Topaz Photo AI v3.0.2

Can someone who uses standalone on Windows 11 please please confirm my observations as posted above?

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Why cant I export TIFF anymore? The DNGs are horrible.

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A shot of the processes tab would be more useful so we can see how much memory PAI is actually using…

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Jay, can you please run your test with the memory usage vs processing time and post the results?

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Are you using the Regular Brush or the Object Selection Brush?

I’ve noticed on my machine that the Regular Brush option experiences less lag than the Object Selection Brush.

The brush I use is the regular brush to refine the subject selection.
The megapixel brush is faster and I think the object selection is as well. I need to go to 3.0.2 from 2.3.2 and retest.

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Please don’t confuse beta testers with developers! Beta testers routinely put in a huge amount of time and effort each time a new beta build shows up. We can only test and advise and complain and suggest, but we have no control over what pops out the back end (we are often perplexed as well…).

Idea: Why don’t you join us?!

PS: Every time I post here it labels me a “beta tester” (which I am) but today I seem to be a Video AI Owner…

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A question: do I need to have a PhotoAI purchase license to be a beta tester? Because paying to provide a service also seems excessive to me :smile:.

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We are all beta testing for Topaz. I am a QA and usually they hire QA to test before the product is released. It is nice Topaz gets free QA here to test for them. That is amazing!

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Go here:

https://community.topazlabs.com/g

Click here and see how far you can get:

Screenshot 2024-05-10 at 11.48.45 AM

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I think this is true of Apple, Microsoft and other much larger software companies than Topaz :wink:

At least here the development progress comes fast and furious so we don’t have to wait months for changes.

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Certainly they are not going to let public testers test shopping cart companies. That would be lost in revenue. Imagine I got a round trip ticket for $1. LOL.

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It was what I supposed and it’s absurd: buying a product that works so-so and also providing a service for free that should be performed within Topaz. I have worked for more than forty years in software product development: after the various tests carried out during development, a quality control phase follows by a special team of the company itself; only at the end of this phase is a beta test carried out which is a further check before actual marketing. But how do you do all this when software releases are one/two weeks old? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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What you say makes sense, perhaps more for a larger company.

If your company is small, I think what we are seeing is how it’s handled… for better or worse.

Perhaps it would be more appropriate to have a small pool of officially contracted beta testers?

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Allow me a somewhat risky comparison: even Ferrari is a small manufacturer compared to the big car manufacturers but its products are tested and how (and it doesn’t come out with new versions every two weeks :frowning_face:), so the size of the company doesn’t justify the quality of the product. What matters instead are the company’s objectives: if they are small, they can only be few and well targeted to capture market niches not covered by large companies. How long have many users remembered Topaz what were the few features on which it built its success? Let’s remember them: denoise, sharpen, gigapixel and face recovery; How many times has Topaz been advised to fix the issues with these basic features and stabilize the product before focusing on new features? Lastly, let’s not forget that Topaz, the product it provides, charges quite well and that not everyone is willing to spend $200 for something that works one week and not the next.

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Dakota, this is true, but please look at a comparison.

Screenshot 2024-05-10 at 16.05.44
This the Text and Lines method in Gigapixel.


Screenshot 2024-05-09 at 21.37.52
This is TPAI 2.3.2 with Preserve Text. (Compare only July and October, as the others were not done on this one).

Overall, they differ slightly, but both have the same amount of readble text, and both if viewed small simply look like a calendar. It is hard to objectively say that one is better than the other. However, one was already there and already had the “select text” interface.


I also tried this Gp Recovery mode and got this:

Screenshot 2024-05-10 at 16.28.08
It’s only a little better than the other two modes, but not dramatically so.

…Sam

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Good points, no argument.

BTW, Topaz built its original business on Topaz Adjust, which provided HDR-like effects and tonal enhancements. Then DeNoise, Simplify and Clean before sprouting all sorts of different one-trick apps that came and went :wink:

Here are some early promos I did for these apps:

But yes, more recently, the Big 3 of Sharpen, DeNoise and enlargement are the core which must be maintained going forward as best-in-class, plus facial enhancement and Recovery (as Topaz embraces stable diffusion-type functionality).

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Win 11 desktop PC. Ps (2024) Plugin - via File > Automate.

I converted a full color image to BW & processed it in Ps. Then sent that image to PAI 3.0.2. Was able to Sharpen and Upscale (it didn’t need denoising to my taste) and save back to my Ps layer stack with no issues.

Thought it would be worthwhile to try an image that looks BW even if it’s RGB mode…

Oh, this is the original image:
Fotomaker_ORIG

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Well, that’s interesting! Adjust was my 1st Topaz product (I think I paid $25 for it - but, of course, I remember paying 5 cents for a loaf of bread… Kidding!!!). I had no clue it was positioned as being for HDR looks (of course at that stage I was new to photography, still taking classes at that point, and someone in a photo club told me he used Adjust on his images & recommended it. I wouldn’t have known what an HDR was if it bit me in the ---- neck). I used it very subtly for a bit of ‘pop’. Not crazy or over-saturated, crunchy HDR-ish. So that’s a new tidbit to hear the HDR positioning.

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Our current policy is that you do need an active license to receive Beta builds, yes.