The issue you’ve experiencing is happening because, the faces within the image are Blurry possibly caused by Soft Focus or Motion Blur and you have the Recover Faces Strength intensity set to one hundred which is much to high
Try reducing the Recover Faces Strength or alternatively try applying Recover Faces V1 / Gen 1 instead which is far more forgiving when it comes to blurred faces and spots.
The initial Raw Denoise occasionally gets stuck, and the wheel spins for several minutes. I’ve tried leaving it with no success. Can cancel the processing in TPAI, rerun, and it works in a few seconds.
Log files attached after this happened. (I had to repoen TPAI to get the location for the log file, so it is not the last session) Topaz.zip (363.7 KB)
Second problem is that the Sharpen Subject mask occasionally disappears. So when I mouse-over ‘Subject’ before adding the Sharpen, it shows. But then sometimes it won’t display after I add it. And sometimes it will disappear after I’ve started refining it
@david.barker-2802 - can you send to support@topazlabs.com your System Profile, to make sure all drivers are up to date? Also seeing you are forcing in your AI Processor to be on NVIDIA, make sure to change this to Auto in Edit > Preferences > AI Processor > Auto, - Using Auto will use both CPU+NVIDIA and this will use your full machine capabilities. Make sure to not use the “optimization” settings in your NVIDIA app for Topaz Photo AI, all it does is change without your knowledge the AI Processor to solely use NVIDIA, and to use your full machine capabilities, you want to remain on Auto. If issues remain on Auto, test using same file on C drive (seeing you edit on D - to rule out D drive issues. If issues remain on C and on AI Processor Auto - send fresh logs to support@topazlabs.com and your System Profile as well and we can have a look: How To Obtain Your System Profile (Windows)
I love many your landscapes (not macro ;-)), and this one is obviously a stunning image. I like it as is, with your composition. Another option that I would probably try.. as simple as 3/3. But sky in your version is more open, and it ads a space and a different mood.
(This is just from a quick look - I haven’t actually tried anything) - There’s the crop you have of all of the lightning, there’s a tighter crop getting rid of the bottom/right tail which would highlight the central bright spot and give some symmetry, there’s either a portrait or square crop including the lightning and the light above which would put more emphasis on the bright space above the lightning, and of course the full image because the blue is great. I’m still trying to decide whether the open sky on the lower left is a balance (I like the color) or distraction. I’d probably take a bit off the top - the horizontal cloud/sky line is a natural center and also gives up/down balance between the bright area at the top of the cloud and the bottom line of the lightning.
Again, it’s just really nice and provides a great base for playing with post (and given your pipeline, that’s probably something you have fun with).
Did you do an open shutter/bulb exposure or catch that on the fly?
Manual, 25sec. ISO 200, 10 images (are part of the composing) out of 50.
Was out to make a video of Fireflies, but they did not apear, when driving home i did see this cloud and head to a spot i know that’s the highest in the region, with noting but nature around.