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Your discussion about printing will be completely lost in this super resolution thread… but sure. Keep going.
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@mwsilvers and @Joanna This thread is supposed to be about an upres option for PhotoLab. Building an upres function (which doesn’t need much interface) and won’t get in the way of the existing program is not such an impossible task to distract from core improvements.
There are general improvement threads, this is not one of them. Printing doesn’t belong here. Printing can have its own thread and those of you who do print could and should use dedicated applications for final pre-print, whether from Canon or another printer manufacturer.
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Hey Alec,
My fault. I started the ball rolling on this in an earlier response to you as an example of how DxO could better use their limited resources.
Mark
Well we don’t know what there is in this pipeline… probably many things, bug fixes, enhancements and new features.
“Super resolution” is for me only an extension of DeepPrime which gives the starting point needed before upscaling.
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Curiously enough, I haven’t given this feature a positive vote, as I both own Topaz Gigapixel and don’t use it much. I usually have enough pixels, when I don’t have enough pixels, it’s not what I shot on RAW but external images which I’m scrounging around for article illustration and find in low resolution versions.
I’m close to giving a positive vote though, as I do have some soccer/football crops which would benefit from extra resolution.
Here though, Lens Sharpness, Fine Contrast and DeepPrime XD have given the image almost all the detail it will ever get, even if blown up to 99999 pixels. There’s no more detail to be had, regardless of pixel count.
My argument here in favour of the feature is that
- some people who are willing to pay for premium photo software (often the wildlife crowd, who do absurd crops on small songbirds or small fauna) clamour for a blow up function.
- adding this functionality would not be too far off PhotoLab’s core mission (provide highest image quality of any RAW image processing tool) and relatively low-hanging fruit considering DxO’s existing work on noise reduction (DeepPrime) and detail enhancement (Lens Sharpness, DeepPrime XD).
The feature is also a flagship type flashy announcement for PhotoLab 7 or 8, as long as it’s competitive with Adobe Super Resolution and Topaz Gigapixel. Based on the early returns (2021), Topaz Gigapixel is far more ambitious software. Three times more enlargement:
Looking at Gigapixel AI, it takes things to another level. While Super Resolution can only double the length and width of an image, users in Gigapixel AI can choose to upscale any custom amount up to six times the original size.
More controls to improve the enlargement:
There are more refinement controls as well in Gigapixel AI, such as Suppress Noise, Remove Blur, Reduce Color Bleed, and Face Refinement. It also has various A.I. modes depending on what the content is, including Standard photos, Architectural, Compressed, and Art. As a standalone application, the preview window is also much larger than that of Adobe.
For DxO to arrive at the quality of Super Resolution would be fairly simple. I don’t know how much work would be involved to beat Topaz at their own game. Topaz software is too slow and kind of finicky for efficiency so whatever DxO does, I hope it’s easier to use (fewer controls, more sensible automation) than Topaz.
While doing this comparison review, it took between 10 to 15 minutes to process one image in Gigapixel AI on my 2014 Apple iMac computer. In the event that you decide you want more noise reduction or blur removal, that’s going to be another 10 to 15 minutes to make the adjustment. Fortunately, the previews in the application were mostly accurate to the final result, so be sure to use them and get things right the first time. On the other hand, it took all of 10 seconds for Super Resolution to complete its process.
Small preview window sounds like a great idea even if the final render for export takes a long time.
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Alec,
I’ve never used Gigapixel myself and so far I’ve never had the need for such a tool. However, I can understand how birders and sports and wildlife shooters could make good use of it on images that are heavily cropped. I don’t shoot birds or sports and wildlife, and as matter of fact I currently do not even own any long lenses for those purposes. Very extreme crops are not a concern for me.
I do have licenses for Denoise AI and Sharpen AI. I occasionally use Denoise AI for non-raw images and I will also occasionally use Sharpen AI when PhotoLab does not have a lens profile available. They are both capable of improving the majority of the images I use them on, although they are far from perfect. I assume that Gigapixel AI is also an effective tool. Do you know if its results are as good as the Adobe super resolution?
I can see how the presence of super resolution tool in PhotoLab could be useful for many users. However, there are literally dozens of significant features that many of us would like to see implemented in PhotoLab with more items added to the list every year. The unfortunate reality is that in any given year DxO only adds a handful of significant new features to PhotoLab. I guess the question comes down to whether they spend their resources on utility type features, such a super resolution, which are already available in third party software like Topaz or whether they focus on PhotoLab’s core functionality with creative new features that go beyond what their competition offers. As always it comes down to difficult choices.
Mark
The article linked above demonstrated that sometimes neither are significantly better than normal upscaling and sometimes Gigapixel is well ahead of Adobe’s Super Resolution. Based on the birder demos there, Super Resolution is more Adobe marketing than a real feature.
whether they spend their resources on utility type features, such a super resolution, which are already available in third party software like Topaz
I don’t see a huge amount of resources required for DxO to make their own flavour of Super Resolution/Gigapixel as DxO already has most of the technology to improve sharpness organically and mask noise and enhance detail.
I have an inventory of 12 Mpix images, previously from Nikon D2/D300 and currently from my Olympus TG-6. Unlike film strip scanned with a Nikon D850 or currently Z9 using the Nikon film scanning attachment, in which the resolution is limited by the film but otherwise is in a relatively large Mpix image, 12 Mpix are just that and no more. I tried the Adobe product (on a temporary trial lease) and was not satisfied with the results. I have other applications that claim the same and also were unsatisfactory. I then tried the Topaz application (a rather earlier release than current production) and found it much more satisfactory. However, none of these are fantastic for bird feather detail. The other thing to keep in mind is that none of these ultimately provide “real” (but interpolated) pixels (eg, demosaic of Bayer sensor “raw” image data), but rather generate pixels that were not present in the original image. Is the result aesthically pleasing to (most) clients? Yes, if the image appears “sharp”. Is this an accurate and precise image for scientific measurements? Probably not. As an aside, just using PL6E complete on Nikon Z9 lossless compressed images (and a Sigma 60-600 Sport plus FTZII), I received the following comment from a client: “Wonderful colors on some of the birds. The detail on the feathers is great.” With my personal custom presets plus cropping and bit of slider adjustment, PL6E Complete provided rapid clean workflow after I had selected the NEFs to process; on a separate matter, I do not use PL for intake and have yet to find an useful equivalent to Adobe LR. However, that topic (intake and organisation for future use) is a separate topic. PL6E Complete I find to be a superior replacement for Adobe PS except for the lack of internal pipeline plug-ins (export to TIFF is NOT an internal pipeline). I still am trying to find a superior or equivalent replacement for LR – Camerabits Photo Mechanic is not such a replacement.
I had one of my photos printed to 20”x30”. The source after cropping was a ~14MP image that was shot at ISO 8000 (on a full frame camera)
I used DeepPRIME and Adobe super resolution to upscale it to 300 PPI and then added some titling information (it was a promotional poster). I tried gigapixel and the results were better but it still had some topaz DeNoise type artifacts I didn’t really like. I probably would have used it anyway…. I do think DXO could do a better job with predominantly the training database they already have.
If I can pedantic, DPI refers to ink dots, not pixels, which are measured in PPI.
First, 300dpi for printing would yield a very poor print - you would normally be looking for something like 1200 or 1400 dpi.
When it comes to printing resolution, you can quite happily settle on 240ppi, which will give you a slightly larger print without any worries for a print viewed from arm’s length.
I recently changed to Topaz Photo AI, which combines the three apps and allows me to vary sharpness, size and noise or JPEG compression in relation to each other.
I meant PPI
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Looks like ON1 has stepped up their game with this latest announcement.
I use ON1 for dngs from my Pixel phone, as well as the Portrait module, but still think I would prefer DxO to focus on the interface and improvemnts (highlight recovery?) to RAW processing rather than get sucked into distractions from the core of what I like about DxO - RAW processing which nothing beats.
Coming Soon to ON1 – Face Recovery Technology - ON1
Folks, I`m on the way to buy Gigapixel AI as I sometimes need such a functionality to enlarge cropped wildlife pics for printing (factor 2 is enough). Unfortunately DxO has nothing in their portfolio.
To be honest: I dont want to spend the money at Topazonline shop and I don’t want to step into a monthly payment model at Adobe, as I like DxO PL very much and I appreciate your business model.
BUT: I need a sign that something is in the pipeline to avoid double expeditures.
IF you think you need it, get it. Waiting for something simply means you don’t …
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Then do yourself a favour and get Topaz Photo AI. I sometimes have to process images for outdoor poster printing and can’t recommend it enough. It allows me to fine tune sharpening and any residual noise after enlargement, at the same time as doing the enlargement. I have had excellent results with cropped images up to 4x magnification and could possibly push it a bit further.
I find the “subject only” sharpening especially useful for increasing apparent separation between it and the background.
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Yes, this is the way to go. TP AI has been steadily improving with each of its frequent updates. Topaz has made it clear that the individual programs will be phased out in favor of TP AI.
I’m one of them too, but I found that topaz upscaling works for one image on 10; no more. 9 awfull results for one that makes about the trick. Looking not directly at the image is better.
Recreating unexisting details does not give me decent result on heavy crops most of the time. So I don’t, and try to have better reach on the field.
This is what I think too.
Now that photolab is attacked on its favorite ground by a more than powerfull competitor (at least economically speaking), it should think to give a more complete and clever solution for daily tasks and not for one time in the month task.
This what I think.
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