Topaz Sharpen AI and DeNoise to be discontinued as stand-alones

[YuengLinger]

I had a few images that could have benefited from "Camera Shake" sharpening, but this feature has been discontinued in Adobe PS. "Motion Blur," in Smart Sharpen, seems to do little if any good.

So I thought I'd give Topaz Sharpen AI a test drive, but it was too buggy to run properly, with tech support finally admitting that it could not work consistently on a dual-monitor setup.

Here's what they wrote to me tonight:

"Unfortunately, there isn't a fix for this. We are discontinuing Sharpen AI and DeNoise AI, so there won't be an update.

"We're moving users to Topaz Photo AI since it has a sharpen, upscale, and remove noise tool in one app. If you haven't tried Topaz Photo AI, please download the demo version and let me know if it functions better....

"Sincerely,
--
Simmy Wilson
Support Specialist
Topaz Labs"

I do appreciate their honesty. Unfortunately, Sharpen AI was the only plug-in I could find that deals with movement related sharpening. Since I sometimes use DxO PhotoLab 7, but mostly LR CC Denoise AI, paying for a bundle with denoise, upscaling, and the motion sharpening just doesn't appeal to me. (I tried Topaz DeNoise AI and thought it ranked below DxO, LR CC, and On1.)

Not sure why Adobe actually gave up "Camera Shake." Yes, I've read the terse and cryptic assertion that it doesn't work for everybody, but I never felt that was a complete explanation.

 

[EricN]

I had a few images that could have benefited from "Camera Shake" sharpening, but this feature has been discontinued in Adobe PS. "Motion Blur," in Smart Sharpen, seems to do little if any good.

So I thought I'd give Topaz Sharpen AI a test drive, but it was too buggy to run properly, with tech support finally admitting that it could not work consistently on a dual-monitor setup.

Here's what they wrote to me tonight:

"Unfortunately, there isn't a fix for this. We are discontinuing Sharpen AI and DeNoise AI, so there won't be an update.

"We're moving users to Topaz Photo AI since it has a sharpen, upscale, and remove noise tool in one app. If you haven't tried Topaz Photo AI, please download the demo version and let me know if it functions better....

"Sincerely,
--
Simmy Wilson
Support Specialist
Topaz Labs"

I do appreciate their honesty. Unfortunately, Sharpen AI was the only plug-in I could find that deals with movement related sharpening. Since I sometimes use DxO PhotoLab 7, but mostly LR CC Denoise AI, paying for a bundle with denoise, upscaling, and the motion sharpening just doesn't appeal to me. (I tried Topaz DeNoise AI and thought it ranked below DxO, LR CC, and On1.)

Not sure why Adobe actually gave up "Camera Shake." Yes, I've read the terse and cryptic assertion that it doesn't work for everybody, but I never felt that was a complete explanation.

There are some free RAW processing programs I'm not sure if any of them have something to sharpen motion blur, though.

• darktable
• LightZone
• Rawstudio
• RawTherapee
• UFRaw

 

[kaihp]

I tried Topaz DeNoise AI and thought it ranked below DxO, LR CC, and On1.

I recently trialed DxO PL7, DxO PureRAW 3, Topaz Photo AI, Denoise AI and SharpenAI, and my conclusion was the same (see my topic here on CR) - Topaz isn't as good as DxO.

 

[YuengLinger]

I recently trialed DxO PL7, DxO PureRAW 3, Topaz Photo AI, Denoise AI and SharpenAI, and my conclusion was the same (see my topic here on CR) - Topaz isn't as good as DxO.

I do agree with what you said about the massive watermark! Once the image is exported from Topaz (trial version), there's no way to tell how sharpening has affected the subject. Reminds me of photographers who put such big watermarks in the center of their images--images in their online PORTFOLIO--that most viewers would just move on.

Still, from what I could see, Topaz Sharpen AI, when used with a light touch, produced great results. Just a shame that it's only going to be part of a bundle now. I imagine this was a business decision, that, due to competition, they couldn't get enough profit from the standalones, and now they can streamline labor a bit too.

For "creative" sharpening, and this will be greeted with some skepticism, I know, Exposure (as a PS CC plugin) produces consistently clean results. Plus it has decent masking abilities to sharpen selectively. Just works. But it doesn't have motion-blur sharpening, and it may not fit with everybody's workflow.