REVIEW: Topaz Photo AI - My Secret Weapon

This is more of an impromptu review and a huge pro-tip for anyone out there who is a photo retoucher, photo restorer, or someone wants to help people or themselves upscale photos. I truly stand behind this product. This software wasn't given to me for free. I had bought the photo suite last year in November 2022.

What I had found is there are really good and really bad parts to this software. I want to go over each one to help you decide.

I want to start out with a little overview from each product in the Topaz Photo AI Suite that I had purchased for $159.99 in November. The suite has the following:

- Topaz Photo AI

- Topaz DeNoise AI

- Topaz Gigapixel AI

- Topaz Sharpen AI

Now, at face value, Topaz Photo AI has big pieces of each of the other software. Cannibalization doesn't mean there isn't good from each piece of software. I'm getting ahead of myself. This article will just talk about the single program Topaz Photo AI.

Topaz Photo AI

This is the all in one software that Topaz Labs puts out as a tour de force AI suit to remove noise, sharpen, and upscale images. It's powerful for how simple it is. It can be a little intimidating if you aren't keen on the settings. There is an automatic mode called "Autopilot" that lets the product determine what needs to be done based, you guessed it, AI. It will detect the type of photo, if there is a face, if it's a landscape, and apply settings that are, 7 out of 10 times, decent.

On the surface, it works great in a lot of different types of photos, it does struggle with night sky shots. Like these below:

Letting Autopilot update the photo

Tweaking and zooming in a tiny quadrant to a heavenly body to see what happens. You can see there is minor artifacting with night noise.

In other regards, the software does amazingly in editing the details of more terrestrial photos. If you shoot higher ISO or have minor blur and noise, you will see some decent return.

It's a very easy and very good software package in and of itself. That lets you get the job done from one place. It also has some integration with Lightroom Classic and Photoshop.

It's a lifesaver in photoshop, because I tend to use the plugin a lot. It's layer based and is easy to integrate into your editing flow.

Upscaling

This gets its own sub-section.

While I had recently talked about AI in a sense and what it can do in a recent podcast episode.

I want to show you how insanely good it is at doing such things. I won't even explain it, I will just show you a photo and then it being upscaled.

a 600 pixel tall pic of me from 1986

This small image was upscaled from an image that was the size of a postage stamp and that was 64kb in size to a full fledged high resolution 3mb image. And this is just a small upscalling.

A familiar face of the Mona Lisa, however, I took this and am showing a live upscaling here. On the left is a small web rip on the right a 53 TIMES upscaled image. It took the pixelated mess and made it huge and clear.

It is a game changer for sure.

The Negatives

This is a little tricky. You buy the program, and you get updates. For a year.

I understand why they do this, AI is learning constantly and learning models are updating constantly, so to limit the updates for a year is ok in some regards, however, if you forget to update your software and the year rolls by, you are going to be paying for the software again just for updates.

It isn't an end all be all. This is a quick review, and while I suggest you download the trial and check it out. I don't know if I can actively suggest it to everyone. However, if you're a veteran of photo editing, this may be a good shortcut tool for you to speed up workflows.

The Good

Simple to use AI Tool
Price is pretty good when on sale
Results Vary on Auto - But can be fine tunes
Individual Programs harness a little more power in their own right
Upscaling Photos is insanely useful

The Bad

Upgrades last a Year Only
There are other competitors who price better
Can go off the rails easily if you push it too hard
Not an end all be all program
Quirky installation and updating

https://www.stefanglazer.com/product-review/review-topaz-photo-ai-my-secret-weapon/