Topaz Sharpen AI

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harkins
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Joined: Tue 11 Jun 2013, 9:17 pm
Location: Stockport

Topaz Sharpen AI

Post by harkins »

Has anyone ever tried Topaz's Sharpen AI plug in? I see it has a 30 day trial so was considering giving it a whirl but my complete ignorance means I don’t have the foggiest how it works. I still use Lightroom 5. Does anyone know how it fits in or works if using Lightroom? Do you edit the RAW file? Does Lightroom see and save those changes? Does it effect the non-destructive editing done in Lightroom?

I know a lot of photographers here will simply say that photos should be sharp to start with and all that but, for complete ham fisted amateurs like myself, we get quite a lot of close but no cigar photos and we can’t ask a B-52 to go around again because we didn’t get it right. So sometimes a little post processing can at least makes things a little better.

Berf
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Joined: Thu 24 Aug 2017, 7:12 pm

Re: Topaz Sharpen AI

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tankbuster
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Joined: Sun 17 Jul 2011, 5:04 pm

Re: Topaz Sharpen AI

Post by tankbuster »

harkins wrote:Has anyone ever tried Topaz's Sharpen AI plug in? I see it has a 30 day trial so was considering giving it a whirl but my complete ignorance means I don’t have the foggiest how it works. I still use Lightroom 5. Does anyone know how it fits in or works if using Lightroom? Do you edit the RAW file? Does Lightroom see and save those changes? Does it effect the non-destructive editing done in Lightroom?

I know a lot of photographers here will simply say that photos should be sharp to start with and all that but, for complete ham fisted amateurs like myself, we get quite a lot of close but no cigar photos and we can’t ask a B-52 to go around again because we didn’t get it right. So sometimes a little post processing can at least makes things a little better.


I've downloaded Topaz and after reviewing it decided it is grossly overpriced and underperforming. If you want a powerful PPing tool I would recommend NIK I use it as a PSE plug in and it is brilliant and still available free if you find the right link.
Trevor C
recent and not so recent pictures here https://trevorc28a.wixsite.com/trevspics

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harkins
Posts: 1133
Joined: Tue 11 Jun 2013, 9:17 pm
Location: Stockport

Re: Topaz Sharpen AI

Post by harkins »


That was an enlightening read. I have noticed that the Sharpness slider in Lightroom5 is set at 25 (0-100 scale) by default. So I presume this what Adobe think is a necessary amount of RAW sharpening by default.

tankbuster wrote:I've downloaded Topaz and after reviewing it decided it is grossly overpriced and underperforming. If you want a powerful PPing tool I would recommend NIK I use it as a PSE plug in and it is brilliant and still available free if you find the right link.

Thanks for that. I'll have a look around for the link. I do agree that for simply sharpening, $78 is quite a lot, more than LR5 itself cost me. And again, I can now see the importance of some base sharpening but, in my case I am looking (hoping) for something that has a little more 'recovery' power. Maybe this NIK software might help. I did hope Topaz with its AI claim would be good as it claims to only sharpen where it calculates it to be necessary.

On a side note, after visiting the Topaz site yesterday, I have this morning received an email from them offering Sharpen AI on a limited time discount. I know that I had been to and registered on their site a few years back from this PC, so it seems they saw my IP or whatever and generated an email. Clever aren't they.

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wallace
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Joined: Mon 01 Sep 2008, 4:32 am

Re: Topaz Sharpen AI

Post by wallace »

My PC does not have the oomph to drive AI Sharpen :(

Just one point, the sharpen module in Lightroom is only meany for sharpening prior to outputting to print, or saving an image at full resolution, sharpening for the web is best done, in my opinion in Photoshop.
LR was made as a raw converter and Library/metadata device and never was an alternative to Photoshop.

When I cared, I found that one stop solutions rarely worked overall and it boiled down to masking in Photoshop for the best effect. My priorities have changed and I seldom become too bothered by sharpening to the nth degree.

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