Photoshop Enhance, cheaper than a high resolution camera.

[gruhl28]

Thanks for the comparisons, privatebydesign, joules, and AlanF! I'd suspected that this might not work as well as Topaz, but since I already pay for PS and don't have Topaz I'd been wondering how this compares to 'regular' up-resing and Topaz. Looks like it's worth trying when I have a need for up-resing.

 

[R1-7D]

Damn impressive.

I think so. I was really surprised when I saw the results. This was the first image I "upscaled" after acquiring the software, and I did it to see just how much more detail I could extract. It sold me on Topaz's machine learning algorithms, that's for sure.

I plan on spending some time with PS's Enhance capabilities. However, from what I have seen so far, I haven't yet seen much added advantage.

 

[YuengLinger]

The noise is very well suppressed in the Topaz version because it was applied to the jpg produced by DxO PL4 with PRIME noise reduction. The PS Enhance just had noise reduction from the PS sliders. I am hopeless at noise reduction using PS and don’t know what settings to use to retain detail. I would have used Topaz Denoise but I don’t have it.

Interesting thread, and the demo here of Gigapixel AI is very impressive. I've been playing with a trial version of Denoise this week...Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but to me it just blurs heck out of noisy areas in a ham-handed way. I have better results with either selectively applying noise in LR CC--or by doing the same in PS CC where I can tweak by color channel and use masks much more easily.

 

[AlanF]

Interesting thread, and the demo here of Gigapixel AI is very impressive. I've been playing with a trial version of Denoise this week...Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but to me it just blurs heck out of noisy areas in a ham-handed way. I have better results with either selectively applying noise in LR CC--or by doing the same in PS CC where I can tweak by color channel and use masks much more easily.

I do subscribe to the whole Adobe suite as I need other Adobe programs for my work, and occasionally use PS. I haven't the time or skill to use colour channels and masks as DxO denoises amazingly well without compromising sharpness as part of a preset, so it's my default program. I do find Topaz AI sharpening and Gigapixel useful as I am often pushing cropping to the limits.

 

[YuengLinger]

I do subscribe to the whole Adobe suite as I need other Adobe programs for my work, and occasionally use PS. I haven't the time or skill to use colour channels and masks as DxO denoises amazingly well without compromising sharpness as part of a preset, so it's my default program. I do find Topaz AI sharpening and Gigapixel useful as I am often pushing cropping to the limits.

Have you tried "Select Subject"? Very fast selecting to create masks for applying noise-reduction to back grounds. Anything that shouldn't have the denoise applied can be brushed right out in the mask. Quick! And by using Smart Objects, we can go back to apply more or less.

I do plan to try DxO soon, as it seems pretty popular now. But it also seems like a big program if I'm only after one feature, the DeNoise.

 

[R1-7D]

Interesting thread, and the demo here of Gigapixel AI is very impressive. I've been playing with a trial version of Denoise this week...Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but to me it just blurs heck out of noisy areas in a ham-handed way. I have better results with either selectively applying noise in LR CC--or by doing the same in PS CC where I can tweak by color channel and use masks much more easily.

There are three modes in Gigapixel - Standard, Architecture, and Compressed. Make sure that you're not on the Compressed setting which is meant only for very noise images. Standard and Architecture may work better for you.

 

[christaelrod]

The 'Enhance' feature will provide great support for improving image quality along with the combination of Camera Raw. It is definitely worth giving a try if you are looking to improve the image quality.