Fix Out of Focus Video with Sharpen AI

I'll show you how to fix out-of-focus video clips using Sharpen AI by Topaz Labs www.topazlabs.com.
1) Shorten clip to just what you want to use
2) Apply video noise reduction if necessary
3) Export clip as PNG sequence
4) Import PNGs into Sharpen AI and choose "Out of Focus - Normal" preset
5) Select all PNGs and export to a new folder
6) Import PNG #0000 (the first one) into Adobe Media Encoder and choose a file format and export location, then export to create a sharpened video clip

[@postpro2097]

This literally just saved my keister!! The statement, "it had to be done" resonates loudly. No way I could have delivered the project to the client without this!

[@stanarthur]

Ain't it great?

[@dani_da_vision]

This is one of the most uplifting best straight to the point post production video i have ever seen! Thank you for this!

[@jdfreeman3485]

Thanks, this saved me on an out of focus shot. Processed as Tif's and it worked well. Worth every penny.

[@zwheels654]

Topaz has saved my butt tons of times. Easily worth the investment for photographers and filmmakers that need to produce professional results regardless of circumstances.

[@user-oi5sp7xv5k]

This was exactly what I needed - especially because I had already purchased Topaz!

[@giantworksdotcodotuk]

Instant subscribe. Loved the "you're wasting your time" bit. Wish more tutorials were like this

[@leemceachern5157]

Great video. This process works very well for me. One issue: I’ve sometimes had trouble with source PNGs with long names and/or numbers. That seems to confuse Sharpen A.I., causing it to skip one or several PNGs while processing, ruining the resulting video. My solution is to rename the PNGs with a very short name followed by four-digit consecutive numbers, as the “rename” function in Mac Finder will easily do. That seems to solve the dropped frames problem.

[@LandRunProductions]

Outstanding. Thanks man!

[@aarmandaniel6660]

This worked like a charm

[@bobfolkmusic]

Tried it out and it works! 😀Great tip!

[@RuiMiguelMarques_Portfolio]

I can't thank you enough for this information! It was super helpfull :)

[@michimich84]

Perfect! You should have affiliate program with them, this video will bring them many new customers. At least myself:D

[@user-hk9gg3hw5w]

Brilliant idea 👍

[@bohyahsnacks]

Wow, great idea.

[@jargonfreehelp]

Life saver. Thank you so much.

[@melodyrosemedia]

I'm glad there's an option for masking out the hair (with opacity), since the ai really messes that up most of the time.

[@JonasVanraes]

@3:03 glasses teleport effect was cool

[@CAndrewNelson]

Fantastic! I've heard of Sharpen AI. Never thought of using it to sharpen video footage. Obviously, portions of this are time-consuming, but the results are well worth it. Wow! I sure could have used this on some past projects including a few feature films. Much better and infinitely less expensive than a reshoot. Thanks for the video. This was great. Have you used any of the other products from Topaz Labs?

[@stanarthur]

I use Video Enhance AI, too. Mostly for old 1990s camcorder footage. It's pretty sweet but again, it can take a very long time to process. I did one clip that I uprez'd to 1080p and took 24 hours to process. Worth it, though. What a difference!

[@stanarthur]

I also use topaz Labs video enhance ai. I mostly use it for old camcorder footage from the '90s. It works quite well. I have also used it on zoom meeting videos when people want to have these things post-produced to look like something better than what they actually are. It also works quite well for that.

[@melodyrosemedia]

I've been using Gigapixel for ai-generated images, since they don't generate large images yet. I mostly use them for background images on karaoke videos. I've also upscaled and de-noised video quite a bit.

[@leemceachern5157]

Update on my note, below: I think the "dropped PNGs" issue might (might) have more to do with frame size than naming. I'm having good reliability when running HD (1080p) video through this procedure but I'm still getting dropped PNGs when outputting 4K video, even with simple and short file names. It's a solvable problem: just go through the consecutive frames of output from Sharpen AI, find the missing frames, and re-export them. But it's quite a tedious search when there are hundreds of frames to check. I'm sure there is a bit of software somewhere that could do that search for me (Mac) but I haven't tried to find it. BTW, I'm running a Mac Studio with M1 Ultra and plenty of memory so I don't think it's a hardware issue.

[@antoniofuentes2]

Hello, bro, and well I just bought the software, thinking of improving a video with two speakers... but its not really working... I just read your comment... it seems to me that is about dropped frames after creating the video with Media Encoder, so the video doesnt fit with the original audio. Original video and exported is in 4K by the way. Do ypou have any tips? Thanks.

[@aehmedia1]

So I load all of my images into Topaz .. set the setting I like (which was motion very blurry) , select all, but after the 1st image has processed all the images beneath have "Focus Normal" as the output setting ? Should I be doing something else??

[@CameraManSajeev]

Will this work on wide shots?...my shot focus shifted to background...dance show. On monitor, the subject looked sharp.

[@taylorbarnes1243]

Hey Stan! Quick question: I noticed that when you import the first PNG back into media encoder, the output file is a MOV. but when I do it, it remains a PNG. Did you already have this preset or is the first file supposed to be an MOV? Great tutorial by the way!

[@stanarthur]

I'm pretty sure that media encoder defaults to whatever the last export preset was that you used. You can easily change it to whatever you like.

[@stusmith1201]

I wish they add sharpen to their AI tools

[@kirby1fan]

this is a bit of an older video now, but how you played with Topaz's Video AI? It looks like it should do the same thing without having to export image sequences.

[@stanarthur]

I have had video AI for 1 year. It cannot sharpen like this.

[@CameraManSajeev]

Why does it make the re compiled movie longer than the original footage?

[@lboymusic]

Does it work for Mp4 H624 files? Or do we sill have to export it to PNG?

[@kalylbmmi]

im having trouble with with the final step, the clip seems to be a little too fast, i need to run it at 76% speed to get to the right time frame, but the clip gets out of sync really fast. anyone have suggestions as to what im doing wrong?

[@andystarkeymedia]

Wow, brilliant. What length was the clip please?

[@stanarthur]

About 30 seconds if I remember correctly.

[@petersolomon5227]

In 2023 Sharpen AI was discontinued by Topaz Labs. Now Photo AI encompasses all their still image applications. That said Topaz Labs released Video AI a few years ago and it can do many more things than the video above demonstrates.

[@stanarthur]

Video AI cannot and I repeat cannot do what sharpen AI used to do for PNG sequences. I have been using video AI since it was called video enhance AI. It cannot do this. It doesn't sharpen like this.

[@tywvideo]

Does their Video Enhance AI not have Sharpen AI's features? I have been eyeing that up since it seems to be built FOR video.

[@stanarthur]

Not like this, no.

[@melodyrosemedia]

You would think . . .

[@stanarthur]

The new video AI is much better at sharpening. Not sure it can handle sharpening like I did in the sharpen AI application.

[@RayValdezPhotography]

@@stanarthur So whats the best software, this or the video AI as of today?

[@sealvlmediagroup]

I add the first png but it only processes the one frame? How do you get it to follow on all pngs to build video?

[@postpro2097]

My exact problem as well. I add the first frame and it only processes that frame. There has to be something he set to read all frames there after.

[@johnfountain9102]

Is there a way to do this outside of premier pro?

[@stanarthur]

It's not dependent on premiere Pro. Any application that will allow you to export as a PNG sequence will work.

[@swaraligadre979]

Footage in my camera is constantly focus hunting in video. Is there anything I can do to stop it's focus hunting? Please reply if anybody knows the answer it'll be really helpful!!

[@stanarthur]

You need to turn off auto focus in the camera menu.

[@shaniyaclarkecreative]

Use warp stabilizer to fix in post. This fixed the visible hunt for me. Also check the distance from your camera to subject (especially a 35mm or 50mm lens) and that resolve the active hunting too.

[@rachinc]

You arent playing the final version in real time. you're just scrubbing it. Sure 1 frame looks great. But show us the video in real time for us to see the REAL end product, to determine if it looks really AI or real.

[@gregormarini]

Why PNG ?

[@stanarthur]

So that each video frame is saved as a separate image that can be understood by an image editor like Sharpen AI.