer fully functional on Windows 11, while Video AI remains fully functional.

Incidentally, Video AI only has one embedded icon size, which means Windows must rescale it on the fly, Photo AI and Gigapixel AI have 6 icon sizes (a subset of 5 of the standard 8, plus one extra). The colors are uncomfortable on wide gamut monitors and the style stands out as not matching typical application icons of the Windows 11 era. The black background only works with light mode desktop, not dark (admittedly, I always use light).

The reason why I noticed the latter point is because I have extracted the icons to see if I can tone them down a little (de-saturate a little for wide gamut mode, maybe add a little 3D glow highlight or simply lower the contrast a little to soften them). At the moment they stand out like a sore thumb when pinned to the Start Menu.

[golder-50350]

If you are using TPAI V3 as plugin in LrC via “plug-in-extras” and expect to get DNG as output, the output now is a TIFF. I think it apples to Capture One and … too
For details

Plugin exports TIFF instead of DNG | v3.0.0

We are aware of this behavior with the new update. I have talked with some of the developers and learned that this change has allowed Adjust Lighting and Balance Color to be used with RAW files. Currently, you can either process RAW files using Photo AI v3.0.0 as a stand-alone application to output DNGs or you can revert to Photo AI v2.4.2 to enable this option for the Lightroom Classic using the appropriate OS link below: * Topaz Photo AI | Windows Installer | v2.4.2 * Topaz Photo AI | MacO…

[samb15]

Since v2 was introduced, I’ve found that v1 works better on most pictures, but sometimes v2 is better, and for some either one works well. This ist rue for both standard and high-res. It is nice to have the choice.

[javier.lopez-escobar (javier.lopez-escobar anguiano)]

I eagerly installed version 3.0 hoping to experience substantial improvements and was immediately disappointed with the result.
Without manual adjustments and only with autopilot, many artifacts in the bright areas, disconcerting transformation from NEF to TIFF without information about the sizes of the original and resulting file appearing, as before. And worst of all, the result completely changes the color compared to the original image.
Very disappointing and frustrating… unless I’m making some mistake that I haven’t been able to see.

[michaelezra]

This issue is similar to what I reported on Nikon Z8 - the camera matrix that TPAI is using for this camera is incorrect.

[javier.lopez-escobar (javier.lopez-escobar anguiano)]

Mine is Z8 too, but until 3.0 I did not found any remarcable isue. Aniway it woul be nice if Z8 is well configured in TPAI

[martin.villarroel]

I would like to know this as well…

[ArminRz (Armin)]

I love the flexibility added to Photo AI recently. Appreciate it

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

@dakota.wixom

This will speed up the process of editing large batches of hundreds or thousands of photos at a time.

Until the memory leak is fixed (introduced in 2.4.x) one can not run batches of much more than 100 images (about 120 seems the practical limit) and by no means “thousands”.

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

@michael-3397

If I can get this to work, I will process the entire video in this manner so each frame gets the ‘Adjust lighting’ treatment.

Until the memory leak issue is fixed, one can only process about 120 images before the memory use grows beyond 15GB and the processing time becomes unusably slow.

I have been using or trying to use Photo AI for video frame enhancement, however since 2.4.x it is not practical to do.

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

@samb15

I have not tried batch processing, so the memory leak has not been tested here.

It has not been fixed in this release.

[michael-3397]

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I’ll avoid that frustration for now.

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

@ducky124

I just came here to report the same thing. I just tried a batch and it crashed after 64 images. It’s a shame a company care so little about releasing quality software. Topaz used to be good.

My system has 256GB of RAM and so I can process around 120 images before the program either crashes or the processing time becomes unreasonably slow. At about 120 images the memory leak causes Photo AI to consume in excess of 17GB of RAM.

I let Topaz Labs know about the memory leak issue in 2.4.x on March 12th, 2024. Still no fix…

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

@ducky124

The app still has the memory leak issue. Why bother adding new features if the “core” program is not usable. Tried to run 2 different batchs. one crashed after 64 images. Then tried intalling the non official v3.01 and it crashed after 63 images. Why is it that Topaz does not reply to any of the memory leak comments. It’s pretty much seems like they do not care. It’s a shame that it might be time to start looking for other options.

This is the last reply I received on the matter. I first reported the memory leak issue in 2.4.x on March 12th, 224.

From: Topaz Labs Support help@topazlabs.com
Sent: Thursday, April 4, 2024 11:37 AM
To: Jay Hightman
Subject: Re: Apparent memory leak in Photo AI

Hey Jay,

We are still working on it. The backend team has a lot on their plate and has not gotten around to fixing it yet.

–
Lingyu Kong
Product Specialist
Topaz Labs

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

@prostokrsvchk

A lot of people wrote about it, you need to solve something with batch processing, the program crashes after processing large packets of images.

At best, I was able to batch process 120 images before the memory leak causes Photo AI to use in excess of 17GB of RAM, the processing time of each images increases as the memory use grows.

My system has 256GB of RAM, for those with much less RAM in their computer, the total number of images able to be process is certainly significantly lower.

[samb15]

These reports make me wonder if there is an issue primarily with Nikon raw images. Mine is Olympus and seems to work well on Auto Pilot. I have some files from Sony, Panasonic, or Cannon, but have not tried those yet.

…Sam

[surge (Serguei Moutovkin)]

RAW Denoise does not like DNG files coming from Samsung S23 Ultra phone shot with Expert RAW app, huge colour shift and reduction of fine detail, and introduction of heavy black sharpening artifacts:

This is just an image being open in TPAI no other filters.

[jeff.sluder]

When saving a Canon Raw file (CR3) back to Canon Photos, application hangs. The wheel will spin for a very long time (half hour) and never return to the Apple Photos app. It works fine with JPG just not the Canon camera raw.

[Imo]

I can confirm that the memory leak appears on my system too. Windows 11.

[chee_kin.chin (CK Chin)]

Upsize Rescale applied to original photo, and not applied to cropped photo, causing exported photo resolution is much more smaller than desired resolution. Version 2.3.2 and before are correctly applied, please make it like version 2.3.2

Please, please, please.

[mikmod1]

I’m really hoping that remove/reconstruction part is usable again, like in TPAI 2.3.2.
Time to test!

[jayesh.topiwala]

First thing we have to do is to zoom out image to fit than apply any filter so the open panel does not cover the image. why it is not possible to open panel on empty space

[rwfphotography]

Having the same issue! Prior versions of PhotoAI returned processed images to LR Classic as DNG. I don’t like the change to TIFF as some LRC editing options are not supported as they are with a DNG file. Option to export as DNG seems to only work if PhotoAI is used as stand alone now…please go back to DNG or at least give option for plugins…

[mcp]

Thanks as well for saving the frustration of installing another version with the memory leak bug.

Hard to imagine how a critical bug such as a memory leak could not have the very highest priority. Unfortunately it does not instill confidence in the development team leadership and future of the product.

[dakota.wixom]

Hey michael - which denoise models and strengths are you using in Denoise AI vs Photo AI?

[dakota.wixom]

Thanks first - I’m also using a macbook and I feel the same way. But we’re still continuing to work on optimizations and fixes here to make it even faster. There’s a few areas we’d like to improve in particular. Cheers.

[dakota.wixom]

Good idea Michael. Also noting your Nikon Z8 issue in your other comment. We’re keeping a log of camera issues to tackle. Cheers.

[dakota.wixom]

Thanks sam - and yeah we’re aware of the memory leak issue, will be tracking down the fix. All the best.

[dakota.wixom]

Thanks andy, this is helpful feedback.

[dakota.wixom]

Thanks plugs - helpful feedback as always. Cheers

[dakota.wixom]

Hey javier - good to know this is on the Z8 as well, I saw michael’s comment about his similar problem. Thanks for letting us know.

[golder-50350]

Plugin exports TIFF instead of DNG | v3.0.0

We are aware of this behavior with the new update. I have talked with some of the developers and learned that this change has allowed Adjust Lighting and Balance Color to be used with RAW files. Currently, you can either process RAW files using Photo AI v3.0.0 as a stand-alone application to output DNGs or you can revert to Photo AI v2.4.2 to enable this option for the Lightroom Classic using the appropriate OS link below: * Topaz Photo AI | Windows Installer | v2.4.2 * Topaz Photo AI | MacO…

[michaelezra]

In Denoise AI mostly Low Light and Raw
In TPAI - I tried all models, but those large (and specifically) color blobs don’t disappear

[dakota.wixom]

Interesting. Please DM me a message with the original photo if you don’t mind sharing, I’d like to run some tests on my end. Cheers.

[Hills]

Fortunately, many of us do have confidence in the development team, the leadership and the future of the product!

[dkhangb]

Why does this still exist? All my autopilot and related settings are OFF but this still slow down my work when I quickly need to upscale something.

[Imo]

Because it’s - cool?

[mrtoyota03 (chong67)]

I am at 30 of 35 batch.

No memory leak here. It stays almost constant. IDK!

[Imo]

after 30 images you still think the memory consumption is constant, but if you process 100 images you will see a slow but continous inrease in memory usage!

[firstzarathu]

My biggest problem beyond speed is probably something you can’t fix. RAM. Before Topaz 16 GB was plenty for anything I needed to do. But to fix that means spending 2000 to 3500 bucks when one is on a Mac.

[b_fokke-30880]

The only advantage of V 3.00 is that it did not crash/hang this time for a batch of 83 photo’s.
It starts fairly fast ( 16s between photo 3 and 4) but
at the end its 62s per photo!
The whole batch of 83 took 24m16s.
Earlier version processed much faster.

[david.123]

One screenshot of your overall memory usage tells us nothing.

The memory leak has been well documented and proven.

users should just lurk in these forums instead of making useless posts like this.

[TPX (Thomas D.)]

yepp

[jurgen.matuschke]

I can only agree. Please enable DNG again.

[golder-50350]

Plugin exports TIFF instead of DNG | v3.0.0

We are aware of this behavior with the new update. I have talked with some of the developers and learned that this change has allowed Adjust Lighting and Balance Color to be used with RAW files. Currently, you can either process RAW files using Photo AI v3.0.0 as a stand-alone application to output DNGs or you can revert to Photo AI v2.4.2 to enable this option for the Lightroom Classic using the appropriate OS link below: * Topaz Photo AI | Windows Installer | v2.4.2 * Topaz Photo AI | MacO…

[gavin.carter]

Please consider adding support for MRAW and SRAW photos from the Sony A7RV. They still instantly crash this version with no error message.

[Bob_Blaylock]

  Why is this still here?

  On the overall scale of things, objectively, it shouldn’t be a big deal, but for no rational reason, I subjectively find it extremely annoying, to have this notice telling me the same thing I already know, and I resent having to make an extra gratuitous click just to get rid of it every time.

  It serves no useful purpose, and just clutters up my screen.

  On a related note, about the 3.0.x user interface, it seems to me, now, that it is what the 2.4.x interface was trying to hint at.  At this point, I think nearly everyone agrees that the 2.4.x interface was, in almost every possible way, far inferior to the 2.3.x and before interface.  I don’t think anyone liked it at all.

  With 3.0.x, at least some useful function has been added, that gives it some obvious advantage over the 2.3.x and below interface.  For now, I’ll withhold judgement over whether the 3.0.x interface is superior or inferior to the 2.3.x interface; but at least you’ve finally achieved the point of it not being undeniably inferior.  Looks like there may still be an issue of the users having to spend more time and more effort to interface with it to achieve the same end purpose, but possibly with enough additional capability to justify the increased demand on the users’ time and attention.

[a.marschitz]

When i batch 1500 or more - TAI is always just stopping responding (after 25 per cent or so)

[david.123]

That’s the memory leak issue.

[td_atelier]

Remove Tool often crashed , and PC reboot automatically ,no logfile

[teunis.bakker]

Do you have to uninstall Topaz Photo AI 3.0.0 first before installing v2.4.2?

[thomas.wentzel]

Massive drop (90%) in performance / speed (export to LrC) compared to prior version (on my iMac 2023, OS Sonoma 14.4.1).

[golder-50350]

Yes I did

[phil1701]

For me, it begs the issue of how the software is architected. One would think that the UX would be isolated from the “back end” (as the core capability has been referred to) such that UX elements could be changed practically at will without impacting core capabilities. That clearly isn’t the case, as witnessed by the memory leak issue arising past 2.3.2.

What concerns me more is the focus on UX “improvements” at the expense of core capability. This is akin to “putting lipstick on a pig” - if the core capability is malfunctioning, who cares about the UX?

In my opinion, the memory leak issue needs to be the highest priority issue addressed in order to continue to retain quality core capabilities while the UX issues are ironed out.

[dummy1-4967]

I just got the “Update Available” this morning and put 3.0 on the desktop. Way different than 2.4.x and WAY different than 2.3.2, which I went back to 'cause 2.4.x was so unproductive.

I don’t know if the new UI is better than 2.4.x or not. It’s a lot more convoluted than 2.3.2, but if I can get used to it and it’s significantly faster than 2.3.2, I’ll likely use it…

Two questions:

It may be some egregious breach of protocol to ask other users why they’re doing something, but is there a specific reason you’d want to balance the color or adjust the lighting in Photo AI? In my workflow, all images sent to PAI are either exported from Lightroom (80%), sent from the Lightroom plugin (very rare since it involves a lot of flopping around to use), or from the Filter in Photoshop (20%, so I don’t end up with a second TIF file). Do a lot of people use Photo AI without post-processing software as a front-end?

I sent a RAW file (a Sony ARW) from Lightroom to PAI using the Topaz plugin. I got BACK a TIF. In the past, when I SENT a RAW file, I got BACK a DNG file that retained all the adjustments made in Lightroom. Is there a preference I need to set or change that’s different than 2.3.2 or 2.4.X?

Even if I export the image from Lightroom and send a DNG, it appears Photo AI is creating a tiff, but it DOESN’T get imported back into Lightroom.

What do I need to change to get Photo AI to return Lightroom a DNG when it gets send a RAW (ARW) or DNG? I have the preference for Se Adobe DNG SDK for export - ENABLED… I’m going to have to go back to 2.3.2 until I can get 3.0 to return a DNG and import it back into Lightroom.

[ramouz (Ramsey)]

Agreed.

[golder-50350]

I send images to TPAI from LrC via plug-in-extras. I too discovered that now the output is TIFF, which I’m not happy with. I really wish they put this info in the update log. Also I really don’t know why controls to adjust brightness and color balance are needed in TAPI when sending the image in LrC.

Anyway here is the “story” concerning TIFF file being the output

Plugin exports TIFF instead of DNG | v3.0.0

We are aware of this behavior with the new update. I have talked with some of the developers and learned that this change has allowed Adjust Lighting and Balance Color to be used with RAW files. Currently, you can either process RAW files using Photo AI v3.0.0 as a stand-alone application to output DNGs or you can revert to Photo AI v2.4.2 to enable this option for the Lightroom Classic using the appropriate OS link below: * Topaz Photo AI | Windows Installer | v2.4.2 * Topaz Photo AI | MacO…

[david.hardin]

I too have this issue. In addition, in 2.4.2 I would have a definite magenta color cast added to my image if used as a plug-in. Now with the tiff implementation, none of my edits to the base RAW file come through to the tiff file that is returned. Even when synced to the original RAW edit thru LRc, it doesn’t come out the same. Also, all the profile options disappear.

Come on Topaz. Your customers deserve better.

[jaegtnes]

Using PhotoAI as plugin to Lightroom. My Fuji RAF files is returned to Lightroom as Tiff files, not as DNG. Please give me the option to have DNG as in the previous version.

[dummy1-4967]

I understand the idea that to make changes to lighting and such Topaz wants to use TIFFs, but I SUSPECT there are a LOT of us who come at Topaz from other post-processing tools and don’t need those tools as much as we need our workflow not to be completely derailed. I"m not sure about other tools, but if you’re using Lightroom, it’s handling all the organization and image management, so doing PAI as a standalone is a huge step backward, and again, very disruptive to workflow.

C’mon guys, if Lightroom can do color and luminance adjustments on a DNG, PAI should be able to.

I’d be happy with a preference I can set to tell PAI if it gets a RAW (DNG) to keep it that way 'cause the current version isn’t going to work. And 2.4.2 is not impressive, so I’ll be going back to 2.3.2. Among other things in 2.4.X, the subject selection is dreadful. It’s kludgy and has massive lag, so it’s really hard to manage selections. And just generally, the UI isn’t great.

For me at least, it would be convenient to be able to brighten dark RAW images while in PAI (they’ll already be exposure corrected before being sent, but PAI doesn’t retain that information and if the image was originally dark, it’s dark in PAI). I’d brighten the image in PAI, do my adjustments, then reset the brightening 'cause once the DNG image gets back to Lightroom I want it to use the color and luminance adjustments I originally made, NOT whatever brightening I did in PAI. BUT, if the tradeoff to do that is getting stuck with a TIFF file as output, NO.

Back to 2.3.2 'til this gets fixed.

[golder-50350]

Plugin exports TIFF instead of DNG | v3.0.0

We are aware of this behavior with the new update. I have talked with some of the developers and learned that this change has allowed Adjust Lighting and Balance Color to be used with RAW files. Currently, you can either process RAW files using Photo AI v3.0.0 as a stand-alone application to output DNGs or you can revert to Photo AI v2.4.2 to enable this option for the Lightroom Classic using the appropriate OS link below: * Topaz Photo AI | Windows Installer | v2.4.2 * Topaz Photo AI | MacO…

[peggyrain823 (Peggy)]

Having the same issue, saving as TIFF not DNG! I wish I knew how to get rid of this last update!

[plugsnpixels]

Prior releases are all available here, click on “Releases”.

[wildsnaps]

Nikon Z8 raw files opening with completely different colours in image.

How the original raw image looks like on Fast Raw Viewer

Topaz Photo Ai V3.0 is currently unusable for me.
Thanks

[Hills]

It’s not just about GUI changes. Core improvements are that you can stack filters, change their order and edit them. You can now save your own presets and face recovery and preserve text can be applied multiple time to different parts of the image. Great stuff, if you ask me, and I trust they will make it all even better.

[TPX (Thomas D.)]

2008 Processing - careful edited in Photoshop (learned via internet - forums - Videos)

Did Start Photographing in 2007 - image was made in 2008 - Taken with a EOS 1D MK III, 180 mm Macro L Lens, f/13 - Camera was used via Full Manual ← you know you need full control over your camera.

Pro Photo RGB ← The Internet told me you need very big Color spaces to fit the whole Quality in, you are not a Professional if you dont use PRO Photo !!!1 ← The Professionals use PRO Photo!!11

Masking ← The internet told me so, you need to edit everything seperate - there is no tool to do everything at once.

There was a Mask for detail, contrast, color and overall tuning (3 Masks) - i think i did spend a hour to edit this image. ← draw masks via pencil - selection etc.

---

2024 Processing (self developed (from 2017 - to 2024) - no Internet influence) - 1DX III - 300 mm lens f/8 - ISO 160 - Camera was used in Auto ISO, AV Mode.

DxO Deep Prime XD denoising → then → Capture One Pro (Single style, with three layers integrated, one Luma mask for Highlight recovery (Style/preset integrated), nothing else was used and the image is not finished.

sRGB color space. ← work with the target color space.

Time Spend to get there = 3 Minutes (does include starting and using the software).
Would now upscale, denoise and sharpen via TPAI - and refine the colors with Photoshop (Global editing style, without masks)

[phil1701]

I appreciate your perspective. We may have to “agree to disagree” on the definition of core improvements, as the improvements you listed should be tied to the UX, not the core program capability (in my opinion).

Here’s hoping that the improvements you listed didn’t spawn the obvious memory leak(s) that has persisted since 2.3.2.

[robert.bingham]

@TPX

2024 Processing (self developed (from 2017 - to 2024) - no Internet influence) - 1DX III - 300 mm lens f/8 - ISO 160 - Camera was used in Auto ISO, AV Mode.

Wonderful picture.

[Imo]

I am stunned by your macro images!

[Hills]

Well, you may worry but I don’t as Topaz knows that to be successful in this very competitive market it has to produce a truly excellent app. AI is so much under development that coming improvements to both the models/filters and how they can be applied by the user are inevitable.

[mrtoyota03 (chong67)]

You all … you should have done your color correction, lens profile, remove CA/PF, corrected temperature, etc etc. in your favorite photo editor, save as 16 bit TIFF and hand it on a silver platter to PAI to only do denoise, sharpen, preserve text. (some will not be happy about this post)

[michaelezra]

Hi Dakota, I DM-ed you the original image over the weekend.
I hope the fixes for both Z8 NEF files camera matrix and the blotchy denoising are assigned high priority. I can’t use TPAI as-is… Please let me know if you need any additional info. Thanks.

[TPX (Thomas D.)]

Thanks a lot.

I’m stunned by Nature and thankful that by now i’m able to capture it like it is.

[david.hardin]

I had to re-install 2.4.2 twice for the LRc plug-in to work.

[mrtoyota03 (chong67)]

What is the reason behind preset? Every photo is different and should not be preset. Preset takes away AI too.

[hans.forsstrom]

Same here getting TIFF files although the DNG option is chosen unde Preferences. Please Topaz, fix this bug quickly.

[teunis.bakker]

For me one time was enough to use the LRc plugin

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

This morning, I ran a test in Photo AI doing Face Recovery and Upscale, this was applied to 100 images. At the start Photo AI was using 4.88GB of RAM, by the end this grew to 14.0GB. I installed a tool to record the memory use at 10 second intervals. Later today or tomorrow, I’ll run additional tests with a larger number of images and post my results.

[rayinsanmiguel (Ray)]

This memory leak has been much discussed already; Topaz knows about it and will (eventually) fix it

[samb15]

I used to do what you describe, using ON1 Photo Raw, and it worked well. It is still the best way to do .jpg images.

However, for most raw images, it seems better to use TPAI first and then send a sharp, non-noisy image to ON1. AI functions (especially noise reduction), whether Topaz or others, relies on details of the capture that may be missing after anything else has altered it. Note, there are exceptions. If the original is too dark, or too hazy for needed detail to be seen it may be better to work on it first and then send to to Topaz. Either way, nothing beats Topaz for helping with noise and sharpness.

…Sam

[wendylouwho]

There appears to be an issue with RAW denoise, which cannot be disabled for RAW photos. I’ve noted that my Canon DNGs are denoised very well. However, processing Apple’s ProRAW DNG is a different story – the result is horrible. It seems that v3.0 messes with Apple’s embedded processing resulting in severe edge noise that was not apparent before processing (see photo). L = Apple ProRAW / R = TPAI 3.0 RAW Denoise. The results are unusable, thus I cannot utilize Topaz Photo AI for its execellent sharpening.

[DeemChan]

Hey Gavin, could you share couple of A7RV’s MRAWs and SRAWs?
Uncompressed and lossless compressed RAWs seem to be working fine.

[anna.knutson]

I have been trying to bulk edit like I used to. It will do the first photo then goes to the second and just stays there and doesn’t complete and move to the next photo like it used to. I just edited everything one by one which took FOREVER. HELP!!!

[gavin.carter]

Sure, I currently only shoot in MRAW but these couple were taken on my camera on Saturday. Just confirmed they instantly crash Photo AI 3.0.0 with no error message. Also you can see my thread in the Bugs and Issues forum here where a person from the company confirms the issue.

MRAWs (Lossless Comp (M))
_DSC4072.ARW (39.8 MB)
_DSC4071.ARW (40.1 MB)

I also just took one in SRAW (Lossless Comp (S)) to check and it shows the same issue:
_DSC4135.ARW (37.7 MB)

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

@Hills

Core improvements are that you can stack filters, change their order and edit them. You can now save your own presets and face recovery and preserve text can be applied multiple time to different parts of the image.

I agree, these are features which I suggested be made.

However, as long as there is such a huge memory leak when running batches of images, none of these improvements help my workflow that much.

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

@mrtoyota03

What is the reason behind preset? Every photo is different and should not be preset. Preset takes away AI too.

If one runs frame level video processing on thousands of images, having a presets is very helpful. Alas, 3.0.0 bleeds RAM like 2.4.x did, making presents not that useful at the moment.

[dakota.wixom]

Thanks Michael! Will take a look

[oscar-7407 (ozkar_vargas)]

Same here. I miss the DNG option… please allow the user to choose what format they want

[wewantmoresnow]

Also observed the memory leak issue. Watched as my 32GB on my notebook and the 64GB on my tower maxed out at 99% & 100% while trying to process a few hundred images.

[oscar-7407 (ozkar_vargas)]

same here. apart from the TIFF output format (before was DNG) colours temperature or saturation or both change completely… A pain to restore original ones

[andymagee-52287]

Easy to call it a memory leak as if it’s an error in the code, but it looks more like an intentional way to maximize the utilization of available memory resources. Much in the way that Windows manages the Standby List, they use it all, and then release the oldest segments as they need to allocate memory for newer items. The slowdown occurs during the cycles while the old memory allocation is being released to make room available for the new work. Leaving a little more residual working space to cover the reallocation period and optimizing the memory release routines should make the slowdowns less noticeable.

[david.123]

@andymagee-52287

Easy to call it a memory leak as if it’s an error in the code, but it looks more like an intentional way to maximize the utilization of available memory resources.

100% incorrect. I have a background in IT and programming and this is clearly a memory leak. What makes you qualified to make such statements?

[michaelezra]

This is odd, TPAI refuses to save the output image:
“Skipped: no edits applied” - regardless of changes made in TPAI and/or export dialog

[plugsnpixels]

I experienced and reported this as well for either the current PAI or GP (I can’t find the post in either thread…).

[torben.wieben]

Hi Gavin, exact my issue. What is crazy. Some files in the same series (same day, time, RAW format and location) i can open and some not. Other software didn´t have a problem to open all files.

[gosa]

Memory management is one thing, but I doubt that letting the application crash and burn when it runs out of memory is an intentional way of releasing.

I ran my first batch in a long time this weekend (I usually just run bigger batches after shooting an event) and fully expected to experience the slowdowns but decided to try even so as there were only a bit over 100 photos to process and I was too lazy to go back to an earlier version.

I however did not have slowdowns - for me PAI just crashes if I try to do more than 30 photos (it dies somewhere around 34-35 processed photos with my 32GB of RAM). I actually loaded the task manager and watched memory consumption going up with every photo processed, just for PAI to die running out of memory. However - if I start PAI and load 30 photos, process them, close down and restart PAI and load 30 more it works perfectly.

[Hills]

I think everyone here knows Photo AI is in full development and, thus, that some new stuff won’t work optimally at first or that certain older routines are negatively affected. The Topaz team are aware and will address the memory leak issue – sooner or later. If you need a totally reliable app, stick with a version that meets that requirement. At this point that seems to be version 2.3.2.

[andymagee-52287]

Yes, definitely unforgivably poor memory management if they let it overflow into a crash versus just bottlenecking into a slowdown.

If they’ve actually acknowledged that this is a memory leak already then so be it, but good business practice dictates that they either immediately issue a patch to fix it, or withdraw the software from public access to avoid litigation.

p.s. I’ve been writing code since 1975.

[wildsnaps]

Apart from the colour change issue, even mild sharpening gives an unnatural look to the image. Still not upto DxO Photolab in terms of IQ.

[gosa]

Don’t remember where I read it (if it was in this thread or the previous version) but I do believe someone quoted a confirmation of the leak and that they’re dealing with it…

I’m decently pleased with the latest updates and really like the possibility of stacking filters, but I do however feel like the line between alpha/beta/release is very fluid at times considering what’s being released…

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

The following are snippets out of eMails I received from Topaz Labs Support to my report of a “Apparent memory leak in Photo AI”, which was submitted on March 12th, 2024:

Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2024 11:21 AM
Thanks for sending that info. My team believes they’ve found the cause of the memory leak and our Head of AI is creating a potential fix for this. We appreciate your patience and understanding while we get this sorted for you.

Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2024 2:13 PM
We’ll keep working on that! If we have test builds, we can also send them to you to try out.

Sent: Friday, March 15, 2024 1:13 PM
The Upscale enhancement is particularly resource-intensive so if you’re running that on hundreds of images, let alone the memory leak, it could cause the computer to freeze up. We’re still investigating the memory leak on our side. If you could, try processing smaller batches (~100 images) and see if that works better.

Sent: Monday, March 18, 2024 12:45 PM
Thanks again for the testing. Our AI engine team is looking into this as a top priority.

Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2024 11:11 AM
We’re still working on it! I don’t have a solution for you just yet. Thanks for understanding!

Sent: Friday, March 29, 2024 10:58 AM
Our development team is running some tests for the memory leak now so it wasn’t included in yesterday’s release but it’ll come to a future update soon.

Sent: Thursday, April 4, 2024 11:37 AM
We are still working on it. The backend team has a lot on their plate and has not gotten around to fixing it yet.

At this point, I stopped sending Support eMails as it seems, now five weeks in, that this issue will be fixed when it gets fixed. Until that happens, my only option, if I want to run large batches is to go back to a version which does not have the memory leak.

As far as testing goes and I have done a lot and sent my test plan & results to support. The memory leak appears to be linear and maybe impart caused by a recursive function being called when doing batch processing.

I have not monitored memory usage for the application while processing single very different images over time. Which is to say keeping Photo AI open for an extended period while working on individual photos. This could indicate the leak is not just related to batch processing. Generally, that is not my workflow.

My Windows 11 system has 256GB of RAM (it can take up to 2TB, not that I could afford that!), and so I can process well over 100 images in batch before I need to restart Photo AI.

As others have reported, the issue is not related to operating system memory management, either in MacOS or Windows.

If one’s computer has 32GB of RAM, then if Photo AI is consuming 20GB of RAM, as it did in my last batch run of 100 images, the operating system’s memory management will start thrashing virtual memory pages to disk, slowing down everything, potentially crashing the application and possible the operating system as well.

At the beginning of this thread, it was stated by Dakota Wixom concerning Presets, “This will speed up the process of editing large batches of hundreds or thousands of photos at a time”, for me this would be great as I process tens of thousands of video frames… that is if it worked.

The product description, see Topaz Photo AI - Maximize Image Quality with AI, in the Easy workflow section states, “Use the standalone to batch process thousands of images in sequence…”, at the present time this is not possible.

As I have been a programmer since the early 1980’s, a systems administrator and network engineer for decades now, I do have sympathy for those in product development.

This said, the other day I started a 30 day evaluation of a network/systems heath tool called EventSentry by NETIKUS (https://www.eventsentry.com). I was having difficultly with collecting the data I wanted and producing a report at the detail I wished. When I contacted technical support, I was blown away at the degree of information which was sent back to me (i.e. screen shots, written instructions, etc.) which addressed my very specific question. In my opinion this is how a software company should respond.

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

See my comment in this thread (#144).

[eriepa]

Apple ProRaw DNG files are not currently supported by TPAI. The files open, why I don’t know, but they do not go through the usual RAW pipeline. Note that the ProRaw DNGs are demosaiced files (hybrid) and not technically RAW files per se.

I’ve been getting better results by making in-phone global edits in RAW Power, then exporting as full-size TIFFs (Display P3) for use in TPAI or elsewhere, if needed. Hope Topaz makes some progress here.

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

I addressed this in my comment (#144).

[gosa]

5 weeks (and counting) is kind of scary long for this kind of problem. That should be like 5 weeks added to our license period… (I know we can downgrade, but it shouldn’t be thought of as a solution for something that’s openly released to everyone)

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

@gosa

That should be like 5 weeks added to our license period…

Really, it should be then number of weeks until this issue is resolved.

For me downgrading is a frustrating option, for new features like “Presets” as in the current release are helpful in the work I do.

At present my major issue with Photo AI is the leak which restricts my batches to 100 or so images, rather than the 1000’s I was able to run before.

It costs me a lot of time to breakup up runs in to smaller batches and have to restart the program between each batch.

[wendylouwho]

Thanks, this is helpful! I own RAW Power so I’ll go that route and finalize with TPAI.

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

@Hills

If you need a totally reliable app, stick with a version that meets that requirement. At this point that seems to be version 2.3.2.

My problem with this statement is, new features such as being able to save presets, toggle on & off enhancements and change the order of enhancements are all things I suggested to be in Photo AI, making them a requirement for me.

Having a memory leak persist though out the entire life of 2.4.x and be carried into 3.0.0 is hardly acceptable. I let Topaz Labs has know about the leak five weeks ago now. In this time, I have been told numerous times the issue is being worked on.

As many others have posted about this here in Community, I am not alone with this being a problem. This leads me to wonder how many other users of Photo AI, who are not a member of this forum, are experiencing the issue, but are not aware the problem exists.

When I worked at small software company which produced a neural network like tool based on multi-order polynomial equations as nodes types (i.e. abductive polynomial networks). Those on the product development team made it a very high priority to resolve bugs reported by the end users of our application. Doing so was responsible not only to them, but also was good for the company as selling a buggy product is not helpful to our sales department.

[Harald.De.Luca]

I don’t have this problem. But I’m on Windows. And not on Mac

[fenwick]

This latest release (3.0.0) messes with colours when using for a .NEF file either standalone or as a Plug-in from Lightroom Classic. It introduces a very pronounced Aqua blue cast. Exporting the file to Photoshop and applying Photo AI as a filter on a layer doesn’t have that effect.

[Hills]

I hear you! And I’m sure the devs and leadership at Topaz hear you as well!

[rayinsanmiguel (Ray)]

I don’t have this problem. And I am on a Mac.

[wil.ratcliffe]

I totally agree with this post by Steven , and as he pointed out Topaz did not answer his question , i use autopilot and if i need tweak i can if Topaz start making it to complicated maybe its time to go elsewhere i will watch this with interest, i have noticed that Denoise does not work as good as it used to another reason i was maybe thinking of switching.

[buranis-72318]

Let me join the group: LRC Plugin Extras output must be DNG, not TIFF. TIFF is far from ideal for further work in LRC. Plus, it’s a very heavy file. Please, fix this!

[david.123]

I would hope that this is fixed in the next release!

I was somewhat surprised that v3 was released before what I consider a ‘show stopper’ bug was resolved. Anyone whose licence expired on the v2.4 release got screwed because now they need to upgrade just to get a functioning product. Doesn’t affect me as my licence is good until mid 2025 but I could see this upsetting some folks and I wouldn’t blame them!

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

@david.123

I would hope that this is fixed in the next release!

You think maybe by v4.0.0? I am not so sure…

[david.123]

Don’t even joke about that!

[wim.de_koning_gans]

I completely agree with weiglmonika that the panel for the chosen enhancement should be to the right where it was. Now you can drag it anywhere over the image but not in the large empty area to the right. This should be corrected. Also I was surprised that choosing a preset for Denoise after Denoise in Autopilot mode, means adding a second Denoise. When I deleted the first one, I could not export the image.

[peterpixel (peter.fear)]

Same issue as others, processed image being exported as TIFF to Capture One rather than DNG. Is there a way to roll back this update it is no use to me.

[ron.lukawitski]

I would also appreciate the option to export the photo as an DNG into LRC

[matthew.stough]

Any chance you’ll also consider the speed issue. I know, I’m running on a max-ed out 2019 Intel macOS 16" MacBook Pro…I need to upgrade, I know. However, I’ve been with Photo AI since the start, up to 2.3.2, and now 3.0.0, and I STILL can achieve better results for noise, sharpening, etc. using the standalone products before Photo AI. They’re faster, render previews faster, and process faster overall. I like others feel that Photo AI is drifting too far into the realm of “I want to be everyone’s everything editor” and the world has enough of those. Thanks for listening.

[BamaBoyRTR]

Issue # 1: When a .dng image is imported into AI 3.0 via the LrC File | Plugin Extras | Process with Topaz Photo AI method, the photos are noticeably much darker with little contrast and using the AI 3.0 enhancement are impossible. If the subject is a dark color to begin with, it can be almost black. In several cases images in which the exposure is fine in LrC, the subject and other objects are too dark to see colors, etc. That is not an issue encountered previous to this version. If on the other hand the image is brought into AI 3.0 via the right-click context menu Edit in menu in which the image imported int AI 3.0 as a .tif, the lighting matches what’s in LrC. However, the colors are noticeably different hues / shades / tones than what they were in LrC.

Issue # 2:
A. Adjust Lighting: The Adjust Lighting feature for .dng’s is unpredictable. It either starts out at either 25 - a washout, or at 8 - which more reasonable. The preferences for this appear to be 25 for non-raw and 8 for RAW, but my experience is that you may get either one on a .dng.
B. Adjust Lighting selection / masking: If a .dng is imported that has the problem cited in Issue # 1, the masking feature does not work very and it does not detect the subject even image is cropped before importing or after. Manually painting out what’s not wanted and what is does not work very well either probably because the image is so dark and there isn’t much contrast.

Images in question taken with an iPhone 13 Pro Max with ios 17.4.1; LrC 13.2 on imac with macOS 14.4.1.

And lastly, this Give Feedback format is lacking IMHO. Guess in keeps the number of tech employees lower though.

[seanhoytdotcom (Sean)]

Yup. Same here with the Nikon HE raw file. I converted the files to DNG in Lightroom and the color/exposure tools in Photos AI still does a poor job. I also still see that stupid grid pattern across the shot which they claim is an Apple Silicon issue… that I had with my previous PC.

[DaveL]

@jay-2522

The following are snippets out of eMails I received from Topaz Labs Support to my report of a “Apparent memory leak in Photo AI”, which was submitted on March 12th, 2024:
[most examples snipped for brevity]

Sent: Monday, March 18, 2024 12:45 PM
Thanks again for the testing. Our AI engine team is looking into this as a top priority.

Sent: Friday, March 29, 2024 10:58 AM
Our development team is running some tests for the memory leak now so it wasn’t included in yesterday’s release but it’ll come to a future update soon.

Sent: Thursday, April 4, 2024 11:37 AM
We are still working on it. The backend team has a lot on their plate and has not gotten around to fixing it yet.

Seems to me that it’s the usual problem with Topaz in general: poor resource management from the viewpoint of existing owners. The bean counter(s) at the top should perhaps reallocate some resources from future developments (more bells and whistles) to actually fixing the existing stuff that’s broken, in a timely manner!

[mrtoyota03 (chong67)]

I been reading, you edit a original DNG in PAI and you want to save it as a DNG?

It doesn’t work this way. And you are not suppose to.

[golder-50350]

Why are they doing this? Answer - they want “new” customers = $$$$. V3 is a making a marketing “splash”. Got an email about it today. DXO just announced Pureraw V4. Need to compete. Fixing bugs doesn’t get them $$$ today. They figure they will fix the bugs before too many customers licenses come up for renewal. Hopefully with V3 out and announced, they will fix the memory leak bug and allow DNGs as outputs when processing RAW files in LrC and … Bottom line Topaz is a company with limited resources and they need to make decisions on how to use them.
Just my 2 cents.

[msh411]

@golder-50350

Bottom line Topaz is a company with limited resources and they need to make decisions on how to use them.

I agree but maintaining your current market share is vital to your growth. I like the people at Topaz and I have interacted with them one on one, they are a good group. That being said the application I purchased isn’t fully functional and I rely on older versions or applications they no longer support (sharpen and denoise) to perform tasks that are supposed to be bundled with PAI.

I have to be honest, I did a trial of DXO and for stability I might make be forced to change to someone other then Topaz.

I updated my system based on Topaz’s recommendation and some of the functions still perform poorly.

Clients have been asking for them to focus on the core application prior to rolling out additional new functionality. I believe that is a reasonable request, fix what we purchased and allow us to use 100% of the applications function without bugs, stop the memory leaks, increase the speed of the application and resolve the batch processing challenges. After all that what their clients purchased.

The UI, I am one of the clients that doesn’t mind the direction Topaz is moving, if they went back to 2.3.2 and the application was 100% stable that would be great, I believe that’s really all people are looking for from Topaz.

[mike.rollerson-62319]

A Windows/UI Issue (and I’m not sure if it’s new to 3.0, but this is the first time I’ve run into it) is that it doesn’t use the Windows “Snap” functionality – where you can drag the application to a corner of windows (left, right, top) and have it fill the window or split into two.

With PhotoAI, you need to align the window manually or use the Maximize button – this creates an issue when you use multiple monitors (like a QHD and UHD) and move the application between them.

Another feature that would be really nice to have would even be a dual-screen mode, where one screen would show the current view (ie: 100%) and the other would show the “fit” view of the entire image

[rien.meijer]

I will revert, cannot work with this version. Use C1, .dng to Topaz, don’t succeed in returning file to C1, because T Ai “sends” a .tiff.
I do not want to adjust lightning and colorbalance in Topaz, I have C1……

[gordonbrice]

Loving Version 3.0.0! However with my test pictures but disappointed that making Light Adjustments returns my files as TIF this not good for me. Please allow us the opportunity to choose how we would like our files to be returned in this case for me DNG as I’m a LRC user!
Looking forward to more enhancements to TPAI.

[pekka]

Not going to uppgrade before we get .DNG when using as a plugin with LightRoom either

[Parker]

3.0 is unusable since it’s unbearably slow, in general (not just batching). I don’t care what features/tools you stuff into it. If you can’t use it, why bother?

I get the feeling that jumping from 2.4 to 3.0 in a couple of weeks is an act of desperation - falling behind competitors has led to a rapidly falling market share (I’m guessing).

It’s the only thing I can think of that would justify rolling out a Beta version as the final. I can’t imagine it was done willfully. If so, well…

…maintaining market share at the expense of alienating existing customers isn’t a wise move. Loyal customers will be lost in the process… further eroding market share.

[Parker]

I’m curious why you would want to “Lighten” in Topaz and not Lightroom. Even if it returned, a DNG, Lightroom editing tools are superior to Topaz in terms of Tonal Adjustments.

[rayinsanmiguel (Ray)]

Yes you can.

[golder-50350]

I agree. That’s why I really don’t’ understand why Topaz has this feature when used as a plug-in in LrC.

[mrtoyota03 (chong67)]

I did all my photo edits and pass my TIFF 16 bit photo to PAI only for the denoise, sharpen and txt preservation.

I have ZERO problem.

[msh411]

Interesting that you are not having issues with the preserve text, the opposite is true for me. The original is on the left and the processed image right. If I run denoise with any image containing text it has the reverse effect, it ruins the text, sharpen works fine.

[kinrosslord]

Photo AI 3 (3.0.0) failed to download on the first attempt, but worked on the second. Photo AI 3 seems to be much slower than the previous version. Also, even though I am working with RAW images (Canon CR3), it won’t let me export as .DNG files, but only at TIFF files. Also, when I try to work with multiple photos, AI 3 crashes.

[a_braun (AB)]

Yes that’s a Problem for a long Time now, can’t understand this🙁

[afdtk]

I’m on a Mac M1 with 16Gb or RAM, and I can process only 10 Raw images at a time before I get the “Mac has run out of memory” error and everything freezes.

[chuck-9555]

At first, I was “what happened to the sidebar” and was upset. I think also that someone who is new to the product would find the blank sidebar difficult to navigate. I really liked the switch toggles of the v2. Still, since I am familiar with the product it wasn’t difficult to add what I wanted and remove what I don’t.

It isn’t a need of mine to have presets. I don’t do batch processing with photo AI. I prefer to do that with the standalone denoiser, sharpener before. Yet maybe, we’ll have to see.

Anyway, the product works as is for a user well used to the program.

A suggestion would be to put the progress bar back near the sidebar instead of the bottom center of screen where the user isn’t looking.

[mark.beavan]

Yes, I have the same problem and it has been present for many versions. In the Ver 2.4.2 I believed that this had been resolved. It doesn’t give you a lot of confidence in the dev team when they can’t get collective heads around memory management on a tool like this which is resource intensive.

[golder-50350]

For me and many others, this issue started in V3

[douglas.french]

Damn…same! Thought I was going insane. PLEASE FIX!

[miguel.morales]

same for me niko z8 raw

[bob-0219]

Hi,

Just kicking the tires with Photo AI 3.0. I appreciate the improvements to the interface. I haven’t used the lighting and color balance tools much in the past, but tried them both this evening. There was a substantial difference in the color of the AI editing image after exporting back to Lightroom compared to what it looked like in Photo AI. I’m working in ProPhoto RBG in Lightroom, so if I need to configure something for the round-trip to Photo AI, I’m open to suggestions.

Thanks!

[ckm]

On any enhance that allows editing the selection that the enhancement is applied to:

Select the (-) brush (unselect brush). If the brush goes even a tiny bit outside the image area, Photo AI crashes.

[Hills]

3.0 is fast on my machine with Windows 10.

[Parker]

Have you tried it with multiple files open? Have you used Masking?

[Hills]

Certainly but I haven’t pushed it or anything. I’m not saying that you and others don’t have issues that should be fixed by Topaz but my system seems to work well with the app.

[mrtoyota03 (chong67)]

You are right. I have problem with text preservation. Even after I mask it out, the text is still distorted! Topaz please fix this.

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

@afdtk

I’m on a Mac M1 with 16Gb or RAM, and I can process only 10 Raw images at a time before I get the “Mac has run out of memory” error and everything freezes.

As it has been awhile since I have used MacOS, I do not know the memory load put on a system by the operating system.

From my expertise with Photo AI on Windows 11, I think the minimum memory requirement is 32GB and 64GB recommended. Not 16GB as Topaz Labs suggests, System Requirements | Topaz Photo AI

Of course it depends on what you have doing, 16GB might be fine for doing enhancements on a handful of images at a time and frequently restarting the application.

Others in this v3.0.0 thread have spoken to issues they are experiencing when working with RAW files.

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

@kinrosslord

Also, when I try to work with multiple photos, AI 3 crashes.

From my expertise with Photo AI on Windows 11, I think the minimum memory requirement is 32GB and 64GB recommended. Not 16GB as Topaz Labs suggests, System Requirements | Topaz Photo AI

Of course it depends on what you have doing, 16GB might be fine for doing enhancements on a handful of images at a time and frequently restarting the application.

[robert.matthews-1630 (Bobmatt)]

Same here, can’t find a way to get DNG which was always my preferred workflow.

[wilde1]

Why did you change Lightroom Classic plugin output from DNG to TIFF? Why? What possible reason? You’ve screwed up my workflow completely. If you want to add TIFF as an option in addition to DNG, great, but don’t remove the DNG choice. Can I roll back to 2.4.2?

[Parker]

you can download previous versions from here; Releases - Topaz Community

[TPX (Thomas D.)]

TPAI for sharpen & denoise only, no DxO software denoising.

Capture One Pro & Photoshop for editing.

---

---

[a_braun (AB)]

Yes since Version 2🙁

[robert.bingham]

@TPX

TPAI for sharpen & denoise only, no DxO software denoising.

Capture One Pro & Photoshop for editing.

Another fine piece of work Thomas. Wonderful detail.

[steven.b.meisel]

I have been trying to work with version 3.0 and still find it a lot clumsier than 2.3.2, but better than the awful 2.4.

My biggest problem from an output point of view is that upscaling has taken a turn for the worse. I do a lot of small bird photography that sometimes requires extensive cropping. In 2.3.2, my workflow was to crop an image in PAI and upscale it to the original dimensions. It worked like a champ, presuming there was enough resolution in the original RAW file.

I’ve tried this in 3.0: I crop, let PAI do its thing with noise and sharpen (if needed) then add the upscaling enhancement. The system SAYS the file output (DNG) will be anywhere from 250 mb to 2 tb, depending on the extent of the crop. Despite this, even in past versions the file size output was about 121 mb, the same as the “normal” DNG output. But today, most of the files ended up at about 30 mb, far smaller than expected and unusable once processed where the resulting JPEG was a measly 1-2 mb.

So far as I can tell, there may be some work being done within the pixels, but this is nowhere near the kind of upscaling the software is supposed to be providing and which worked well in 2.3.2.

And all versions, including 2.3 have a tendency to over-sharpen birds in autopilot, often by a ton. I have to remember to change the default sharpening to less or weak when processing bird pics then revert to normal when processing a landscape, mammal, or flower.

[daleb]

I see no reason to buy this upgrade. I would rather just use Denoise AI

[dwiwachyudi09]

In this version, I often encounter traffic jams during the conversion process to JPEG, and even experience force closes frequently. This is truly a bad experience

[Captain_Dream]

All detail is erased and smudged when trying to enhance images of rugs and carpets with fine detail This was working before, I believe. Everything here is auto-detect / default.

[Captain_Dream]

Gender-confused Topaz 3.0… This woman looks better without a beard. Note: this is WITHOUT face recovery - because face recovery often smoothes the faces a lot, resulting in a mismatch of detail with the rest of the image.

[roberta.conti]

Same here!
Please fix it :-/

[david.barker-2802]

Beards also appeared in previous versions. This was from September 2023, so probably V2.0.0. I think I ended up using a different model and it disappeared

[peter-0967]

Same here. LrC Module is TIFF only. I need DNG back.

[peter-0967]

I’am back @ 2.3.2 now. Much better.

[marco.b]

I wasted a month testing Topaz with two bug versions.
my trust is lost, I will no longer install the next versions immediately.
It’s not serious to let your customers act as beta testers without saying so clearly
returned to 2.3.2

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

@peter-0967

I’am back @ 2.3.2 now. Much better.

I am probably going to have to do this as well soon…

This said, I keep hoping when I check for an update in 3.0.0, there will be one which fixes the many issues reported in this thread. Batch/memory leak issues, RAW image problems, missing DNG support for Lightroom Classic, etc.

[Artisan-West]

@Parker

I’m curious why you would want to “Lighten” in Topaz and not Lightroom.

He said light adjustments meaning small.

[rayinsanmiguel (Ray)]

If I am working with a raw image that is underexposed, I use the lighting feature so I can get a better look at what the denoising is going to do. I then make adjustments accordingly, but turn off the lighting before saving the image.

[Artisan-West]

My last update was 2.0.7 but I really like the lighting feature and use it on many photos. I then save the upscaled picture (I do creative work in Leonardo AI) and open in Affinity Photo then Luminar NEO. My answer above was to Parker about a question he had.

[Chrisinhouston (Chris)]

I put in a support ticket on this TIFF issue and got a reply that they are working on adding the option to save as a dng as before. The work around is to edit in the stand alone and not as a plug in which in my opinion makes for increased steps in workflow to reimport back into Lightroom.

My fear is that the development team is pushing more towards an all around editing platform for this product which I am not interested in.

I have rolled back to V.2.4 for now.

[rayinsanmiguel (Ray)]

Sorry, I didn’t mean to address that to you specifically. Rather, to the naysayers who don’t like the lighting function.

[lance03]

Version 3 is very poor in sharpening and denoise previous version much better.

[golder-50350]

Next update should be on Thursday, April 25th. I sure hope this DNG issue is fixed by then. The problem is caused by enabling color balance & lightning feature on RAWs, For some reason they cannot produce a DNG output if these features are enabled . The solution is to output DNGs when these features are “turned off”. Now they cannot be turned off. IMHO this update shouldn’t have released this until they had a complete solution.

[msh411]

I’ve gone back to using my Sharpen v4.1.0 Denoise v3.7.2 for better results vs PAI v3.0. I’m also going to reload GP v6.3.3, the results were always consistent.

It’s beginning to frustrate me that I purchased the upgrades of GP and PAI because neither have been a stable platform for all of Q1 2024.

[Parker]

The writing has been on the wall over the last few months. Check out the Roadmap section and you’ll see the language has been; “in the process of creating a full editing suite.” They don’t come out and say it directly but they’re “introducing new editing tools” over the coming months - Roadmap - Topaz Community

I get the feeling this will end up being another Luminar Neo. We’ll see.

[msh411]

At this point why would anyone believe they could muscle their way into a market that has been dominated by Adobe, Capture 1 and to a smaller extent Corel? Up until 2.1.2 I was extremely happy with the majority of the Topaz applications, I supported them attempting to update the UI and found the stacking capabilities appealing but the instability of the applications now is becoming very frustrating!

Do they truly believe their clients are willing to deal with being beta testers for the long haul. They had a perfect niche and a significant following but if that is the direction they plan, I personally would not move away from LR or PS. I purchased it for a specific reason, sharpening, denoise and enlarge, because it integrated with LR/PS, personally I think going down the path of creating a full editing suite would be a mistake.

[plugsnpixels]

This is an interesting situation.

Obviously Luminar and Photo RAW (two apps I also have and am familiar with) offer tons more creative and corrective options than Topaz – but the results I see for the common enhancements they share (especially enlargement and facial recovery) are nowhere near as good as Topaz.

(I should add here that some of these other apps have less-than-fun UI’s to deal with as well.)

Many of us here think Topaz should focus on being the absolute Best In Class for sharpening, denoising and enlarging. If Topaz users are using PAI as a plug-in for some other editing app, then those other-product “extras” are not necessary (I am thinking of color correction, though a basic Levels dialog is harmless and may help get the image quickly prepped for more Topaz-centric work).

I do enjoy sky replacement and such, but at least 3 other apps offer that particular feature.

So if Topaz can focus on the Big Three core functions that they do so well and get the effectiveness of the interface and under-the-hood performance under total control, that should be enough to make users happy – not all the extra “pork”.

PS: I see msh411 just said something similar.

[mcp]

Exactly this. Not to disrespect or disparage anyone, but it is about poor communication and loss of confidence due to the way it’s being handled. We understand things happen, but please let us know what’s going with this critical bug. This memory leak blows a lot of us out of the water.

[samb15]

I would mostly agree. True edits, workflow, and complex modifications to images do work better in other software. Topaz is far ahead of anyone else for the things it does well, and now it also has the best Remove tool I’ve seen.

Very basic colour and tone adjustments (which can be manual) would be nice. The would not make it a full editing suite, but may reduce the number of pictures that need full editing. Often an image comes out great, but needs a little tweaking of white balance, brightness, or gamma.

But yes, for now, they need to get the batch processing, DNG output, and Preserve Text working first. These all used to work fine.

[lhkjacky (Jacky)]

In my opinion, PAI should not replicate features that other apps can handle easily. This approach wastes resources. Professional users will never use these duplicated features because they are already familiar with many other professional apps that perform the same functions. Moreover, introducing such redundant features could lead to additional bugs and slower processing speeds, ultimately detracting from the user experience.

If PAI plans to introduce new features, they should be unique and unavailable in other apps. For example, harnessing machine learning to identify and mask all subjects/objects within a photo while applying different tone curves, skin tones, color adjustments, macro contrast, and recovering highlights and shadows would represent a significant advancement. Typically, tasks like these require extensive manual effort in applications such as Lightroom, involving local adjustments, tone curves, hues, and colors. If PAI can leverage intelligent AI to dramatically reduce the time spent on these tasks, it would be a game-changing feature that everyone is looking for.

Another example is the recovery of overexposed highlights or underexposed shadows, which is a limitation in traditional apps due to the absence of data in these areas. However, with the aid of AI or stable diffusion technology, it should be possible to regenerate details based on surrounding information.

In the meantime, I do not believe that current AI technology or hardware is powerful enough to achieve these advanced capabilities. Therefore, I would prefer that Topaz focus on what they do best: Upscaling, Denoising, and Sharpening.

[axel.matthies]

Blockquote
I’ve gone back to using my Sharpen v4.1.0 Denoise v3.7.2 for better results vs PAI v3.0…

Same to me.

Topaz should focus on the core competencies of sharpening and denoising in PhotoAI. Editing programs like Lightroom, Photoshop and others can do everything else much better.
I’ll install and test the next one or two updates. Then I will decide whether I will extend my subscription this summer or not. I still have the “old” versions of SharpenAI and DenoiseAI installed and still use them.

[michaelezra]

Same with me. Except I am also getting constantly locked out of Sharpen AI on Mac as it just fails to launch and then requires manual cleanup of the software and restart of the computer.

[Parker]

I’ve realized that complaining and Beta Testing (why waste my time?) are futile. They appear to have a strict Roadmap and are sticking to it.

Beta 3.0 came out. We expressed our concerns and bugs in the forum, and they released it in less than two weeks, regardless of the bugs.

This isn’t the first time our concerns have been ignored. The last time (when they removed Lens Blur), they listened and brought it back (after an outpouring of disapproval from their customer base). With 2.4.x and 3, nothing changed after our input. In fact, my experience is worse with 3—too slow and unusable.

It seems their customers as a whole are now the Beta Testers. I’d like to see the bugs addressed before any new features are introduced - and fix the UI to be more productive. We’ll see.

[ralf.brinkmann]

1.) When I select “Remove” and then “Object selection” Photo AI crashes at once with the first click I do into any object of my image (jpg). “Regular” (brush) works without problems.

2.) I really really would like to have the possibility to change the brush size with CTRL + mouse wheel instead of the slider (just like in other image editing programs).

3.) Is there any way to turn off this warning that pops up every time I try to use the “Remove” tool on my image?

[rayinsanmiguel (Ray)]

1. Same here. I don’t usually use object selection so had not come across it before, but yes it does crash on my M1 Mac Mini 16GB:
   2024-04-20-08-08-50.tzlog (171.8 KB)
   2024-04-20-08-10-16.tzlog (35.2 KB)
   lastSessionFiles.txt (55 Bytes)

2. Use the [ and ] keys to change the brush size

3. No you can’t and it’s annoying.

[rayinsanmiguel (Ray)]

Where is this Lens Blur feature?

[ralf.brinkmann]

Ray, thank you for your test and fast answer. I forgot to mention that I use a Windows pc (W11x64) mit 64 GB ram.
The [ and ] key work, but they are a bit difficult to use on a German keyboard.
The standard CTRL + mouse wheel would be much easier and more intuitive.

[Parker]

There are 4 AI Sharpen models: Standard, Strong, Lens Blur, and Motion Blur. Lens Blur works for 90% of my images, followed by Motion and Standard.

[rayinsanmiguel (Ray)]

Of course, how silly of me! I was thinking of a module that actually CREATES lens blur…
It’s something I’d like (and have requested), otherwise I have to create a mask in On1 PR to do it, and the masking there is nowhere near as good as it is in Topaz products.

[sandhill (Mark S)]

If you have access to Photoshop, have you tried Lens Blur in Adobe Camera Raw? You can set blur amount, bokeh pattern and focal range. I have found it to be very good. There is a newish Lens blur tool in Lightroom, as well, which I have not tried.

[ralf.brinkmann]

I agree with you. It would be great if PhotoAI had it’s own modul for creating lens blur.

[rayinsanmiguel (Ray)]

I am not a LR/PS subscriber, but have read about that feature. I tried to persuade On1 to develop something along those lines, but they didn’t appear to be interested.

[david.penner]

I have the same issue. I am MacOS versions, have not tested on windows. Have sent a comment on this directly to support. I do need DNG for my workflows. Version 3.0.0 saves as TIFF on export when using LRC command “Files–>PlugInExtra–>Process with Topaz PhotoAI” command. Previous version would export to DNG without any prompt or setting changes. Since this worked as desired in version 2.4.0, the "improvements in the latest version have taken away a key feature for integration with LRC workflow. I can save processed files as DNG if importing the files direct to Topaz PhotoAI and not going through LRC. I would like to know if this was intentional redaction of the feature or if there is some coding error. I did see a statement in the help notes that only TIFFs can be exported if using 3rd party programs. Really?

[jayesh.topiwala]

They are aware of this problem , it will be fixed in next update.

[richard_m_h]

I’ve been running batch jobs from Capture One. An ongoing problem with Autopilot not always detecting noise. I’m running smallish batches of similar images and getting it right for the first one then applying those settings to the rest. What I’d like is to be able to direct the output to a subdirectory rather than just dump them in the original directory.

[mrtoyota03 (chong67)]

I been say all along, I only use PAI for denoise, sharpen and text preservation(not working at the moment).

All the other stuff, I use my favorite photo editor.

I been saying this. Nobody listens.

[Paul_Coddington]

Is Undo for the Remove feature regenerating past results from scratch?

Scenario: Use remove to repair a hairline that was masked for bokeh. Do a little bit at a time. Move on to next part of hairline when results are successful, use undo when a result is not satisfactory and try again.

Problem: it look like the undo history is not being preserved but being regenerated. If you have made 4 edits, then do one undo, the other 3 edits seem to be re-processed from scratch (reselected, progress meter appears, one after the other). If so, this is not good, because apart from the extra time it takes, a previously satisfactory result may come back different (or is the seed, etc, preserved for identical outcomes?).

Now, I can get around that by exporting a backup at each step, but perhaps the application should be keeping the intermediate copies automatically in the background instead of me having to do that manually?

Otherwise, the feature seems to be doing a splendid job of fixing hairlines, removing t-shirt logos, timestamps and watermarks, etc.

[steven.b.meisel]

Somebody made a suggestion in this thread that Topaz would be well served by offering PAI-Basic and PAI-Advanced. The basic version would essentially be what version 2.3.2 was and would meet the needs of any user who is looking for denoising, sharpening, and the occasional upscale. Or Denoise AI, Sharpen AI, and Gigapixel in a single package. This would fulfill the original stated purpose of PAI.

The advanced version would offer basic editing tools like color/tone, brightness, erase/remove, and whatever else Topaz wants to stuff in to this application. They can charge a bit extra for this version and it would meet the needs of those who want this sort of editing capability without using Lightroom, Capture One, or the other full editing platforms.

They could also adopt the Luminar business model and include certain features individually as an add-on to the basic version. For example, if someone wants the basics but also preserve text but not the other stuff, for a small fee they could add that module.

But for now they seem to be cramming in feature after feature in an effort to morph into a full editing suite. But in doing so they are creating endless technical snafus, introducing rudimentary editing elements that pale in comparison to “real” editing programs, and irritating lots of customers in the process.

[kev_pride]

So why does a stand alone allow export of DNG but not as a LR plugin, makes no sense. I have an existing issue with 2.4.2 exported DNG files not being processed and exported via LR as Jpeg to which no one seems to be bothering about - neither Topaz or Adobe seem to care. Quite bloody frustrating to be honest. Everything worked perfectly well using the version before 2.4.2.

[richard_m_h]

May have finally got the grid effect I’ve seen others posting about. It was a tiff of focus stacked images from Affinity Photo that I sent via Capture One. If I go direct to APh from Affinity Photo it doesn’t happen. Might be an issue with C1? Autopilot doesn’t do well with C1 images.

[silvia.patteet]

Same here (Mac version), I assume this is a bug? Hope it will be fixed soon!

[rangerrobrealtor]

How do I go back to the older version before the 3.0 update.? The new version is performing very slowly and poorly.

[Imo]

Releases

[virteo]

same here

[mrtoyota03 (chong67)]

That is exactly what I have been saying. I bought TAI for its superiority of denoise, sharpen and upsize using their AI and love the batch process ability!

Why add more features when there are so many photo editors out there can do lens profile correction, remove CA/PF, hot pixel, etc etc.

I don’t get it. But its OK.

[JesusSheep]

@jacob.muchow Subject Selection With Colors being Close Fools the AI.

Notice Top of the Cat and it’s tail : and area between its back legs.Needs a Bound tool.Line between Subject and Background.Color Range,Keep ,Delete.

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

In the latest version of Photoshop, it does the same thing, which is it has trouble selecting when the tone and/or contrast is low between the subject and the background.

One has to manually add or subtract from the selection mask.

While it is possible for AI to address this, I can not see how it would work without there being some connection to a much larger training set online. This is to say, I don’t see how a local downloaded model could deal with complex automatic masking.

In this case, there would need to be a “cat” model, so as to recognize the head, body, legs, paws and tail.

[samb15]

I don’t use Photoshop, but other photo processing software has the same issues. From my experience, Topaz does the automatic selection better than anyone else.

That being said, an AI model should logically include common types of pets in its training.

Alternatively, you could avoid having furniture that too closely matches the colour of your cat.

…Sam

[occasionallyhere]

@samb15

Alternatively, you could avoid having furniture that too closely matches the colour of your cat.

Which will give you another kind of headache: what’s easier to change, the furniture or the cat?!?!

[steve.collins-1863]

So downloaded it last night - came to it this afternoon and while it does seem to work a bit smoother than the previous version, two things are adrift when running as part of my Lightroom workflow:
first, as mentioned elsewhere, exporting is locked into tiff files - I’m partway through a job and can’t switch to tiffs for the edited masters - please bring back DNG as an option.
Also 2.4 would automatically give the new files in Lightroom the same star rating as the masters. This version doesn’t - it’s a small thing, but having to manually change the ratings is a pain.
Have rolled back until this is fixed. It’s a shame as the rest is a definite improvement, but this is a retrograde step IMO.

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

Yowzers!

Last night I started a batch of 150 4K images in Photo AI. It was doing Face recovery, Sharpen and Adjust lighting, then saving my jpg images to jpeg files.

I checked the memory use after about 140 images where processed, it was:

Yes, that is nearly 103GB, it is fortunate my system has 256GB of RAM.

I VERY much hope the update to 3.0.0, which is supposed to come out this week, addresses the memory leak!

[JesusSheep]

@dakota.wixom @kyle.topazlabs @jacob.muchow TopazPhoto AI needs a Color Range Setting with a Color Picker.Range in HUE,Saturation ,Value,Lightness.Like a GradientAlso you can USE Lab Color Model.Vary the Lightness.

In Balance Color Also have a Color Picker To Choose a White Spot and White Balance number should be 4 Digits for more accuracy. Opacity Can also have a range too(Start to End).

Notice What Sharpen sees what is subject and background here it could have a refine and learn.
Consider

The AI in mask AI sees the Squirrel Correctly in photo AI 3 it does not.I have Also Included Transparent and Contrast Mask Results.

I am using MaskAI To show the Masking of Subject and Background between PhotoAI 3 and Mask AI:)

[golder-50350]

Just curious - are use using TPAI as your primary photo editor?

[JesusSheep]

Yes I am .i have photo Lab 7 also.

[stefano.cavanna]

it doesn’t save the file in Capture One after the elaboration in Topaz…a big problem!
Unless in this way…

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

After my batch of 150 4K images in Photo AI, which was doing Face recovery, Sharpen and Adjust lighting, then saving my jpg images to jpeg files, completed I created a graph of processing time. As was the case before, it took longer and longer for each image to process.

[joe.goodrich]

So does this mean that Topaz will no longer output DNG? This along with the other fine sharpening and Denise is why I purchased the program. There also seems to be an issue with the coloring changing. The car should be blue however after running through Topaz I get a purple car WHY ???

[jayesh.topiwala]

It will be fixed may be in tomorrow update.

[stefano.cavanna]

it doesn’t save the file in Capture One after the elaboration in Topaz…a big problem!
Unless in this way…

I was obliged to I return to the old version 2.3.2……

[Captain_Dream]

It’s a feature, not a bug: free memory tester included. Next version: free disk checker by creating 2 TB temp files.

[Captain_Dream]

The image on the Topaz homepage looks weird. It’s not a good showcase for resolution enhancement, the water streaks became pixelated and unrealistic. The original, while lower-res, looks much more natural and pleasing.

Original:

[jay-2522 (jhightman)]

@Captain_Dream

t’s a feature, not a bug: free memory tester included. Next version: free disk checker by creating 2 TB temp files.

My HP Workstation can take up to 2TB of RAM, but maybe I should look into getting a couple petabyte or even exabyte size drives to handle future releases of Photo AI?

[johnnystar]

Excellent post, I agree with you.

[zen195345]

Lol. In all seriousness though I hope we get a fix soon.

[javier.lopez-escobar (javier.lopez-escobar anguiano)]

I hope So, Awaiting impatiently new release with all this major bugs fixed. Lots of work waiting in my PC…

[axel.matthies]

The major bugs errors may be fixed, but new ones will appear. We’ll seen what happens.
At the moment I am very disappointed with PhotoAI and am considering whether I want to continue paying money for it.

[jon.parshall]

I have noticed exactly the same thing. The first few images process quite cleanly, but after about ten things slow to a crawl. Somethin’ ain’t right, because I used to process dozens or hundreds of images without much problem at all.