BEST Software to Fix Blurry Photos? Top 6 Compared!

[@CoolhandLukeSkywalkr]

In a world of bs KZbinrs, this guy is helpful and polite. Breathe of fresh air. Personally, I use Topez along with many other programs to edit photos.

[@MoviePlotAnalysis]

Is it free?

[@hakansaribal5093]

@@MoviePlotAnalysisI’ve been using photoshop as a hobby. And looking at the prices for the programs it’s just crazy. Can’t believe I have to pay over 100$ monthly just for fun 🤦‍♂️ it’s travesty 😒

[@bumlikkybumbum]

Breath of fresh air not breathe.

[@ninjatogo]

In Topaz, you can use the Photo Enhance tool with a 1X scale to let the application apply an upscale and then downscale it back to the original resolution. This lets the application draw additional details during the upscale, but squash them down to improve the appearance of fine detail like skin pores and fabric. It's like a little touch of extra seasoning to the edit.

[@onemangang8879]

Great tip!

[@Mehtab20mehtab]

Gigapixel?

[@elivelive]

​@@Mehtab20mehtabintegrated into topaz

[@ninjatogo]

@@Mehtab20mehtab Sorry I meant to say that's in PhotoAI. I haven't used GigaPixel in a while but I think it's possible there as well.

[@htw007]

The same i do for fotor. First upscale then back to original and then all the other

[@Seafox0011]

This is very interesting and helpful! The trouble is with the apparently 'better' processors they are actually just replacing facial parts with AI derived 'cut and paste's from a database - presumably 'morphing' the shapes into place driven by whatever key lines the algorithm can pull out of the original image. So whilst the result is pleasing to the eye (generally) the result is an impression or likeness only of the original. The real proof of how good these algorithms are is in how they treat non-structured areas of an image, for example the areas that appear abstracted to the human eye - like the blurry transition of hair to the background in the 1st photo. The AI models failed on the detailed jewellery for the same reason - essentially not able to workout the three-dimensionality of the abstracted textures. If it was a 2d surface texture not in perspective they (the AIs) would probably be able to replace with a closer facsimile. So it would seem the job of a good photo-retoucher is still secure for high-end commercial work.

[@ronadish1]

True but in some cases there's not enough information to recover and that's the best option

[@johnclarke1319]

So AI is not correcting, but replacing. thus this is another way to make a phoney image. it does not work just with the photo data, but steals from other images, totally phoney.- shameful

[@txgirl995]

I belong to a few photo editing, photo repair groups on FB and several people use AI apps and it generally makes my shirk back in horror.

[@alno7199]

Holy shit, you're almost at 5m subscribers. And look at your sweet studio! I remember when you were so much smaller but I suppose everyone can appreciate your efforts. Good for you!

[@patrickmcsweeney2021]

I have found the Photo Restoration filter in Photoshop Beta can be very effective, especially if the photo has scratches or creases. Topaz is outstanding for facial recovery. In some photos I recover the faces in Topaz Photo AI and then process in the PS Restoration filter, turning off the recover faces slider. The combination can have great results. Batch processing in Topaz has been a great addition to the software.

[@BURTBROWN]

YES!!! I've done basically the same thing and the combination of Neural filters, skin smoothing, photo restoration etc. can work to improve visual quality overall.Then using Topaz to finalize - BUT sometimes I use Topaz first... it just depends on the image and what the problem is!!! The PS Neural filters CAN... and I emphasis "CAN"... radically improve certain problems. BUT NOT ALWAYS! The Skin Smoothing can really improve radical light and dark areas of the face evening them out to a normal shading! Colorize can make a terrible skin color more natural for further tweaking. Using them all makes a big difference with Topaz wrapping it all up!!!!!

[@ratchas.5405]

@@BURTBROWN Topaz If I pay for 199$ it's mean I can use all the time right ? it's not subscription for 1 year

[@Richard_Palmer1]

@@ratchas.5405 Yes you own it along with 1 years worth of upgrades

[@Richard_Palmer1]

updates

[@wancukjie]

​@@ratchas.5405yes, that 1 year is only for 1 year software update. After that you won't get any update but still able to use it. Later, you can upgrade to new version with discounted price

[@bujjibabu842]

No doubt this is one of the best videos you have ever made. This video is useful for everyone. 🙏Thanks and hope to make another video like this.

[@segercliffhanger]

For me, it's the same. Topaz is a professional tool. I use it often. It has its quirks. But generally, it understands what you're getting at. So, it will not produce teeth(?!) out of nowhere. Spooky and silly. So yeah, I completely concur with you and how you approach these AI's. Fotor, by the way, is a great tip for deep-restoration. Really happy with that find :). Tnx!

[@premierdesignsolutionsllc8425]

I use Topaz and I'm absolutely satisfied with it (after I upgraded my computer... replaced the graphic card and with that also the PSU and now it works perfectly)

[@MrWiseinheart]

Are you running a RTX 4090?

[@premierdesignsolutionsllc8425]

@@MrWiseinheart MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 12GB GDRR6 192-Bit HDMI/DP PC I corresponded with GeForce and that was the only size I could fit in (and my technician still hat to make some minor changes to get it in)

[@MrWiseinheart]

@@premierdesignsolutionsllc8425 that's awesome I've been wanting to upgrade, good to hear that a 3060 is sufficient enough, everybody else is saying you got to have at least a 3080 to 3090.

[@gkiss2030]

@@premierdesignsolutionsllc8425 About how long does it take to process one picture (say, a 20 Mpix PNG) with it? Thank you!

[@Flalgra5]

@@premierdesignsolutionsllc8425 Can confirm... RTX3060 12GB works great with Topaz on Dell XEON workstation with a 675 PSU. Silky Smooth and fast.

[@BURTBROWN]

I'm a HUGE fan of Topaz and this comparison is excellent.Yes, Remini did an excellent job in some areas of the images, but pretty much fell down in others. Maybe future versions will improve that. The price of Remini might be fine for Pros who do a lot of retouching for big bucks, but for a little guy like me... IT'S EXPENSIVE!!!!! LOL!!!

[@DrDaab]

Remini is for people who use cell phones for this type of work? It's not for serious photographers.

[@georg240p]

I would love to see a test where you take a sharp imagine, blur it (or decrease the resolution) and then try to restore it. So we can compare how close it looks to the original "ground truth". When I tried to upscale faces of people that I know, a lot of these tools created something that doesn't look like these people at all. Just because the image looks sharp and high quality, doesn't mean anything. Obviously the software has to invent detail at some point, but some tools do a better job at this than others.

[@Seafox0011]

The thing is not all blurs are equal, mathematical blurs like area average and Gaussian blur for example are not the same as an original lens blur from an actual camera lens. So for the purposes of your test, it would be better to take a digital photo both in focus and the out of focus of your subject matter - then test with the blurred one. That would be a interesting ground truth as such. Also comparing black and white/ monochrome versus color too. Then compare the way texturing (skin etc) is between the color and the mono images.

[@rherlitz]

100% this!

[@DrDaab]

Smart thinking! Thanks @@Seafox0011

[@phojoegraphy]

Thank you for your hard work. Very interesting comparison. It looks like different approaches - everything but Topaz is perhaps using a generative AI to make what it thinks is there and matching it as best as possible to the original whereas Topaz is trying to work with the pixels it has in the original image.

[@rrijnders]

with Topaz you have to check what selection it made for "faces" and "subject" to see what it will act on (sharpen, noise removal). You can adjust those selections, as well for better results.

[@BrianJHall-wl4bf]

Thank you - I have learned so much from you - never long-winded BS - just to the point. Also, on your tutorials you give us the reasons - the foundations why you do something. You have made me a pro in portrait editing! Thanks again!

[@xsleep1]

In 2022 I edited some old photos with Remini. It did okay but since they seem to replace features, especially the eyes, with AI generated images I ended up with some photos where the person was not recognizable as that person. Last summer I started using Topaz Photo (after being impressed with Topaz Video). The results seem more natural. Since Remini just deals with the face it sometimes looks like the subject is wearing a mask.

[@mtnrconcept]

You are the best youtuber of all. Really sweet, good tips, smiling, and speak really well !

[@debjoydas7834]

Audio quality top notch.

[@alejandrortorres]

I'm gonna have to go with Topaz overall, but yeah, maybe combining with Fotar. I agree. Thanks for a very useful comparison.

[@nevadaxtube]

Nice video. The progress has been amazing in this type of software. There is more work to be done, but I'm sure it will continue to improve. I use Topaz AI and it works great at times, but not all the time. At least it doesn't add things that were not in the original photo like those others.

[@aurorincorporated]

This is a lovely comparison. I think i liked Canva's results the most. But ofc over time most of these options may show their strengths. :)

[@sadepennbrook]

Your videos keep my anxiety down for whatever reason.

[@eirikopedal]

Topaz sometimes performs better in their other apps for this. Topaz Denoise or Topaz Gigapixel. I hope Photo AI versions in the future will improve on skin texture. What I love about Photo AI is the speed and easy user interface. The full Topaz package has been so useful for me. The Video Ai is great also

[@austina.872]

I feel like you can use certain aspects of the different ai's and Frankenstein a good image. For example, use remini to recover parts of the eyes or face, use a high-pass filter. Use topaz for button's shoulders etc.

[@peacenloveforall6]

I have not tried topaz in a while. I will try it again. Remini is my favourite. I mostly use it as final touch. What I do like is you can take the final touch and if it is too much you can simply lower the opacity to get just the right amount. All that said, I don't like the price because I don't use it enough to justify the high cost, so I will work it using the phone version, then mail it to my desktop. lol

[@sounderdavis5446]

The first version of Topaz Photo AI that was out a year ago was disappointing to me in most images like these, but the second version out in late 2023 is a huge improvement in the ability to control and tweak the adjustments. Well worth a trial. It's expensive, though, at full price. (Good Black Friday sale.)

[@IvoTichelaar]

I haven't updated Topaz Sharpen and Topaz Denoise in a while, I am probably way behind. And I don't have Topaz Photo (although some tests were enthusing). I have noticed that denoising before sharpening was really important, and choosing the right type of Denoise also matters a lot. Noise itself leads to falls detail that Sharpen will turn into fake features. And the wrong Denoise setting creates patterns in Sharpen. I like the lens correction of DXO Pureraw, I have sometimes used Pureraw to correct and denoise a photo first, then output into a tiff and let Topaz Sharpen work with that. Sometimes that's a lot better. I suspect that mixing and matching of these apps would produce different results as well. Very nice test!

[@sounderdavis5446]

Topaz stopped updating Sharpen AI and DeNoise AI in 2023 and are focusing all their coding efforts now on Photo AI, Video AI, and Gigapixel AI. Photo AI has gotten a lot better in version 2 out in late 2023. Users thought they'd abandoned Gigapixel AI too but Topaz just came out with an upgrade version in January 2024 and will be adding more big improvements, they say, in April. Gigapixel AI is for upscaling images taken at low-res (such as on early digital cameras) or heavily cropped. Photo AI can do this also.

[@SimoneBonato-oc5df]

Impossibile non mettere il like. Sei molto preparato e competente .Bravo e Complimenti 👍

[@jbr84tx]

I have Topaz Photo AI, and you can select an area for sharpening or noise reduction. You can also choose to include neck and hair in face recovery. It does occasionally do weird things with the eyes, especially if the image was really blurry. My sister is Irish, and in one picture (she was squinting) it gave her Japanese eyes.

[@lalogreiner]

One of your best videos so far!

[@Marcus_Ramour]

many thanks for doing the comparison & sharing results, I think case by case, depending on photo and final application/results needed then all these have merit.

[@Ari-6]

Literally if only I had this last night. I had to say 'good enough' and send to print. I'm trying these out when I get home.

[@umutdegismen]

Thanks for another great comparison video Unmesh! I wished you should compare Topaz on your previous comparison video and here it is. Boom! Thanks dude!

[@scanspeak00]

Awesome comparison. I'm also interested in which is best for non-faces, like buildings, cars, etc.

[@EwenBell]

Thanks so much for this comparison Unmesh. Really appreciate these videos you do, and the depth you dig into it. Really good to see how much flexibility some tools lack, and to what extent you need to tweak the settings to Topaz. The third image with the young girl dancing is a great example of how thuch tools can be valuable - rescuing a shot that was otherwise lovely if not for missed focus. Do you think the upscaling features of Topaz are worthwhile for stills too? You didn't include that in the video where you featured Upscayl.

[@luisantiagoto]

It would have be a perfect video if you included a comparison with the neural filters of Photoshop.

[@sergeynovikov91]

Great compares, always excellent explanations. God bless You!

[@Creativeworks80]

Excellent teacher incredible way of learning about this subject, Kudos my friend I learned a lot from your videos you truly inspire me to be my best .

[@anupamsahraga5291]

Wow! Such a helpfull outstanding review! Thank you so much! You are my favorite chanell for Photoshop learning

[@bernardchampeau225]

Hi Unmesh, you could also have a compare with Magnific AI you had already tested in a previous video. Sometimes better than Remini or Topaz

[@ronwilson9855]

Possibly the best video for comparing de bluer software, I am a Skylume user, but it does lack in this dept, so looking for an alternative, I think I've found it now. Thanks.

[@lizzymccormic3328]

All night I've been working on restoring old pics of our family album and next day there's a video from you about it 😂 ok so I'll have to do that again 😂

[@Oldhouseguy]

I'm doing the same!

[@Shu2you]

Besides the great content, can we take a moment and appreciate the top notch audio quality!?

[@jackwebb2425]

Well, you really are an amazing adept photoshop expert. I have subscribed! thanks for the content. this is an amazing tutorial.

[@TumbleFig]

The interesting thing to me is that I think the best result of all would be a handmade comp using all of the source images combined. They each have their good areas, if you wanted the ultimate quality you could take bits and pieces from each.

[@sounderdavis5446]

These tools are advancing rapidly in effectiveness, and BTW, doing further tweaking than shown here, either within the app or in another app, can give even better results. These days I regret deleting some earlier digital images that I deemed too far "out of focus" or noisy to ever have hope of saving.

[@donlee_ohhh]

Excellent comparison video. Thank you!

[@davidhunternyc1]

Wow, one thing's for sure! Your coif is a masterpiece!

[@MateoMarine]

Been using the Remini mobile app for a couple years now, and I've had to stop. It used to be amazing - but now I've noticed it is totally beautifying the subjects. Which is not cool. It's removing wrinkles, overly smoothing skin, and adding what looks like make-up. It gives you 3 versions with different intensities, but I would be embarrased to change someone's face this drastically. Additionally - it only seems to affect faces. Everything else just become smoother and smudgy. Not good.

[@BlseMetan-mn3pi]

I'm surprised with Canva... great video!

[@dull_Asian_dad]

"Bad Thai Noodles for the hair" 😅🤣😂 Good one!

[@scomart]

I've seen some improvement using Photoshop Neural filter Photo Restore. I think that this may be quite useful in the future.

[@DrDaab]

Wonderful video! How come you did not include Photoshop Neural Restore ? It does a great job, although it only works on the face (mostly). In any case THANKS!

[@iam._sant09]

Nice review man really helpful!

[@richardfounds9394]

Very informative video Unmesh, one question, doesn't Photoshop or Lightroom have anything to compare with this?

[@Hodenkat]

Fotar does an amazing job with the eyes!

[@JorgeALXNDR]

considering which week we get improvments of "that's impossible" to "now everyone does it perfectly" some few years from now having a actual real photo will take a actual camera. These things are sure get implemented as AI enhancement on phone cameras. Real photos will become a niche even more, and people already talk about how the sky is always bluer on phone photos.

[@dhabitahpunk]

Topaz is the best to me cuz it doesn't change the original facial feature too much.

[@KpopApocalypse]

I actually use Topaz AI and Luminar Neo together. I start with Topaz AI for noise reduction and sharpening and upscaling if needed and save to DNG format and then do my final processing in Luminar Neo.

[@eileenj.m.3461]

Thank you for doing this- incredibly useful!!!!!

[@_NoDrinkTheBleach]

I'm really glad that I didn't switch my Luminar Neo to the subscription model. The added features all seem a bit undercooked.

[@relaxeddude3096]

Hey Unmesh bro, I know you're always looking for ideas to make new vids. Well you already did one about wacom tablet setup for retouching, what about making a setup for vectorial work and update the content anyways? Keep doing awesome 🎉

[@jmontgomery7394]

Good video ... I am a long time Topaz (all products) and PS / LR user ... these do well on restoring old / poorer shots ... have tried multiple times to use Neo to compare but always with poor results ...

[@llewis1997]

Very helpful. What about low resolution pixelated images? Do you have a video for that?

[@autokrohne]

Denoise in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw is excellent, on par with Topaz. Sharpening is a different story. Sometimes in Topaz, faces can get a little plastic.

[@thelucabrazzi]

I have hundreds of pictures I need to try and use this with old family photos. Is it best just to get Photoshop since I could do a month to month subscription? Or is Topaz better ??? Thank u

[@StephenBridgett]

I'd really like to see a comparisson between Topaz and the new Lightroom Enhance.

[@DeepThinker193]

Bro your videos are literal perfection. How do you do it?

[@BecomingLizzyBlue]

Wonder what happens if you put the image through more than one program. For example, adjust it with Topaz, then correct that adjusted image with one of the others. Worth a shot.

[@BernhardSchwarz-xs8kp]

Thank you for this very informative presentation. At this time it looks to me that there is no real winner. It all depends - on many things that are difficult to predict. It all depends on the original file on which we work how well the software can cope with it.

[@jeff__w]

So, basically, those applications that are adding features like teeth (e.g., Fotor) 5:11 aren’t really “de-blurring” the photo, they’re creating a version that _could_ be the photo in some alternative universe. It’s not like some algorithm could “work backwards” from the blurry photo to the source-the teeth _aren’t there._ It almost feels like the app is fooling the user.

[@torowazup1]

👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👌🏼😎 How about restoring cracked photos?

[@MrWiseinheart]

Very well made video 👍 really helpful.

[@sum1sw]

Thank you so much for your time. Well done

[@Oksana-fk6tu]

Thank you! This is very useful information!

[@Sxohit]

I enjoy watching videos like this.

[@Fredrik-iz4ou]

Great video. I bought the Topaz. But it's not easy to use. Everything looks plastic. So I have to spend as much time as before, or perhaps even more, adding noise and imperfections, etc, to get rid of that plastic look from portraits and many materials. And the end results are not always better, anyway. But with a more skilled hand, it might be very much more useful than I now find it.

[@thelucabrazzi]

I thought it looks too much myself and I've got 10,000 old photos of family to try and clean up. What would you suggest to use?

[@Fredrik-iz4ou]

@@thelucabrazzi Sorry, Sir, I have no good software, filters or macros for it; I use manual techniques roughing up the pixels, using the standard Photoshop palette of tools. We need a pro's answer as to how to generalise the procedures using plug-ins or macros to get a tool usable for fast processing. Sorry.

[@danncorbit3623]

I have topaz, and I like the noise removal a lot. I have two powerful GPUs and it works very fast on my high res images. Sharpening can be a problem with fur, so be careful. If I have a picture with cats or squirrels or things of that nature that are blurry, I generally don't even try to sharpen them. And be sure to turn off face detection for cats or you will get crazy faces. It ,might be an interesting test to try sharpening with animals with fur and animals with feathers to see what tools work best.

[@TimGallant]

I suspect this is true of some of the other apps too, but the reason Fotor doesn't improve e.g. the buttons is that it is specifically a "Face Unblur" tool. It would be nice if it had more fine-grained control, but OTOH, Fotor is relatively cheap even for the pro version (~39.99/yr).

[@coolvinay]

Amazing video and clear comparision. But why clickbait with a color photo though?

[@jburns47]

Been wondering about the utility of these various apps for a while. Thank you! Would enjoy gaining a better understanding of, and overlap, of the various Topaz apps. Personally, I find their various offerings confusing.

[@tkarlmann]

Topaz is the only one of these I would accept. I do Weddings, and playing around with online-only software is amateurish.

[@forzedoff]

combine fotor and topaz, then colorize in ps, that will be ultimate combo quality

[@WanderingSwitchback]

I'm curious to see what platform would work best for landscape?

[@jeffallen3598]

Topaz like some of the others just target the face. Thats why its called face recovery. If you look close at face and the border where it cleans up the image and where its still blury. You can see what looks like a box around the cafe. Under the hood, the box is where it auto detects a border and creates a box to target the face to focus its work. It doesn’t always get it right depending on how bad the image it. If we could get some manual control over the auto detect so we could help the AI along a bit, that would be great. Maybe instead of a box, be able to manually trace along the face and hair to make sure it fixes everything. I think Topaz and a few of the others got some but not all of the hair because it was to properly detected. It does a great job but can use an option to help it along if its detection misses something.

[@DaveEtchells]

I’d like to see more about how apps do with non-face content. It looks like Topaz would be the best but I have several old, mis-focused images I’d like to fix, but they don’t have faces in them.

[@matokuwapi]

I use Topaz Photo AI. I love it, though it's not quite perfect. It does a pretty amazing job with photos I would ordinarily toss in the trash bin. I believe in time, it will improve as it learns. Updates are often and with each come improvements.

[@kbrodeur]

this is as best guesswork. pleasing to look at, but not truly restoring it. again, still fun.

[@iPhone-Cinematograhy]

Brilliant, thank you for posting!

[@meibing4912]

Amazing as always. Best PS Channel by far. Look forward to more AI assister RAW editing tips!

[@design-dwg5785]

great video once again!

[@sandmaker]

Thank you for the good information

[@SeanMoran-byron67]

Thank you for this review. It helped me very much.

[@renebourgault7203]

Wow , good job again, thanks

[@zimbot_KWB]

There are other important factors. Sometimes what you have is a scan of a photographic print that has the texture of some fabric backing the print visible at the finest level of detail -- which of the tools will automatically remove those regularly-patterned lines?

[@brianegendorf2023]

I liked Topaz and Fotor the best, but I feel like Topaz gives you more options to get it even better than you have it here. I feel like Fotor won over all...but I also get the feeling that with some tinkering, I can probably get Topaz to match Fotor.

[@TheAngryman]

What camera do you use, if you don't mind me asking?

[@tanegaranchu]

Good one! Thank you!

[@MegaRhema7]

I am a big Topaz fan. I do not like subscriptions or web-based apps because many times I edit on my laptop in the mountains with no internet.

[@Alex_Sander_Br]

Well, if I really wanted to recover a blurred image, I'd probably use more than one of these tools and then merge the results in PS to get the best each one can give. Hopefully they'll be better in a few years.

[@thejollyjoker187]

Judging just from the photos presented in the video, I would vote for FOTOR.. Nice presentation, next time speak a bit slower please, I had to do small rewinds to understand some things.

[@macmortwin]

For me the best are Magnific AI, without a doubt!!

[@iTestVlog]

Great video! 1:45 maybe make a video upscale compersion too.

[@ronnyb5890]

what about the german franzis apps, i have several and they are pretty good, cheers mate