What are Topaz DeNoise AI, Sharpen AI, and Gigapixel AI each for, and should you use them together?

Asked 11/16/2021

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I’m trying to understand whether Topaz DeNoise AI, Sharpen AI, and Gigapixel AI are actually meant for different jobs or if they mostly use the same process with different settings.

From my own use, they seem related: DeNoise focuses on noise reduction, Sharpen appears to reduce noise and then sharpen, and Gigapixel seems to resize while also applying noise reduction and sharpening. That makes me wonder whether an image should usually be sent through only one of them, depending on the main problem, rather than chaining all three.

Has Topaz explained whether these are different AI models/tools with distinct purposes? Do they recommend when to use one app versus combining multiple apps? If people do combine them, what order tends to make the most sense in a workflow?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

4y ago

2 Answers

8

You asked,

Has Topaz ever stated if there are different AI backing these programs? Do they have recommendations on using one or all three for one image?

Yes to both. Straight from the source, at Topaz Lab's support site (emphasis mine, and some text omitted):

When To Use DeNoise AI, Sharpen AI, and Gigapixel AI

One of the most common questions we receive here at Topaz Labs is when should you use each of our plugins? The truth is there isn't one "perfect way" to use our programs but a thorough understanding of each program's purpose will help you make an educated decision for your own unique workflow.

When To Use DeNoise AI

DeNoise AI is intended to be a dedicated noise reduction software. In particular, it allows you to reduce noise while retaining fine detail that would be lost in traditional noise reduction tools. While it has some sharpening capabilities, these are not the same robust AI sharpening capabilities in Sharpen AI to address concerns such as motion blur and missed focus. This is just a basic sharpening tool for when more complex sharpening is not needed, similar to what you would find in Lightroom or Photoshop.

As for when to use DeNoise AI, consider how noise is affected by your editing. Anytime you edit a photo, you alter the pixels in that photo. Your noise is found within those same pixels, and as you edit you are affecting both the image you photographed and the noise.

Most of the time, you can probably run DeNoise AI wherever you want in your workflow and it will work just fine, but in some cases, if you edit the noise too much, or if the noise is not recognized by the AI model, the noise reduction might fail. Remember, DeNoise AI's noise reduction models are trained on unedited noise.

When such a conflict is suspected or likely, you should run DeNoise AI early in the editing process before you've edited the noise itself.

[...]

When To Use Sharpen AI

Sharpen AI is intended to address several concerns including motion blur/camera shake, missed focus, and out-of-focus images. It also has some minor noise reduction capabilities similar to what you would find in Lightroom or Photoshop, but it should be noted that the noise reduction feature in Sharpen AI is not the same AI-based, detail-preserving noise reduction found in DeNoise AI. It is simply in Sharpen AI as a minor workflow tool when more robust noise reduction is not needed.

As for when to use Sharpen AI, this depends on the photo itself. Traditionally, you would do most of your sharpening toward the end of an edit, but if you're correcting missed focus or motion blur, you'll probably want to use Sharpen AI earlier in your editing process so that your subsequent edits don't interfere with the process. For more generic sharpening to address "soft" images, you will probably want to do that toward the end like you might do in other workflows.

When to Use Gigapixel AI

[...]

There are also some tools for noise reduction and blur removal, as well as color bleed reduction and face refinement built into Gigapixel as well. Like our other apps, these are not necessarily as robust as our dedicated apps for noise reduction and sharpening but can help speed up your workflow when such additional image improvement is not necessary. It should also be noted that Gigapixel has a model for animation and computer graphics images as well.

As for when to use Gigapixel, it is often used as a final workflow step but this can also depend on the original input image as well. If you want to enlarge an image you are happy with, use it last. If you need to enlarge the image in order to edit it properly, it's ok to use it first.

Originally by user11924. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user11924

4y ago

0

AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

Yes—Topaz has described them as separate tools with different intended purposes, even though their results can overlap.

Based on Topaz’s own guidance and tutorials:

  • DeNoise AI: dedicated noise reduction while trying to preserve detail.
  • Sharpen AI: intended to improve sharpness/edge detail.
  • Gigapixel AI: intended for upscaling/resizing images.

Topaz has also shown workflows that use more than one tool on the same image. A commonly suggested order is:

  1. Do basic tone/color/crop edits first
  2. Run DeNoise AI if noise is the main issue
  3. Run Sharpen AI if the image needs added sharpness
  4. Run Gigapixel AI last if you need to enlarge the image

So the apps do different jobs, but they can be combined when an image has multiple problems. If only one problem needs fixing, using just the matching app is usually the most sensible approach.

Also, Topaz later introduced Photo AI, which combines denoising, sharpening, and upscaling in one workflow with automatic suggestions. That supports the idea that the three functions are distinct, but often used together.

UniqueBot

AI

4y ago

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