First of all, let me say you have an awesome product portfolio, I like most of your products!
Just recently I discovered a strange behaviour of the most recent release of AI Clear (which I use as a Photoshop CC addin):
When I select AI Clear effect for an image, the preview looks great, as intended.
Then, when I apply the effect and get back in Photoshop, the result looks significantly different, less optimal, like if I would have used a completely different option.
I tried almost everything to change this behaviour, to no avail: Use the standalone version of Topaz Labs Studio, save as 16bit, 8bit, TIFF, jpg… whatever, not change.
I have attached a 100% crop to show the effect:
Left: Original image
Middle: Preview in Topaz Labs with AI Clear
Right: Result I get in PS CC
Any idea what might have happened since the last update?
Those artifacts look typical of those created by adjusting solid color areas, especially in JPEGs because of compression, so I would raise a support request using the Need Help link at the top of the page.
Also I am unable to reproduce it but I only use CS6.
Look at the pixel-values in the left-bar. They don’t match with the resulting image, so maybe you are watching the preview at a scale that is not 100%?
No, it’s not a scaling issue… I did a screenshot at 100% within Topaz Studio because there was no other way to show how it looks in TS since, when I press the confirm button, the outcome is like what is shown in the right picture…
Why are the numbers on the vertical ruler only sharp on the ‘bad’ image?
Did you export the middle-image with some kind of jpg smoothing or chroma-subsampling on? That can soften an image and perhaps make it look less noisy.
Maybe I misunderstand what you did, but I would expect the vertical ruler numbers to be identical when you are comparing. They should not be part of the image-processing (unless of course they are part of the original image, but then I would expect them to also be visible on the left image)
I understand that you want all errors on my side excluded, but, be assured, I did everything to make the results comparable. All is 100%, not compressed in any way, fully comparable. The screenshot is done within PS CC, the middle picture of course is just a screenshot of the TS window, hence the different scaling, but it’s not blurred or something, it’s just grey characters, the right one has white characters since this tab is the active one in PS.
I use Photoshop and lots of addins, here are some of my images. I rely on working tools and like AI Clear a lot, it provides stunning results, but in some cases I got these strange results that give me different results (and these are not subtle, these are absolutely obvious, so jpeg resampling can wipe this away).
This is the result in artifacts that are being saved with the image, and is a very specific issue that I’ll be raising to the development team later today. The problem most likely relates to performance-specific downsampling in the save process, which actually impacts other Adjustments. These adjustments have shown some of this behavior:
Smudge
Impression
A.I. Clear
Digital Frame
We have managed to correct the issue with Digital Frame, and I am personally looking forward to seeing it resolved in the other Adjustments impacted, as I see the artifacts from A.I. Clear in some of my own images, now that it’s been pointed out to me. It tends to happen with larger input images, as downsampling increases as your image size increases, making the artifacts more noticeable. My early investigations point to downsampling as being involved in the process, though not necessarily being responsible for, the introduction of these artifacts.
Update: Now that I watch this problem more closely, I can recognize the problem even in much busier images like e.g. in the woods… There you can especially experience that the detail recovering is working much weaker in the final image than it was in preview.
Thank you for your prompt response! I shall patiently await the Topaz team to look into these issues. My hope is that these two new A.I. products would mature into wonderful tools that we professionals can trust to incorporate into their workflows. Happy Holidays to all at Topaz!
Okay. But why does it take so long to fix? Is it that complicated? It works
in preview but not in final result, so I would guess, just apply the same
procedure to final result calculation. Maybe I miss something.
There are many reasons for this. We’re a small team, have many products, and many projects in the works. I cannot set priority on fixes, I can only report them to the developers. Thanks for your understanding!
It’s now more than 7 weeks since this was reported. I’m a happy customer of
topaz labs. This product was quite expensive, and then it should work as
expected. This is not a minor glitch, its preventing me to use the product
since it applies to almost all the pictures I process.
I would ask you or someone from topaz to set the priority accordingly.
Don’t rush out products that are not mature.
The best we can do as a support team in situations like this is refund the purchase price and let you keep the license. So, that’s what I just did. You should get an email concerning the refund soon.
I cannot set priority, nor do I have much influence on the schedule. All we do here is observe and report. Occasionally, there’s a configuration or usage issue we can address, but by and large, the people that respond to you directly are not in charge of the development schedule or product quality. We’re simply trying to react to our customers and support the product that was deemed ready for release by the company. Thanks!
