Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

Does anybody have Clear AI from Topaz labs? Is it worth $60? A worthwhile addition to NIK Clear and Raw Sharpener?

jdubu Loc: San Jose, CA

I have AI Clear as a part of Topaz studio and like it. It cleans noise very well and is very controllable in strength even compared with the Topaz Denoise. I have the Nik products also, but use Viveza most and Clear not so much.

Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

TY

NikonGal Loc: Central Oregon

I don't use NIK, I use Topaz AI Clear and love it. Also know 7 others in our camera club who are very adept at post processing, who use it. I just did a comparison with the Photoshop CC upgrade which came last week with their new Enhanced Detail option in ACR, using a landscape with noise in the sky and distant mountains. AI Clear did a better job of reducing the noise in the sky as well as sharpening the distant mountains a bit as well as the foreground. I happen to use it as one of the first things in my workflow, so don't always use full opacity, then just a bit more sharpening at the end of my workflow.

Topaz frequently runs a tutorial on Tuesday afternoons (depending on time zone). If you register for it (you may have to be on their mailing list first) and sit through the hour tutorial, they give a discount code (I think it's 15%) at the end which can be applied to any of their products for the following 3 days.

Topaz also gives trials, so I'd recommend you do a trial with AI Clear, then if you like it, register for one of the tutorials and use the discount code to purchase. Good luck, Bev

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

First, I will say, yes, i will give Topaz Ai Clear a try and compare to my now very old Topaz deNoise.
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A philosophical thought... the better self-educated [Ai} software gets the less critical the Camera's IQ [image quality] gets. Ai is the wave of the future. [and helps the Cell Phone Photography replace the DSLR. People love their cells, especially the young.]
I am a Topaz guy from their first offering many years ago. Yes deNoise is my first step in the workflow. One webinar said that if you change image size deNoise should also be the last step before printing. If I am hooked on Ai Clear, it will remain as my first step in processing.

The only possible problem with Ai is like that I have experienced in Spread Sheet work... the program takes over and "what you really want is" kicks in.... No, it is not what I want. Googles DeepDreams is an example of image processing Ai gone awry. You photograph your dog, the computer software says "oh, that is a dog" and it gives you the average of All-Dogs ever photographed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepDream

Once all of our image software is Ai, we are just the person holding the camera... when the lens tilts to the left because the in-camera computer like that image better we are sunk and the time of "I Robot" is here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Robot_(film)

yssirk123 Loc: New Jersey

AI clear is well worth the price and works better than anything else I have tried. I use it as a Photoshop plugin, and it also can be used as a standalone part of Topaz Studio (which is free).

"Northlight" is a coupon code that will get you a 15% discount, and Keith Cooper has a good review on his site that you can find by searching Northlight Images and Topaz AI Clear.

Hope that helps.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I bet it's a free download for anyone who has a Topaz product. I got their new Focus AI yesterday for free - Mac and Windows.

Apparently, it's not free, and it's not even listed on the Download page.
https://topazlabs.com/downloads/

NCMtnMan Loc: N. Fork New River, Ashe Co., NC

I have Clear AI and just downloaded the new Sharpen AI yesterday. I have to say that I was rather impressed with the Sharpen AI. It can sharpen focus, reduce and sharpen shake and denoise. Take a significant system to run it so you should check out the system requirements for it and Topaz Studio.

NikonGal Loc: Central Oregon

Thank you for the info on the new app for Topaz. I've beem a believe in the Topaz philosophy for a few years now. My D850 plus my 70-200mm f/2.8 have plenty of shake when I try to hand hold. Sharpen AI doesn't appear to be listed under downloads, but when you pay for it, the download is there for Win or Mac.

Bill thanks for the "Northlight" code, it worked and took off $9. from the $59.

Now I'll do some comparisons........if this works well, it'll really push Adobe to get to work.
Bev

tomc601 Loc: Gilbert, AZ

You have to be an owner of Topaz InFocus to get the free download. If you are you should have already received the email with the coupon. I tried Sharpen AI and so far not impressed. Really, really slow and I have 32MB Ram on board.
AIClear on the other hand is a modern marvel as far as I'm concerned. It is now part of my regular workflow. I do most of my initial edits in Lightroom but I do no sharpening nor noise reduction in LR. In fact, I zero out the default sharpening. After I am happy with my edits I then send the image to AIClear for both sharpening and noise reduction. I usually leave the default settings and that's the only sharpening and noise reduction I use. I print up to 13x19 at home and I'm very happy with the results.
I've attached a file to this post that shows the difference between the best I could get out of LR and the results of AIClear with the noise setting on High. The image was shot at ISO 25600. Compare the two, especially in the shadows and the detail on the columns. Also the difference in color noise reduction. Well worth the money.

(Download)

DebAnn Loc: Toronto

They just announced Sharpen AI. Might be worth a look.

tomcat

Absolutely worth every penny!! I run it all the time on my sports images and with a shot at high ISO values in the 10,000 to 18,000 range, it can make them look like studio portraits. In addition to getting rid of noise, it also adds a garlic touch of sharpening. It has saved my bacon on many occasions and I recommend it every day to fellow photographers. I stopped using NIK stuff last year when I discovered the advantages of Topaz products.

tomcat

You have truly demonstrated the power of AI Clear at 25,600 with these architectural shots. I have posted before about the great results from my sports images shot at ISO 12,000 to 20,000 (but I cannot post them because they are underage HS kids and I have no model releases and I don't dare expose them to potential inappropriate copying and harmful uses from the internet). So thank you for confirming what I have been preaching on several postings here.

Riverrat2 Loc: South East Idaho

I have it and, for the most part, like it. On some images the improvement is remarkable, but for others I find it over sharpens. It works well enough often enough that I try it on about a third of my images.

Lloyd

tomcat

You realize that you can move your opacity slider to the left and reduce the over sharpening that you don't like? Also you can manually dial back on one of the 3 intensities that the program chooses.