Earlier in 2023, I mentioned that I thought that Topaz Photo AI was an absolute essential for all photographers. Having the ability to fix imperfections in your images after the fact, in addition to being able to upsize your photos, is such a powerful tool to have in your tool belt. I haven't made a video covering Photo AI in quite some time, and I wanted to address the software in 2024, since I've been getting some questions on it, and talk about if Photo AI is still worth purchasing. Hey everybody, I'm Austin James Jackson, landscape photographer based in the beautiful southern Utah. In this video I'm going to cover whether or not I think Topaz Photo AI is still worth it in 2024. With lots of other options out there on the market including Lightroom's denoising option, Topaz certainly has a lot of competition.
Now I have extensively used many of the competing products as well as the other Topaz Lab software so I've got a pretty solid opinion, at least I think it's a solid opinion, on whether or not the software is worth it. Now this video isn't going to cover how to use Photo AI, rather it's going to cover if software is still worth buying or not. But if you are interested in learning how to use Photo AI, I'm going to link that video here and I'm going to link it down below in the description. As a quick disclaimer, I just wanted to mention that Topaz Labs is not paying me to make this video, nor do they even know it's in production, nor have I even talked to anyone at the company in months. If you do watch this video and you decide to purchase Topaz Photo AI, I have included a link down below that earns me a very small commission on your sale.
It costs you absolutely nothing to do this. And if I didn't think the software is worth your while, then I would. just be making a video talking about another product and I'd include their link instead. So I really have no agenda making this video other than to inform you about the software and to grow my own YouTube channel.
So really excited you guys are going to be joining me. First, I want to address the elephant in the room. Lightroom released a denoising option in April of 2023 that was leaps and bounds better than any other denoising option that Lightroom has ever had. I'll link a video I made covering that tool here if you're interested. Being a Lightroom user for a long time, I've played with this tool for the eight months since it was released.
It works pretty well and I don't know for sure, but I would imagine that the sales of Topaz Photo AI have significantly decreased since this tool came out. Lightroom's denoising tool is excellent for photographers that want a good, but not a great tool. I'm going to tell you guys why.
So if you don't already own Lightroom, it definitely isn't worth purchasing just to get this tool alone. But I know that many of this video's viewers already own and use Lightroom, so deciding on Lightroom vs Topaz is a debate on whether or not buying Topaz is worth the money. Lightroom's DeNoise works quite well, but not quite as well as Topaz.
If you don't care about having the very best, and care about having all the details, stick with Lightroom and don't purchase a Topaz product. If you do care about having the absolute best, you're going to want to go with Topaz in my opinion. Thanks for watching.
Additionally, Topaz offers a few things that Lightroom doesn't. Topaz Photo AI, or the respective individual app, being Gigapixel, Denoise, or Sharpen AI, they not only offer denoising but upscaling and sharpening images that can fix blurry images, which is a feature that Lightroom, at this point in time, doesn't have. Either way, you've got to decide if the $200 Topaz Photo AI or the $80-$100 individual apps are worth it for you to see slightly better denoising results than you would see in Lightroom. When it comes to other comparable products on the market, many photographers wonder how Topaz Photo AI stacks up against the competition.
I actually made an in-depth comparison video where I compared Photo AI with other denoising softwares and even talk a little bit about the sharpening aspect. If you don't want to take the time to watch that video, I'm going to summarize. Photo AI was only matched in its denoising abilities by DxO's DeepPrime software, which had very comparable results. Now, if you already own the DeepPrime software, just keep using that. But personally, I like Topaz Photo AI better than DxO's DeepPrime because in DeepPrime, you don't get to see the results as you adjust sliders.
You simply adjust sliders, select settings, and then you allow the whole image to load out, which especially on an older computer can take a substantial amount of time. So it's really frustrating if you're not quite getting the results you want and you have to keep testing different things. I really like having the visual feedback as I move the sliders, which is offered in Topaz Photo AI. Now, regarding Topaz Photo AI versus Topaz's individual apps.
So I've also got a video on this, which you can see here. The video is about a year old and my thoughts have changed a little bit. Topaz Photo AI is definitely going to be the best option for any photographers or content creators that want a one and done image correction solution. Say that one three times fast, image correction solution.
That's a tough one. Having the ability to fix sharpness, denoise. and resize all in one go is super convenient and it's great for simplicity's sake.
And when it comes down to the actual performance of the apps, Gigapixel seems to produce about the same results as Photo AI, but Sharpen AI and Denoise AI seem to produce slightly different results. Now occasionally when I try both, which I do frequently, I like the results from Sharpen or Denoise better than I do from Photo AI. Softwares use slightly different AI models, which I honestly don't really understand, but I do know that they can produce different results. Additionally, at the time of this making, Sharpen and Denoise have the option to compare multiple models at once, while Topaz Photo AI does not.
This is great when you want to play around with settings and find the best model to use. For me as a professional, it's super important to get the absolute best results, so I like having the option to compare different models at the same time. Last year, in the springtime, I was told by an engineer at Topaz Labs that they were investing very little time and energy into the individual apps, and they were spending the majority of their resources on improving Photo AI.
They've certainly improved it a lot in 2023, but I still think there's plenty of reason to like the individual apps. Now, will my opinion change with another year's worth of updates on Photo AI? Potentially. Regarding pricing, Photo AI is $200, individual Sharpen and DeNoise are $80, Resize is $100. They used to sell all three in a bundle for $200, the same price as Photo AI, but I don't see that as an option anymore, so you would have to buy them individually.
In the upcoming year, it does look like some pretty large upgrades will be made to Photo AI. At the time of making this video in January of 2024, Topaz Photo AI had three features in beta mode where you can access them, but we assume that major upgrades are coming soon since they're still labeled as beta. The first feature is called Adjust Lighting which does exactly what it sounds like, it adjusts the lighting in your scene.
Inside this app it says that this option analyzes the image for poor lighting then changes brightness and contrast to create a vivid image. If I'm being brutally honest this feature didn't really impress me too much. I felt like checking this box just did the same thing as checking the auto edit box in Lightroom. I really feel like I would have got similar results to check that box in my room, so I don't know how popular this feature is going to be.
Or maybe it works better on another kind of photography. Maybe I just wasn't putting the right photos in there, but I wasn't too impressed. The other feature that is in beta right now is called Balance Color, which neutralizes color cast, creating an image with natural colors. For me personally, this feature doesn't do a ton, but I think it is great to have, especially if you're newer for photography.
I worked with a few clients of mine at editing their images that they couldn't quite nail the white balance on. This option almost always perfectly neutralized the color, which is really important if you want to create realistic looking edits. I tried a dozen or so images and there was only a couple that I felt like weren't accurate.
This is a great tool to have to throw on at the end of every edit when you're doing other things in photo AI, like maybe sharpening or denoising, just to see if it makes a difference. Many times when you see the change, you'll realize how much better it looks, especially if you're newer to photography. you might struggle to adjust the white balance and this is a great tool to help you out.
So lastly, Topaz has a remove tool in beta which works well but it works pretty slow compared to other options like Photoshop's clone stamp or spot healing brush or even the spot healing in Lightroom and I don't really like the interface or the way that the tool worked personally but maybe it'll change and if you don't mind waiting and want to do some removal of objects it is an option that does work well. I'd expect Topaz to keep plugging away on updates to Photo AI, which should continue to improve quite a bit over the coming year, while I wouldn't expect much out of the individual apps other than bug fixes. Now what does this all mean? You already know how I feel about Lightroom versus Topaz debate. If you want to purchase one of the Topaz apps, deciding which product really boils down to you and what your intended use is.
Like I said, Photo AI is going to be the best choice if you're someone who really values simplicity, you want to have everything under one roof. If you're someone who doesn't need all the photo AI offers and you don't want to spend the $200, one of the individual apps will save you some money. I think that just about any photographer could find use out of Denoise or Sharpen, while a lot won't find use out of Gigapixel.
If you're someone just looking to upscale your images though and you don't care about denoising or sharpening, you might just want Gigapixel. For most photographers, I'd recommend getting the software that you think you'll need. Denoise is definitely an essential in my opinion.
While Sharpen AI is nice to have if you occasionally miss focus, or want to improve an image that maybe is lacking sharpness. It's not totally necessary and I don't use it quite as often, but it's nice to have in my back pocket. Regardless, the choice is yours.
Don't really think you can go wrong with any of the softwares that Topaz has to offer. Hopefully that helps you guys make an informed purchase decision. If you guys have questions about the individual apps, let me know down below.
Love to hear from you. Or if you have your own experience where maybe you have your own opinion, let me know that down below as well. And hey, if you guys are trying to improve your photography, be sure to subscribe to the channel.
I post weekly videos. ultimately trying to help you become a better photographer. Thank you guys so much for watching.
We'll see you guys next time.