Test Update April,2020-Topaz AI Sharpen

[Mitchell]

The results on the snowy are simply incredible. I wonder how many soft images I've tossed that might have been salvaged.

 

[alexf]

I use Topaz AI Denoise and Topaz AI Sharpen in almost all of my images as part of my PS2020 workflow. Very pleased with both.

 

[TomP]

Very nice, and I have not played with it in a long while.

 

[Philinnz]

have downloaded a trial version, needs a little practice, I find it is easy to get an overprocessed look. Note it is on special price at the moment - probably 1 more day - $59 instead of $79

 

[Growltiger]

have downloaded a trial version, needs a little practice, I find it is easy to get an overprocessed look. Note it is on special price at the moment - probably 1 more day - $59 instead of $79

A tip.
For normal use, use the Sharpen mode and Auto, or Manual to make it weaker/stronger.
For really blurred photos, use the Stabilize mode. That is incredible.

 

[Philinnz]

seemed to work ok on this one

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[Cleanimage]

I've continued to poke around a bit with AI Sharpen on some images that have been historically unsatisfactory from a standpoint of sharpness. Below is one from a couple of years ago. The image was shot from a moving boat at a moving target. As things would have it in the only frame that I captured with direct frontal position and eye contact with the motion etc the focus point slipped off of the animal's eyes. As a result the whiskers were in sharp focus but eyes/eyebrows were slipping out the back side of DOF. I produced a split image to try and show the previous best PP versus application of AI Sharpen.

Left side: processed in ON1, sharpening achieved with "dynamic contrast"+"detail"+USM.

Right side: processed with Topaz AI Sharpen then imported into ON1 and finished as above

And yes the right side is warmer than the left but please let's not get wrapped around that axle. Just trying to demonstrate the sharpening software not my overall PP skills(or lack of).

D810, 500mm f4, handheld from moving boat
1/1600s f5.6 ISO100

View attachment 1636712

And here's the complete reworked image. Eyes/brows now nice and sharp

View attachment 1636713

I didn't realize that you had posted a thread on Topaz AI when I posted my own thread. I actually think that the original image was pretty darn good but I can definitely see an improvement in the second image. I've also got Denoise and Louie's observation is certainly accurate; it is slow and I'm running it with 32 GB of memory. Sharpen AI is much faster. I do have one glitch though; Sharpen doesn't work as a stand alone application. If I activate it from my desktop icon it freezes when I try to save my edits. I've notified Topaz but so far no luck with fixing that glitch. For me it's no big deal since I do all of my edits from Lightroom.

 

[Growltiger]

... Sharpen AI is much faster. I do have one glitch though; Sharpen doesn't work as a stand alone application. If I activate it from my desktop icon it freezes when I try to save my edits. I've notified Topaz but so far no luck with fixing that glitch. For me it's no big deal since I do all of my edits from Lightroom.

Make sure you are running the latest version.

 

[Palouse]

Make sure you are running the latest version.

I have only run it as a stand alone. No problems, but slow on my ancient MBP. Turning off preview helps.

 

[drr1531]

...it is slow and I'm running it with 32 GB of memory. Sharpen AI is much faster. I do have one glitch though; Sharpen doesn't work as a stand alone application. If I activate it from my desktop icon it freezes when I try to save my edits. I've notified Topaz but so far no luck with fixing that glitch. For me it's no big deal since I do all of my edits from Lightroom.

What kind of video card do you have? If you have a high end video card you can set the preferences of the AI products to use the video processor/memory. If you have a good card they run much faster. They seem to be optimized that way and run much faster then even a high end processor and plenty of RAM.

 

[Palouse]

There's an update loading as we wait; not sure what's in it.

 

[Cleanimage]

What kind of video card do you have? If you have a high end video card you can set the preferences of the AI products to use the video processor/memory. If you have a good card they run much faster. They seem to be optimized that way and run much faster then even a high end processor and plenty of RAM.

I'm using a GeForce GTX-1660 video card. I've pretty much tried everything. I've uninstalled both Topaz applications, deleted the Topaz LLC folders, and have reinstalled both applications. I've also uninstalled my Adobe applications and have reinstalled them including the Creative Cloud application. I've also reinstalled my video card driver just to make sure. Nothing works. Sharpen just won't work as a stand alone application. The weird thing is that the stand alone of Sharpen works fine, albeit very slowly, on my daughter's laptop and the Adobe applications are also loaded on her computer. Go figure. I've wasted too much time on this issue; it's just time to move on to something more productive.

 

[Ogof Mole]

I downloaded a trial version of Sharpen AI at the end of 2019, very impressed with it's performance, I will get around to buying this at some point when I see a good deal.

 

[Growltiger]

I'm using a GeForce GTX-1660 video card. I've pretty much tried everything. I've uninstalled both Topaz applications, deleted the Topaz LLC folders, and have reinstalled both applications. I've also uninstalled my Adobe applications and have reinstalled them including the Creative Cloud application. I've also reinstalled my video card driver just to make sure. Nothing works. Sharpen just won't work as a stand alone application. The weird thing is that the stand alone of Sharpen works fine, albeit very slowly, on my daughter's laptop and the Adobe applications are also loaded on her computer. Go figure. I've wasted too much time on this issue; it's just time to move on to something more productive.

Go into the preferences and tell it to use the CPU instead of the GPU.

 

[DRT730]

updated to SharpenAI 2.0.5., still need a minimum of 2G of vram, I only got 1G of vram so I need to use the CPU

 

[drr1531]

I hate it when updates break software. I just updated Sharpen AI to version 2.0.5 and it is WAY slower that the older version 1.4.6 that I've been running. Both the preview and generating/saving the output file are much slower. I thought that perhaps masking only a portion of the image would result in a faster output but in fact it seems to be the opposite. When using the mask feature the output is downright glacial. With the older version saving the file on my system typically takes on the order of 30 seconds. The newer version is taking 5x as much time. The only saving grace is that the update process gave me the option to leave the old version intact. Which I did thank goodness.

 

[Ogof Mole]

I'm not very tech with computers, but can anyone tell me how much VRAM I have on my card. As when I installed the trial version, it was a bit slow to process but I was quite happy to live with it.

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[drr1531]

I'm not very tech with computers, but can anyone tell me how much VRAM I have on my card. As when I installed the trial version, it was a bit slow to process but I was quite happy to live with it.

. View attachment 1658409

One gig as indicated by the "dedicated video memory".

 

[SRHEdD]

Tony-b turned me on to Topaz a few moths ago. DeNoise AI and Sharpen AI are both in my PS plug-ins now. I may not use them every time, but I at least consider the possibility.

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[Ogof Mole]

One gig as indicated by the "dedicated video memory".

Thank you for your help.