Deep Prime vs Topaz Photo AI

Coming from On1 I was dissapointed and a little frustrated to find that I still needed to use nik collection or on1 to add a creative vignette or straighten verticals. I had assumed that such basic functionality would have been included in photolab elite.

4 Likes

… as mentioned somewhere else, I find the functionality of
grafik + grafik
much easier to handle than the respective settings in PL5 & FP Elite
:frowning:

1 Like

Yes, this functionality should be built in to DXO Photolab. DXO have the code so it hopefully isn’t difficult.

Agree, besides the GUI is a bit more comfortable. What bothers me more is, that I have to export to TIFF. Same with Nik Collection. I prefer to edit as much as possible in PL: On the other hand, there is of course also the danger that if every feature is integrated into PL, it will become overloaded.

Again, the HSL tool has many features that allow B&W conversions, including the possibility for an extremely customised “channel mixer”. Read more about it here.

1 Like

Personally, nobody seems to mention one thing that I have consistently found sets apart the results from Deep PRIME vs Topaz denoising products (I have licenses for both). With Topaz I absolutely have to tweak settings in a bespoke manner for each and every image to get the best results and this takes time and is SLOW as the plugins run very laggy on most PCs. If I leave Topaz to make decisions like others mention I often see artifacts, weird issues with in-focus sharp areas of the image as well as out of focus areas. These issues can be eliminated by masking and playing around with sliders. In contrast, while Deep PRIME may sometimes leave a bit more noise, I find (a) it leaves more detail and (b) it creates fewer weird artifacts 99% of the time, compared to Topaz, meaning I can more or less batch process a whole bunch of high ISO images from something like an event shoot or theater shoot and have confidence they will all be usable after Deep PRIME. In contrast I can not make the same assumption about Topaz, meaning that, for me, Topaz has a use when you have one or two “special” images you wish to take time processing, whereas for a jobbing pro working through 100s or 1000s of high ISO images from an event, it’s just not practical to batch process using Topaz nor does it give the best outcome given its tendency to need tweaking on an image by image basis. Just my 2 cents.

4 Likes

Hello,
we should actually work with the 3 correct names Denoise AI, Gigapixel AI, Sharpen AI, because as far as I know the Photo AI Bundle which contains all 3 individual programmes is now coming in September.
As Marco explains, the results with Denoise AI are not as good as those of DXO PL DeepPrime.
And I can confirm that with the artefacts for all 3 products.
If, for example, you process old scanned landscape images automatically with Sharpen or Gigapixel, many results are really impressive, but there must not be a person anywhere in the image, as this would then look like the Joker in Batman. It is better to process these images individually with moderate settings or, as Marco says, to work with masks.
So each programme has its advantages with different image material. For digital images, however, I also prefer to work with DXO.
These are my 2 cents

Guenter

3 Likes

Will also be interesting to see a comparison to the new ON1 Photo RAW
Version 2023, which also includes AI-based denoising and sharpening.

If they have upped their game from the original NoNoise product, then I agree. I tried that when it launched and was very underwhelmed by it. Heck… I was underwhelmed by their marketing images.

1 Like

V 0.9 is out.
Noise Reduction is good , but what’s impressing me is the sharpening.

The standalone Topaz Sharpen AI is pretty impressive but I remain to be convinced that Topaz denoising can beat DeepPRIME.

2 Likes

I got an email announcing Topaz Photo AI. Then I went looking for information on their site. What a mess!

I had to read the blog post linked in the email to even understand how Photo AI relates to the three existing (Sharpen AI, DeNoise AI, and Gigapixel AI) products from a purchasing point of view. Apparently I can buy Photo AI at $159 ($199 with $40 launch discount) but I cannot upgrade to it. I can, however, purchase DeNoise AI and Gigapixel AI (I already have Sharpen AI) at the discounted price of $138, which then gets me a free license for Photo AI. So I can save money buy purchasing extra products.

A bit rich for me, given the discussion above, but I thought I could at least download a trial and have a play. Except… the product is missing from their “All Downloads” page.

I know we ding DxO for hiding the edition differences in an FAQ, but Topaz’s web site is tragic. I had a similar experience recently after purchasing Sharpen AI and then wondering what Adjust AI was all about. They need an AI product to wade through their product matrix.

1 Like

As I already own all 3 (various sales) they gave me Photo AI free

Mixed results on testing Not great with feathers on a Great Tit but did a pretty good job of a Common Darter. NoNoise isn’t at all bad and neither is Sharpen

Downside is that you cannot do anything with the background as it isn’t designed for that at all

It is horrendously slow.

My PC breezes through DxO but crawls with Topaz, especially if you make an adjustment, it redoes all the adjustments again

Handy having if for those things DxO can’t do - Pano and stacking and you need some Noise reduction, and maybe the odd shot you want that may not be as sharp as you might wish, but it isn’t going to challenge PL when you have multiple images and need to do more than just sharpen and Denoise

2 Likes

@tilltheendofeternity I use Sharpen AI and find it can produce excellent results, but I too find it extremely slow and cumbersome to use. The results can be outstanding, but refining the mask (which I find needs to be done on each image) is a painful process (for me anyway!)

I only use it on the occasional shot that isn’t quite in focus or has some unwanted motion blur.

For noise reduction I’m very happily sticking with DxO DeepPrime.

Edit: I really wish that DxO will one day integrate sharpening capabilities similar to those found in Topaz Sharpen AI into Photolab.

1 Like

Sharpen AI is an occasional too for me, too, but when it’s needed, it generally does a good job. As far as subject selection goes, I find it’s better than anything else I have tried. As soon as I hit the button it is generally very quick to place an accurate mask where I want it. Manual adjustments to the mask are often necessary but they are just that — adjustments. And these are often tricky subjects against complex backgrounds. Versus Lightroom, which had trouble with a helicopter against a clear blue sky.

1 Like

Topaz would seem to be changing marketing strategy again, making an all in one product instead of separate products for each function. I have been using them for a long time and have seen so many products fall by the wayside over time as the market for photo software changes. Right now, I am in the camp of only needing SharpenAI occasionally. If they discontinue that as a standalone product, I will probably not renew the Photoai I got with my previous bundle purchase. It’s results are not as good as PhotoLab. From their website it’s hard to tell what is no longer being upgraded, for example, AdjustAI hasn’t changed in a long time and looks like it isn’t being developed. For what it’s worth, I never used it as it was inferior to the previous plugin and not worth the bother.

I think the market has moved to all-in-one photo enhancement, with optional extra’s bundled in. Just take a look at Luminar Neo, which now has an enhancement bundle that costs $179 on special. No thanks. ON1 seems to be doing the same thing. Adobe has always had a “one product” strategy with optional third party plugins, but the slowdown in workflow for plugin based stuff is no longer viable for me.

DxO has long had FilmPack and Viewpoint as add-in bundles and now they are being integrated into the native app GUI. They really must do the same thing with NiK as well to stay competitive. But, with everyone moving to “AI” for each effect, I wonder about NiK as well.

1 Like

I agree, the auto selection is pretty good. But I find the process of then refining the mask (which I find I do need to still do on every image) is time consuming and, for me at least, the interface is somewhat on the unintuitive side.

Thankfully I only need to do it on a absolute minority of images thanks to the sharpness of modern lenses and IBIS, and the DxO optical corrections in PL :slight_smile:

1 Like

Same experience for me, way too frustrating to refine the mask, it’s a disincentive to use it.

FilmPack and Viewpoint have always been integrated into PhotoLab, only requiring a license to unhide those features which are already present there. As a result Viewpoint and FilmPack are not technically add-ins. DxO will still continue to require licenses to unhide these features. The Nik Collection is a compliantly different matter and the sheer scope of the features available in all the modules would make full integration into PhotoLab extremely unlikely to occur…ever. This topic has been discussed to exhaustion elsewhere. My best hope is that the Nik apps will be upgraded to support native raw files or DNG files

Mark.

What I really meant to say is that UI is being harmonized. Maybe it will be true now that they are not add in’s, but in the past I purchased Viewpoint and Filmpack, downloaded them and ran an installer. put my serial number into the standalone versions and then PL picked them up on next launch.