Brucej67 Loc: Cary, NC

I purchased it yesterday and tried it out, it is pretty impressive.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Be careful when you use the word "impossible."

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13556-10-impossibilities-conquered-by-science/
http://motivating-minutes.blogspot.com/2013/02/10-things-that-used-to-be-impossible.html

"Interpolate - : to estimate values of (data or a function) between two known values"

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

String 'em up!

Blair Shaw Jr Loc: Dunnellon,Florida

Blair Shaw Jr Loc: Dunnellon,Florida

I have a recipe book somewhere that tells me how to prepare the can of worms you may have opened by mistake.........Let me know how that dish ends up. Thanks for Sharing.

Jimbo

dave.m

Most DSLRs record raw format in 12 or 14 bits per channel per pixel. 12 bits has 4095 possible tones for each of R,G or B channel giving a total of up to 68 billion colours per pixel (4095x4095x4095)

As most know, jpeg is limited to 8 bits or 255 colour tones per channel or maximum 16 million per pixel.

So any jpeg processing - in camera or elsewhere - potentially reduces tones by a factor of 16 and colours by 4000.

But who cares, as after all the human eye can resolve about 1 million colours, well within the range of jpeg, and the moment we display on screen, or worse a printed image the maximum number of colours plummets.

Any jpeg processor reduces the number of colours by some mathematical system - at its very simplest by banding. ie if all 4096 tones are used for one channel it will convert 16 raw tones to a single jpeg tone.

And therein lies the problem, because post processing options on colour balance, exposure, shadows, contrast etc are potentially severely restricted.

So, on a difficult to process jpeg image, if Topaz have developed an 'intelligent' process to largely deconstruct the 'mechanical' compression processing of a jpeg image, then I will certainly give it a try when I have a jpeg that I want to improve.

And a fair few of my old scanned slides and negs could do with all the help they can get :)

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

The level of misunderstanding of JPEG, how it works, and what its capabilities and limitations are on this site continues to astound me. And most of the misconceptions are preached loudest by those who clearly do not even use it and who have obviously never studied it in any detail.

It is very clear that raw is one of the two preferred file formats for capturing and manipulating photographs. In fact, from a file standpoint, TIFF is superior to raw in at least a couple of ways, if your camera is capable of using it. 16 bit TIFF files provide either 2 or 4 additional bits of image depth. The files are also nearly universally readable, just like JPEGs, and they can be saved without any compression.

The truth is that JPEGs can carry all the information that most printers can handle and reproduce, especially any printer that most of us here are willing to pay for and buy ink for. I have very nice framed images all over my house that were taken before I learned the benefits of either raw or TIFF. Most of them were post processed. They are not going to come down just because they were JPEGs.

It is true that if exposure or contrast or overall dynamic range are changed in a JPEG, it is possible to run out of bit depth. If the exposure was pretty close to correct to start out with, that can happen pretty quickly.

But the truth is that with the correct choices, JPEG does not have to be the limitation that so many here make it. With correct camera setup, correct focus, and correct exposure, it is possible to get to a perfectly usable printable image with JPEG. BUT...the correct JPEG setup is also required...maximum resolution retained and minimum compression exucuted. If Basic quality is selected, only a low resolution version of the image is captured from the beginning. If Small is selected, a brutal compression will be done that will result in inability to fully reconstruct the image when opened. But those are choices that do not have to be made.

Nikon1201

Save $80 and just shoot in Raw . I can’t believe that you can replace the data you lost shooting g in Jpeg.

mgoldfield

Save your money and shoot in RAW!

M. Goldfield

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

From hence forth.
Someone should make a slide/print scanner that saves RAW.

Dikdik Loc: Winnipeg, Canada

It might be possible...and, there might be a little juju thrown in. Your original photo is the best data you have. All else is 'slight of hand'. Any conversion program will have lost any shading subtleties and there may be good attempts... You cannot create data that is not there. Check out the free trial with unusual photos to see how they are accommodated.

Dik

Dikdik Loc: Winnipeg, Canada

It might be possible...and, there might be a little juju thrown in. Your original photo is the best data you have. All else is 'slight of hand'. Any conversion program will have lost any shading subtleties and there may be good attempts to add them... You cannot create data that is not there. Check out the free trial with unusual photos to see how they are accommodated.

Dik

bbrown5154 Loc: Baltimore, MD

Man people get way too torqued up over things.
Use it, don't use it, try it don't try it.
But to just arbitrarily dismiss it is pretty elitist.
JMO.

CaptainEd

And a pro photographer travelling along with them, just in case!

Rich1939 Loc: Pike County Penna.

I wonder if this software can be modified to restore other things. Like a certain played-out gold mine in our family???