I have found a few photos on which Sharpen AI works but most of the time I get better results using Topaz Detail or Filter > Sharpen > Shake Reduction in Photoshop. Most of the time Sharpen AI does not change the apparent sharpness of the photo at all. Is there any way to tell be looking at a photo if Sharpen AI might work. Trying it is soooooo slooooow on my I9-9980HK CPU and NVIDIA Quadro RTX 3000 GPU that I usually don’t bother. Thanks.
If a picture just needs a bit of sharpening, use your photo program Unsharp Mask. If you have an out of focus picture and maybe also need some noise reduction then Sharpen AI might be the way to go. I usually watch some object like a piece of jewelry, skin is not something you want to sharpen. Topaz AI products require a good GPU video card which is about $200 or higher for good performance. The new version 1.4.0 of SAI has some optimization for intel CPUs which may help. You should always go with what works best but have tools that work different ways.
Congratulations to the “Chef”!! Yesterday I installed the update to Sharpen AI (v1.4.0) and I was happily surprised to see that it had greatly improved with a major speed bump. That’s the good news - the bad news is that it still lags in quality. AI Clear mis still the one to beat for image quality (and speed) all things considered. Keep on trucking’ Topaz
