Topaz Photo AI v3.4.0 - v3.4.2

[dakota.wixom]

Hello!

We are excited to announce another update with Photo AI v3.4.0 releasing today!

This post has also been updated to include notes from the 3.4.1 and 3.4.2 patch.

With this version of Photo AI, the Preserve Text enhancement will now automatically run on areas of your image where text has been detected. You can also regenerate results using Super Focus, which is faster than ever before on all operating systems. And cropping is now easier to use, receiving a major redesign which you’ll love.

We’ve also made some major updates to help new users get the most out of Photo AI, with tutorial videos and sample images, as well as a way to contact our amazing support team from directly within the app.

This update to Photo AI includes:

• Intelligent Text Detection for Preserve Text
• Major Improvement to the Crop Tool
• Face Recovery for Side Faces + Mac OS 12
• Regeneration for Super Focus
• Camera profiles for Olympus and Panasonic RAW
• In-App Support Outreach

And some users may also notice:

• Welcome Screen with Tutorial Videos
• Tutorials inside Suggestions
• Sample Images

Please note that the tutorial videos, sample images, and welcome screen changes will be progressively rolled out to all users based on feedback. Don’t worry if you don’t see it right away - you’ll receive access over time without any update needed.

And if you want to watch the tutorials right away - here’s a direct link to the Photo AI Tutorial Video Playlist

We have a lot to cover with this post, so keep reading to learn more. For any issues please reach out to help@topazlabs.com for support.

You can download the latest version of Photo AI using the links below:

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v3.4.2
Released Dec 24th, 2024
Windows: Download
Mac: Download

Please note that we have updated this release to include a couple of important fixes. The links above have been updated to reflect this. Make sure you are working off of the latest version of Photo AI.

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New Welcome Screen with Tutorial Videos

We are revamping the application start experience to help you get the most out of Photo AI with informative, easy to understand tutorials for both new and experienced users.

These videos share tips, tricks, and best practices for using the enhancements in Photo AI.

Here are the direct links to the tutorials. Please watch and let us know any feedback you have!

• Intro to Photo AI
• Sharpen like a Pro
• Denoise like a Pro
• Recover faces like a Pro
• Upscale like a Pro
• Remove like a Pro
• Super focus like a Pro

And here’s the entire Photo AI Tutorial Video Playlist

We’ll be adding more tutorials over time as well, so please let us know in the comments if there’s more that you’d like to see!

Please note that you may not see these tutorials in the app right away - as we are gradually rolling out this feature to users over time based on feedback. For now - use the links above if you don’t see them in the app!

Sample Images and Tutorials in Suggestions

Behind the updated welcome modal are new sample images for you to play with. These easy to access images are a canvas for everyone to experiment with the enhancements in Photo AI.

Each image also comes with a tutorial video that appears in the suggestions. The images and videos were created together so anyone who uses Photo AI can quickly become proficient with each tool.

Again, please note that you may not see these sample images right away - as we are gradually rolling out this feature to users over time based on feedback.

Intelligent Text Detection and Preservation

That’s right, Photo AI will now automatically detect text within an image, generate a custom text mask, and suggest the Preserve Text enhancement when your image has a large amount of text detected.

This will save you tons of time - you no longer need to mask out all the text in an image by hand to get the best results!

You can mouse over Preserve text in suggestions to show the detected text mask in the image. Adding Preserve text will auto-select Text every time, giving you a starting point for the enhancement. To make further changes, go to the Edit selection tab and use brushes to tweak the selection.

Regeneration for Super Focus

Not completely happy with your first Super Focus result? Now you have the ability to re-generate the “seed” of a Super Focus result if changing parameters does not yield the desired result.

A “seed” represents a unique starting point that guides our AI processing. While using the same input image, different seeds produce varying results - letting you explore multiple output versions until you find the best result for your photo.

To access the seed regeneration, run Super Focus. After the image has completed processing, enter the completed Super Focus edit and click the Regenerate button.

Important note: Once you regenerate an image, you won’t be able to return to the previous output, so make sure to save any versions you’d like to keep!

In-App Support Outreach

We believe in providing exceptional support, and now it’s easier than ever to reach our dedicated team.

At the top of the application is the new Get Help button where you can quickly create a support ticket. Describe your issue and easily attach your logs, problem image, or any additional screenshots. Submit to send it to our support email.

Our support team is always ready to help with any questions or feedback you may have!

Updated Crop Tool

Crop gets some more love with this update! You can now seamlessly switch between aspect ratio and size modes depending on your cropping needs. This makes it easier to crop an image down to an exact pixel size, or aspect ratio if you prefer.

In Size mode, specify exact pixel dimensions to use with some quick select options for the most common crop sizes. In Aspect Ratio mode, select the relative aspect ratio instead of pixel-wise dimensions.

We’ve also updated Crop to be more stable and performant in this release.

Updated Face Recovery for Side Faces and MacOS 12

Everyone loves Face Recovery in Photo AI, and we have made yet another update to the model which will dramatically improve results for faces which are shot in a side profile.

This update also allows the model to run on macOS 12 devices, which was not possible before.

This is part of a larger initiative to improve the quality of face recovery in even more scenarios such as with diverse skin tones, body jewelry, and more.

Check out some of these amazing examples:

Left: Original, Middle: Before the update, Right: After the update

Camera profile support for Olympus and Panasonic RAW files

Last but not least - we are excited to expand improvements to more camera manufacturers!

When a Olympus or Panasonic RAW is imported, Photo AI reads the metadata for camera manufacturer, camera model, and camera profile. The header now includes the camera profile detected and applied to the RAW file.

Olympus before (top) and after (bottom)

Panasonic before (top) and after (bottom)

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Even More to Come

With your help, Photo AI is getting better every single day behind the scenes.

There’s so much more more coming to Photo AI, and we can’t wait to share with you everything else that we have been working on - including new AI models and so much more next year.

We’ll share more about future plans for Photo AI in an upcoming Roadmap post.

We’ve also fixed a number of important issues with this release of Photo AI, as well as the previous patch releases. You can check out the full changelog below.

Cheers,

Dakota Wixom
Product Manager
Topaz Labs

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Changelog

• Added Intelligent Text Detection for Preserve Text
• Added Major Improvement to the Crop Tool
• Added Face Recovery for Side Faces + Mac OS 12
• Added Regeneration for Super Focus
• Added Camera profiles for Olympus and Panasonic RAW
• Added In-App Support Outreach
• Added Welcome Screen with Tutorial Videos
• Added Tutorials inside Suggestions
• Added Sample Images
• Added -crop suffix to file exports with crop
• Updated model selector for Upscale
• Multiple fixes for product metrics
• Fix applying presets sometimes moving some filters below upscale
• Fix crash on startup when offline
• Fix crash when adding multiple sharpen enhancements
• Fix subject masks always saying “auto”
• Fix reactivation window not appearing on windows
• Fix OpenSSL issue with plugin flow
• Automatic Lensfun Update
• Exiftool update

3.4.1 Update Notes:

• Fixed grid artifacts with the High Fidelity v2 upscaling model
• Fixed issue with crashes during import on some images
• Fixed some incorrect spacing and colors in Light Mode
• Updated app icon

3.4.2 Update Notes:

• Fixed Mac model download in installer

Known Issues

• You may need to log out and back in to see the Get help button

[jurgen.wietschke (juergen.wietschke)]

Ich habe eben die Version 3.4 installiert.
Die mehrfach Anwendung von sharpen funktioniert jetzt wieder.
Auch sind die ersten Ergebnisse insgesamt vielversprechend.
Vielen Dank und allen eine schöne Weihnachtszeit

[michaelezra]

Oddly… TPAI recommended three Text preservation adjustments to this image:

[Lingyu]

Could you share the file and logs to my Dropbox? I’ll see if I can reproduce this.

You can securely submit your image(s) to my Dropbox using the link below. Please be sure to send me a note to let me know you sent something.
Dropbox File Request

[dakota.wixom]

Wunderbar! Ich freue mich, dass diese Version bei Ihnen gut funktioniert. Frohe Weihnachten!

[andymagee-52287]

Warning, the grid pattern when using High fidelity v2 is still there!

Also, the auto selection areas for Preserve Text create a pretty good size blurry area surrounding the text.

Auto Preserve Text

Original

[dakota.wixom]

Thanks - can you share examples of grid artifacts with HiFi in Photo AI though? I’m not able to reproduce on my end the same issue. There is a fix coming for Gigapixel.

[andymagee-52287]

2X High Fidelity V2 (The Grid Pitch appears to be about 116 pixels)

Original

p.s. Interesting discovery. If you do a crop, and rotate, the square grid rotates along with the image.

[david.horita]

HI Dakota,
Rayinsamiguel and I tried denoising each others files (both arw’s from Sony a6700s). I got artifacts, he didn’t. So there might be a hardware basis to this problem. He was on his mac and I’m on a W11 machine (and have tested on another), but other Mac users have seen this as well, and it’s not restricted to Sony cameras, so…I don’t know. I also tend to get grids in very dark areas, while others see them in lighter regions (like andymagee’s).

[plugsnpixels]

Today’s examples (M2 Mini, not too painful!):

Cropped iPhone scenic photo, Super-focused and Upscaled:

Blurry image Sharpened (I was testing Preserve Text but this image was way better without it):

Side-face recovery (2005 image):

[rayinsanmiguel (Ray)]

Something is still not right with the crop tool. I open an image in TPAI standalone and a crop is applied by default. This is definitely NOT something I want to happen, and there is no warning that it’s been done, unless one checks first. I wasted time processing this image because I did not want to crop it at all: I successfully used the remove tool to get rid of the intrusive light bulbs at the right edge.
Looks like a bug to me.Can others reproduce it?

[Fotomaker]

Thanks “y’all”! To quote the gravelly voiced tutorials presenter …

[Fotomaker]

Win 11 Pro (desktop PC). PAI 3.0.4 Ps PLUGIN. Processor = AMD RX6800 XT.

Test image Orig = ORF (but opened into Ps, so plugin won’t treat as Olympus Raw). Train in history park (San Jose, CA). Modified at image boundaries with Firefly gen expand (so interested to see how PAI sharpens low res faked content too).

• I didn’t want to wait a long time for processing, so reduced size of the original from 65nn px on longest edge to 1024 px on longest edge before sending to PAI Ps Plugin.

Before in PAI UI (plugin):

Q - for @dakota.wixom : I see 3 levels/strength options for sharpening but often (including this run) I only see the option of a “Small” Preview box. Why is that? Is that how it should operate?

After 1st SuperFocus - Medium Processing: (Note the round silver area of train Before & this SF After - it mutilated the bolts). BTW, it auto-detected the numbers on the train. Not the tiny print on the sign.

After 2nd SuperFocus - Use of Regenerate: (Note the same silver area details

still mutilated)

SuperFocus Abandoned - Sharpen ReFocus Model Used Instead:

Saved last run (Sharpen - Refocus) back to Ps Layer: (This is why I like working with the Ps Plugin - b/c areas of the image were over-sharpened and developed white halos I added a Ps Layer Mask and removed the sharpening from the background trees and other foliage with a soft Black Brush at low flow)

View of just the Layer Mask referred to immediately above - i.e., where I masked out the PAI 3.0.4 over-sharpening on the output image = black (feathered), where I retained the PAI processing = white:

There is a significant pixel shift (diagonal) when I turn the Ps layer eye icons off/on.

I haven’t yet tried running this output through GAI (Ps plugin) to see if I can enlarge it back up to the size of the original image and how it will handle that.

[michaelezra]

I just sent you the same JPG file and the log. the very last entry should be for this file / autopilot recommendations.

[andymagee-52287]

I’m on W11 24H2 as well.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER

NVIDIA Driver 566.14

CPU RAM: 32691 MB

Video RAM: 8192 MB

[axel.matthies]

I’ve install the update to version 3.4.0 and check the assignment of multiple sharpen enhancements.
It works fine.

[rayinsanmiguel (Ray)]

I have some images from a few years ago that were shot at 4:3. When the raw files are opened in TPA1 3.4 they are rendered as 3:2 and cropped accordingly. This has nothing to do with the cropping issue I raised above, since opening TPAI’s crop tool does not allow me to rectify the issue.
This does not happen if I first save the raw file as a TIFF or open the original file in Topaz Sharpen AI.
So I am guessing it’s a bug!

[paul.t-uk (paul.terry-4493)]

When opening PAI from within LrC, still getting multiple “Preserve” buttons, even though there is no text, then clicking on one of them crashes PAI and sends you back to LrC. First reported during Beta and not fixed yet

Windows 11 Pro, Intel Core i9, 32gb RAM, RTX4080

[dakota.wixom]

Thank you - we’re taking a close look at this today along with the multiple preserve text issue.

[dakota.wixom]

Any chance you can share log files with us?