The Topaz ‘Roadmap’ forum posts, that I used to find helpful and encouraging, have not been updated in a long time. That suggests, to me, that Topaz no longer wants to make their plans known to the public. Or perhaps, that the plans are not very solid.
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Am I understanding this correctly? So I only need to keep two Topaz Apps subscriptions active (e.g., Photo AI and Gigapixel) and I’ll get the rest for free, including Video AI?
Or do I need an active Video AI subscription for the free Beta Pro upgrade? Then, for example, Video AI and Gigapixel AI would be sufficient, and I’d get all the other apps for free? I still find it very confusing.
Are there any downsides to canceling one of the app subscriptions? I think there was a special price for the subscription the last time I purchased it. I’m wondering why you only need two active subscriptions to get Studio. What’s the difference between all three subscriptions and just two subscriptions including the free Studio upgrade?
You write that you can calculate better with a subscription model. Will we be billed monthly or still annually? Annual billing is practically no different than before. We already had to renew annually if we wanted to use the latest improvements and models.
Unfortunately, I also canceled my subscriptions before it was announced that there would only be one subscription model. Now my subscriptions are a bit more expensive after reactivating. Can I still reverse this? If not, it would be good if two subscriptions were enough for all the features and apps in the Studio Bundle.
Wow, thanks for posting these! I do mainly animal stuff and I am pretty surprised how bad Wonder performs as to animal fur. Standard is much more natural. And in many cases, High fidelity is even better, and sometimes Standard V1 or even Low Res get the cake (I always do a 4-tile comparison with several models because you just can’t tell in advance which ist best). Maybe Wonder has its strength with other subjects but from what I see now, for my stuff I’d prefer GPAI 8.4.2 over Studio any time!
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That’s always a possibility. I’m still using Office 2010 and Acrobt XI. Neither has added any new functionality that I needed in the past 15 years, and so far they’ve continued to work with new OS changes.
I’ve put Photo AI on auto-renew on top of my Video AI until I get a look at the full range of Studio apps that Topaz says we’ll have access to with two licenses. If the new apps look useful, I’ll maintain it. If not, I’ll keep Video AI and let Photo AI expire next year.
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Sheesh!
I thought you were comparing the “new exciting Wonder” model? This looks faded.
Oh wait… you are! 
I see it differently.
The architecture of the model is great, it’s just that the details aren’t quite right yet.
When it comes to generating images without artifacts, Wonder is far superior to standard.
Just look at the image with the fur in detail. With Wonder, there are no artifacts.
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Dakota please stop complaining about us ruining your advertisements for your own products because your customers have feedback. We are trying to protect people, not companies. We could all use free products on huggingface.
Topaz cyclically ABANDONS its programs in favor of new ones, PhotoAi had to replace the entire old Sharpen Ai Gigapixel Ai DenoiseAi suite. Then PhotoAi was insufficient, so Gigapixel Ai (current app) returned, now these apps are insufficient and will be replaced by Studio Ai App. First license then subscriptions for updates, then cloud then cloud subscriptions, then new license, then new subscription… etc etc in a cycle that brings little news but a lot of money into the coffers of TopazLabs. The products are good, but this money-consuming technique got boring to me.
Not even the creation of finishing the development of a software without leaving things half done (in beta)
Enough.
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For my own safety, I have decided to steer clear of open source for the time being, as it is never clear what you are downloading onto your system.
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Tell me about what we are downloading onto our system with closed source software like Topaz? The idea of Open Source is that you know and that its publicly auditable.
Why are you writing to me if you are convinced that open source is the ultimate solution?
And that Topazlabs software is rubbish?
For my part, I cannot achieve the same quality with open source models.
I have tried enlargement models from someone who has created 600 of them. Do you want to test them all individually until you find the best one for you?
That means you read the code for each individual AI model, understand it, and know how it works.
Is that true for everyone else here too?
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I agree.
I just set my TVAI to auto renew today (it had expired about a week ago). I also have Photo AI on auto renew. This is my 3rd year of TVAI and 2nd year of Photo AI…
My main purpose in auto renewing TVAI just now is so I am sure to be eligible for the full Studio collection. Normally I would have waited a few weeks for a significant model update to renew.
BUT, the main concern I see is that if I wanted to stop auto renewing TVAI/PhotoAI/Studio on my anniversary next year (September 2026),
AND, there is a significant Starlight/Astra GAN update in the next few months (which is the main thing I want),
AND, Topaz would not allow me to perpetually keep that upcoming Starlight update locally…
then that is a PROBLEM.
A maintenance update would not suffice (unless that somehow contained the full model update).
I suppose that somewhere in the fine print it says something like “you are entitled to maintenance upgrades…” but it does not say “you are entitled to model upgrades…”, but I haven’t found that (yet).
Let’s be clear… transitioning to a subscription model is very, very much in favor of the company… not the consumer. By smoothing out revenue and making it sticky, the enterprise value on the same revenue base is much, much higher. Eventually, the consumer MAY benefit because the company can attract more talent and get better funding terms etc., which MIGHT lead to a better product than what would otherwise have been created. But, Topaz may have an initial loss in subscribers… they need to make sure this is handled well.
Obviously, this smells and tastes like Adobe… who, admittedly, has offered a great set of tools for quite some time. They were well regarded up until about 10 years ago, but now, everyone I know, grits their teeth in anger when they have no choice but to pay, pay, pay. Because when you look under the hood, the products have barely changed in those ten years… they just have GUI updates and links to more “add-ons” you have to subscribe to. But I thought baggage, legroom and food were part of the deal… well sir, they were before, but were making some changes that are for your benefit. Hmmm…
I admit I was pretty upset when the forced Adobe transition was announced. I immediately bought a physical copy of all their major products on DVD with a perpetual license.
But, recently (over the last year), I bought some new equipment. When I went to install the perpetual products using the DVDs, the installer would say “License Validated”, BUT, when I would go to “activate” over the internet it says - “Invalid License”. Not happy!
On my first call to Adobe I hear “that is a very old product” and “you need to switch to the subscription version”. I calmly explained that I paid thousands of dollars for perpetual licenses… and, after much back and forth, the complaint would be escalated… and escalated again… etc.
Let’s just say I got pretty angry with it and decided to fight bitterly to get what I was promised. I went to a class action law firm, who gathered some plaintiffs, and the threat was taken to the highest levels. They eventually relented, seeing that there was no way to backpedal the black-and-white, fine print definition of their perpetual license promise written in the booklet that came with the DVD.
I was provided “special product keys” for every product, and, of course, they all activated properly. They characterized it as a “one-time special exception”.
I really hope to avoid that again.
But, in this case, at least for me, I am pretty sure I’ll want Topaz products well beyond one year from now. The products have been amazingly helpful for me, and I can see improvements galore over the next couple of years.
Since they are providing some special grandfathering value… I’m more accepting of this situation. There’s, for sure, a little bait-and-switch here, but let’s see how they handle it. If they handle it generously, I think they will have a very positive outcome in the long run, while still achieving their transition objective.
What Topaz should try to avoid at all costs is having their customer base angrily gritting their teeth every time they open a Topaz app or see the subscription fee debit.
For some people, this could be an unrecoverable issue that drives them away forever… or it could handled in a way that drives that same person to be a great, word-of-mouth advocate for Topaz.
For as much as companies spend on advertising, it would seem the cheapest (and highest quality) advertising they could ever buy is being overly generous to the customer base they are forcing into the transition. Before that… and after that… it matters much less.
I’m hoping for the best.
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Nice - makes sense. BTW - at least for me, Photoshop and Lightroom Classic have improved quit a bit over the last 10 years. I guess it all depends on what features are important to you.
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You lucked out. Whose Wonder model did you use? Was it together with other apps like you usually do?
I don’t dare post my collection of outputs or no one would be enticed to subscribe. 
Here it is only the wonder model, not a combination of others.
Apart from the raw processing process.
Otherwise, it wouldn’t be honest.
I have other pictures that would be worth showing, but I don’t have permission to do so.
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Yes, I see some improvements too, but I’m not sure if the price is worth it. Davinci Resolve (free) is really good for me, and Photoshop CS5 (v 12.1) has everything I ever use for non-AI photo work. Mind you, I am a hobbyist in these areas, not a professional creator/editor.
Like you said, it depends on the features, cost and how much competition there is (and what open source projects are available).
I will say, I am liking the Topaz products a lot so far.
I’m still finding bugs, but they’re fixing them…
And, once SLm came out, and I could see where that was headed, I was hooked.
I’m definitely rooting for them to succeed.
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Wonder has not impressed me so far - in a word “fuzzy”.
But I take your point that it may (probably will) get better - so it’s certainly worth watching.
I had not noticed fewer artifacts in Wonder - I will go back to some of my older bad sky artifact images and check again.
I am still so disappointed at the recent false promises and the underhand way Studio has been announced but I’m coming to terms with it and acknowledging that other companies have done the same - but life goes on. For me it’s worth reminding myself that we are better off with Topaz’s products today than we were 12 months ago or on 1 January 2025. If we are lucky perhaps that may turn out to be true by 1 April 2026 ? 
Working on some fur-related ideas… for sharpening, first
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Some results from the Wonder model are incredible and already can outperform any existing model. We’ll continue to update it over time here and it will get even better. We’re aware of a couple areas where the model underperforms at the moment, but as TPX mentioned the architecture is extremely promising.
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