Topaz Photo AI’s potent combination of top-tier photo upscaling, noise reduction, and sharpening enables it to enhance and restore photos to a level beyond the reach of other image enhancement applications. However, due to its rich feature set, Topaz Photo AI costs much more than specialised denoising and upscaling alternatives such as Gigapixel and DxO PureRaw. But if you need everything it has to offer, Photo AI is unmatched. Jump to Conclusion
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TOPAZ PHOTO AI
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Table of Contents
- What is Topaz Photo AI 4
- System Requirements for Topaz Photo AI
- What is new in Topaz Photo AI 4
- Topaz Photo AI Price
- Topaz Photo AI Trial
- What does Topaz Photo AI do
- Who is Topaz Photo AI for
- Topaz Photo AI features
- What is Topaz Photo AI like to use
- What’s wrong with Topaz Photo AI 4
- Alternatives to Topaz Photo AI
- Is Topaz AI worth it
- Frequently Asked Questions
- About the Author
What is Topaz Photo AI 4
Topaz Photo AI is an all-in-one photo enhancement and restoration studio for PC and Mac, enabling you to easily deblur, sharpen, enlarge, and denoise your photos. You can also use Photo AI to brighten your photos, erase unwanted photographic elements, and remove dust and scratches from your digitized prints.
Critically, Photo AI requires very little skill to use. Its reliably excellent Autopilot mode assesses your photo and automatically applies whatever adjustments, enhancements, and restorations it thinks will best suit your image. However, you can always fine-tune Autopilot’s enhancements or turn it off altogether and make your own.
Topaz Photo AI works with both JPEG and a wide selection of Raw files. Once you have finished enhancing your image, you can export it as a TIFF, JPEG, or DNG Raw file. Furthermore, Photo AI is a standalone photo enhancement application, meaning it can operate independently of any other photography software. Alternatively, you can use Topaz Photo AI as a plugin for Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Capture One, and Apple Photos.
A Topaz Photo AI lifetime license will cost you a one-time payment of US$199. You can also try Topaz Photo AI free for 30 days – no payment required. Try Topaz Photo AI Now – For Free
System Requirements for Topaz Photo AI
Topaz Photo AI system requirements for Windows PC and Mac OS vary from feature to feature and use case. Click here for the latest system requirements.
What is new in Topaz Photo AI 4
Topaz Photo AI 4’s new features include a Dust and Scratch Repair for restoring damaged digitized prints. Meanwhile, Autopilot has been revamped to be more intuitive, and the Face Recovery mode now has dedicated adjustments for restoring the detail in your subject’s hair and neck. You’ll also find various evolutionary tweaks to the interface in an attempt to smooth your workflow further.
Overall, Topaz Photo AI 4 is a considerate but modest upgrade over Topaz Photo AI 3, but a significant leap over Topaz Photo AI 2 and 1. Furthermore, you can upgrade to Topaz Photo AI 4 for less if you already own a previous version of Photo AI. Check Upgrade Price
Topaz Photo AI Price
A single Topaz Photo AI lifetime license will cost you a one-time payment of US$199 or $99 if upgrading from an older version. Buy Topaz Photo AI Now.
Topaz Photo AI Trial
Try Topaz Photo AI free for 30 days. Download Free Trial Now
What does Topaz Photo AI do
With Topaz Photo AI, you can apply Image upscaling to enlarge your images by up to 600% or use Denoise to clean up and enhance your noise-ridden images. You can also use Image Sharpening and Super Focus to sharpen your photos, as well as correct poor focus and motion blur. With the Remove Object tool, you can remove unwanted photographic elements and clutter from your image, and use the Dust and Scratch repair tool to fix the digitized versions of your damaged prints.
While you should not consider Topaz Photo AI a photo editing application, it does include some editing features. These include Adjust Lighting and Balance Color, which you can use to rebalance your photo’s exposure and white balance, respectively. You can also use Photo AI’s masking tool to automatically mask areas of your photo, thus limiting your enhancements to your subject, background, or specific areas of your image using manual brushing.
However, Topaz Photo AI’s superpower is the ability to combine these enhancements. For instance, many applications can denoise an image at least as well as Photo AI. However, few can denoise your image and then go on to deblur and upscale it by 600%.
Who is Topaz Photo AI for
Almost any photographer can benefit from Topaz Photo AI’s feature set. For instance, the ability to correct a blurred shot is relevant to pretty much anyone who has picked up a camera, while Photo AI’s Denoise is ideal for when you are shooting in low light with high ISOs. Meanwhile, its upscaling is perfect for making large prints out of small photos.
Furthermore, Topaz Photo AI’s features combine to make it an effective tool for restoring and enhancing low-fi images and digitized copies of damaged prints. Thus, Photo AI is an effective option for remastering your old and worn photographs.
However, you may not need everything Topaz Photo AI has to offer. If, for example, you only need noise reduction, DxO PureRaw is at least as good and costs considerably less. Compared to Photo AI, Gigapixel costs half as much despite being an equally excellent upscaling application. But if you need most or everything Photo AI has to offer, Topaz Photo AI is the way to go. Download Free Trial Now
Topaz Photo AI features
- Image Sharpening
- Super Focus
- Noise Reduction
- Image Upscaling
- Face Recovery
- Dust and Scratch Repair
- Remove Object
- Adjust Lighting
- Balance Color
- Masking
Image Sharpening
Topaz Photo AI’s AI-powered image sharpening delivers artifact-free sharpening and the ability to deblur out-of-focus and motion-blurred photos.
There are four different sharpening models: Standard, Strong, Lens Blur, and Motion Blur, each offering distinct results. Furthermore, you can adjust the strength and the denoise level of each or leave AutoPilot to make your adjustments for you. With Topaz Photo AI 4’s masking tools, you can apply sharpening to your entire photo or limit it to specific areas.
Super Focus
Super Focus improves Topaz Photo AI’s capacity to correct and sharpen poorly focused images, and the results can be hugely transformative. However, Super Focus has some problems.
First of all, Super Focus is so computationally demanding that it can take many minutes to render a single image, and Topaz Photo AI becomes inoperable until the render is complete. Furthermore, while you can quickly preview Super Focus’s effect on a small part of your image, the preview is not always representative of the final photo. Therefore, you can end up waiting a long time to be surprised with a result you never would have wanted.
For faster results, you can send your image to Photo AI’s Cloud Renderer instead. Not only will your image be processed more quickly, but you will be able to use Photo AI while the render takes place in the background. However, the Cloud Renderer will cost you a number of credits depending on how large your image will be. Credits cost between 12 and 6 cents each, depending on how many you buy. Explore Credit Pricing Now
Overall, Super Focus is a nice-to-have that is capable of producing results that vastly exceed Photo AI’s standard AI sharpening. However, you can also wait a substantial amount of time or spend several credits and receive a worse result for your trouble.
Nonetheless, Super Focus has the means to restore images you would have otherwise deleted and is a welcome addition to Topaz Photo AI.
Noise Reduction
Topaz Photo AI’s noise reduction removes photo noise while recovering and enhancing detail. The results can be so impressive that you might consider it equivalent to a sensor or lens upgrade, but at a fraction of the price.
Topaz Photo AI offers several distinct AI Models for denoising JPEG and Raw files. Each AI model has separate adjustments for fine-tuning noise reduction strength and deblur. Alternatively, you can enable Autopilot, and Topaz Photo AI will make these adjustments on your behalf.
Image Upscaling
Topaz Photo AI’s Upscaling allows you to enlarge your digital photos by up to 600%. But unlike traditional photo enlargement applications, which turn one pixel into many, Topaz Photo AI’s artificial intelligence anticipates and inserts additional detail as it goes.
Topaz Photo AI includes four different AI models: Standard, High Fidelity, Graphics, and Low Resolution. Each feature has a separate adjustment, giving you granular control over Denoising, Deblurring, and Compression. Alternatively, you can switch on Autopilot and let Topaz Photo AI do the work.
Face Recovery
Topaz Photo AI’s Face Recovery mode leverages face detection technology to identify and preserve Faces from destructive over-processing – a situation I often encounter when testing AI enhancement apps.
Ironically, Topaz Photo AI’s natural touch means it doesn’t need a Recover Faces feature at all. Nonetheless, it has one, and it’s often best to leave it off as it’s likely to posterize your photo for oil-painting-like features and skin tones. Sadly, the Recover Faces tool in Topaz Photo AI 3 offers no adjustments; thus, you have no control over the severity of the effect.
Dust and Scratch Repair
Photo AI 4’s Dust and Scratch repair is designed to restore your digitized copies of tired and worn prints. While the quality of the repair will vary depending on the content and complexity of the photo, it can be extremely impressive at its best.
Remove Object
Topaz Photo AI’s Remove Objects tool is an AI-powered erasing brush for ridding unwanted photo elements from your image. Brush over the undesired object and click Remove Selection. Like many other AI tools, Remove Object’s results can be unpredictable, but it can work exceptionally well.
Adjust Lighting
With Adjust Lighting, you can rebalance and brighten your photo’s exposure by boosting shadows while preserving highlights. While Adjusting Lighting is hardly an exciting feature, it does diminish the need to reload your Topaz-enhanced photo into your favorite photo editing application for a second round of adjustments, thus saving you some time.
Balance Color
Balance Color is a white balance tool for tinting, warming, and cooling your photo’s color palette. Like Adjust Lighting, it seeks to diminish your dependence on secondary Photo Editing applications.
Masking
You can use Topaz Photo AI to enhance your entire image or use its masking tools to limit your enhancements to select areas of your photo. There are two ways to apply a mask.
The first is to use Topaz Photo AI’s automatic selection tool to mask your photo’s subject or background instantly. As always, how well this works depends on the complexity of your image. Alternatively, you can apply your mask manually using the brush tool.
What is Topaz Photo AI like to use
Topaz Photo AI’s well-presented and concise interface is straightforward to use, and both beginners and experts in a rush will appreciate Photo AI’s reliably excellent Autopilot tool. As good as Autopilot is, a little manual tuning might yield even better results. To this end, Topaz Photo AI’s image enhancement features are divided into tabs, each populated with sensibly named tools and adjustments.
Regarding performance, Topaz Photo AI can be a mixed bag. Each time you apply or adjust an enhancement, you must wait a few seconds for the image preview to update and reflect your newly applied settings. Furthermore, the more enhancements you apply, the longer you must wait.
Yet, I find the wait entirely reasonable, given the quality of the results. However, I appreciate this is a highly subjective measure and that you may be using a faster or slower computer than I. For this reason, I recommend you try Topaz Photo AI for yourself. Download Topaz Photo AI Now – for Free.
What’s wrong with Topaz Photo AI 4
Photo AI’s largest issue is its performance, and it begins the moment you open an image and wait for Autopilot to apply its chosen corrections. Yet, you might consider the wait a fair trade given the effortless quality of Autopilot’s results. Of course, you can turn off Autopilot, thus eliminating the initial wait. Nonetheless, you will face delays each time to add or adjust an enhancement.
Whether Photo AI’s performance is really an issue depends on your computer’s performance and how much the corrections matter to you. For this reason, I strongly recommend you try Topaz Photo AI for yourself. Try Photo AI now.
Topaz Photo AI’s second problem is Super Focus. While it is capable of producing excellent results, you’re never sure when. Although it is possible to preview the result, the preview is not always an accurate representation of the final image. Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to wait an age for a local render or spend some money and submit your image to the cloud renderer service. In other words, Super Focus can devolve into a time-consuming or expensive process of trial and error.
Alternatives to Topaz Photo AI
Topaz Photo AI is uncommon in that it combines so many well-executed features into a single product. In contrast, DxO PureRaw and ON1 NoNoise AI are specialized noise reduction applications that are at least as good as Topaz Photo AI despite costing far less. Meanwhile, when it comes to upscaling, Gigapixel equals Photo AI despite costing half as much. However, Photo AI remains the best blur-correcting software I’ve ever tested.
Moreover, Photo AI compares well to photo editing applications. While Lightroom‘s AI denoise is comparable to Photo AI’s noise reduction, its Super Resolution upscaling and sharpening are vastly inferior. Both ON1 Photo Raw and Luminar Neo come close to replicating Photo AI’s feature set. Yet Photo AI 4 does it all so much better.
Therefore, if you want everything Topaz Photo AI has to offer, Photo AI is the way to go. But if you only want an upscaler or a noise reduction application, you may prefer to seek out one of Photo AI’s equally excellent and far cheaper alternatives.
For more information, read my Best Noise Reduction Software and Best AI Upscalers for Photography comparisons.
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Is Topaz AI worth it
Topaz Photo AI is a formidable image enhancement application that blends first-rate noise reduction, sharpening, and upscaling into a single, easy-to-use application. Nevertheless, not everyone needs Photo AI—at least not all of it.
For much less, you can buy an equally effective denoiser or upscaler. For instance, DxO PureRaw offers best-in-class noise reduction and decent sharpening. At the same time, Gigapixel is as good as Topaz Photo AI when upscaling good-quality images.
Yet none of these otherwise excellent applications can do it all. In contrast, not only does Topaz Photo AI do it all, but it can also do ‘all’ at the same time, enabling it to achieve results beyond the reach of other photography software applications. Thus, if you want something like Topaz Photo AI, you should buy Photo AI. Try Topaz Photo AI Now – For Free
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TOPAZ PHOTO AI
LIFETIME LICENSE
US$199
30-DAY MONEY-BACK
Frequently Asked Questions
No. While Topaz Photo AI does include Gigapixel-like upscaling, it lacks Gigapixel-exclusive features such as Recover and Redefine. However, when it comes to standard upscaling, Gigapixel and Photo AI deliver similarly excellent results.
Topaz Photo AI is free for 30 days. After which, Photo AI will cost you a one-time payment of US$199 for a single lifetime license.
Yes. You can own Topaz Photo AI outright for US$199. However, you will only receive updates for 12 months.
You can try Topaz Photo AI for free for 30 days – no payment required. Try Topaz Photo AI Now
Yes. Topaz Photo AI can open and process JPEG files. It can also export processed Raws as JPEGs.
Yes. Both Topaz Denoise AI and Sharpen AI are discontinued, with their feature sets transferred to Topaz Photo AI.
Topaz Photo AI and Gigapixel produce near-identical results when upscaling good-quality images. However, Photo AI is better able to upscale blurred and noise ridden images thanks to its expanded feature set.
Yes. Lightroom Classic. However, Topaz Photo AI can also work standalone and independent of any other photography software.
About the Author
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