Topaz Photo AI: One Year Later - Is It Worth Buying?

In my last video for Topaz Photo AI, I pointed out a lot of flaws. Now, after one year of use, has its improvements changed my mind about its usefulness for sports photography?
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[@erics6947]

Really accurate review of how Topaz edits images. I use Topaz more than LR Denoise. I always dial the sliders down as Topaz way over-corrects images and gives them a plastic look. I also shoot raw and take the images into Topaz as tiff files. This makes for a very long workflow.

[@3D_CryptoCamo]

Great video and photos 🎉 I really like your camera desk setup. ❤

[@JackBeasleyMedia]

Thank you!

[@jbaswoll3221]

Thanks for the updated video Jack. I still use the old Denoise software but will use Photo AI if I feel I need to recover faces as well. Only difference I do is lower the details on the face feature to like 50 instead of the default 80. I feel at 80, it looks more plastic and crisp.

[@kevcleaver]

Very detailed review. Have you sent the link to it to Topaz, it'll give them some details to tweak.

[@larry.mathewson]

Jack, I love you in-depth reviews on Photo Ai. I have recently been shooting Junior A Hockey events in Canada as jpg ( Canon R5 , EF 70-200mm with adapter) settings 1/1000, F3.5, ISO5000. I cull 2000 images from each game quickly in Photo Mechanic to about 50 keeper images. I use adobe bridge and ACR with minor tweaks and no noise reduction. (I find auto works fairly well) and save as 3000 pixels on the long side. At this point I have used Photo Ai in bulk on my completed jpg images and review the results. It does try to adjust too many faces. I set the face noise reduction to about 60 . Is there any suggestions that you might have to refine my process. My editor generally accepts 70-80% of my submissions as he has his own requirements to deal with. (don't they all).

[@RSV9]

Although it seemed that Topaz was only going to concentrate on Photo AI, Topaz recently released a new version of Gigapixel, version 7. I haven't been able to test it yet since it wants to uninstall version 6 that I have and I would like to keep both options because for a long time I was very happy with Gigapixel 6 and I thought it was better than Photo AI which tends to oversharpen things. In general Photo AI has improved and can be used more often but with Gigapixel 7 I think they only want to make money because it lacks many functions. Good review, thanks.

[@JackBeasleyMedia]

Yeah, I think that update caught a lot of people by surprise.

[@savedbygracenh-susan8754]

I prefer the stand alone Topaz denoise, however it reduces my Sony raw file from 50mp to 29mp! I am losing the ability to crop for impact as I normally would with this loss. Topaz support confirms that this is an issue and suggested using photo ai. As you know, this isn’t an option when I need to run several hundred raw files through denoise 🤦🏼‍♀️

[@greghuber9256]

I have similar experience with Topaz, DxO, On1 AI products. Are you doing batch NR using LRC Denoise on all your keepers and then sending individual shots out of focus to Topaz?

[@JackBeasleyMedia]

No. I tried that initially but LR would lock up if there were more than a couple hundred images. Now I cull through and find the images I want, work on those, delete the rest.

[@greghuber9256]

@@JackBeasleyMedia I had to upgrade my desktop when I got the Z8 last summer. It didn’t lock up, but was super slow working with those files.

[@Andyhutchinson]

Thanks Jack. Didn't realise Topaz had completely finished development on the old apps - though that does explain the awful flashing screen bug that's in them now (on Mac at least). Your experiences mirror my own with Photo AI - it's nowhere near as capable as the old apps and, as you pointed out, requires hand-holding all the way to get the decidedly average results.

[@JackBeasleyMedia]

Of course, not long after I put out this video, Topaz did make an update to Gigapixel. But, it's the one app of theirs that I use the least.

[@photonmixer]

@14:13 - Note the size of the file goes from 32MB NEF to 205 MB DNG. That's a real pain when editing lots of images, especially if your workflow includes making backups to external drives, NAS, and cloud storage.

[@JackBeasleyMedia]

Tru dat

[@magictracks]

Yeah only problem when you do all inages. Weddings portraits I give clients a year with masters raw file then delete and keep high res images

[@berniestang2616]

Please walk thru how to download the update/ upgrade ….!!! Thank u

[@JackBeasleyMedia]

Every time I do it it’s a blue notification in the upper right of the Topaz Photo Ai screen

[@user-ip6cu3zr9q]

Just noticed that on a couple of your videos, that you reference a another video of yours and show a thumbnail, but it isnt clickable and you dont have it linked in the info section either.. Wanted to go and check that out, but cant.

[@JackBeasleyMedia]

Thanks, I’ll have to add those links in the upper right hand corner

[@chopster01]

I am not a sports photographer. Six to eight months ago or earlier, I loved Photo AI for my low-light, high ISO shots, but recent developments have led me to abandon it almost completely. There is so much artifacting even at the lowest amounts that it is unusable for me. It totally ruins people shots. I want the old version back. It’s a case of devolution. I’m relying more on Lightroom’s DeNoise and some Photoshop. Not perfect, but it is what it is.

[@JackBeasleyMedia]

I use it, but only very sparingly. I have to chuckle when I see the Topaz Facebook ads with influencers saying, “I use it on every photo!”

[@chopster01]

@@JackBeasleyMedia And there are suddenly SO many of those ads in my Facebook feed! I thought I was the only disenchanted one 🤣

[@dbenedict357]

saw another photographer (non sports) say there were issues with RAW in Topaz and how it exported a corrupted file.

[@JackBeasleyMedia]

Some older Topaz products (Denoise) don't like the newer Nikon high efficiency RAW files and won't process them correctly. However, Photo AI has no issue with them.

[@theeclecticphotographerajr5372]

Thanks for saving me money.

[@gman195674]

So you're shooting all your sports images in raw and not jpeg?

[@JackBeasleyMedia]

These days? Yes.

[@gman195674]

May try that next time I'm out. @@JackBeasleyMedia

[@yspegel]

faces just look too clean with these tools, too fake