Topaz Photo AI Review and is it better than the Image Quality Bundle
My Photo AI Review and would I use it?
Welcome to my Topaz Photo AI Review where we will deep dive into Photo AI to see just how good is it really is in 2024? Or more importantly, how does it compare to the other Topaz products and of course options from other photography editing software companies too.
A lot of people have asked me over the last year if they should upgrade from either older versions Topaz Photo AI or the “Image Quality Bundle” and is it actually worth it or not?
So the easy way to answer this is to walk you through my experiences with Photo AI and how it has worked for me.
Topaz Photo AI First Thoughts.
As soon as Topaz Photo AI was released I immediately went about installing it. My first few attempts of using it did leave me disappointed though. You see I was great things from this software and I was honestly hoping it would blow me away.
The results were ok but not as good as the Image Quality Bundle apps, in mty excitement I started this Topaz Photo AI Review then but I abandodned as I thought this has to get better soon.
With every update of Photo AI I quickly checked it out to see if that eureka had happened and it was actually better than the individual tools in the Image quality bundle but up until now I always felt it just didn’t come close them.
I personally found Gigapixel AI (Review Here), Sharpen AI (Review Here) and DeNoise AI (Review Here) still gave ever so slightly superior results and at the end of the day results are what matter. Now in saying that this later version has seen a few improvements over the individual programs but then again they haven’t really been upgraded in a very long time either. Which for modern photography editing tools is near criminal.
Sharpen AI and Denoise AI have now been put out to pasture apparently with Gigapixel AI possibly following shortly afterwards I would imagine. So all the eggs are now in the Topaz Photo AI basket, which is great as hey it does it all and it has subject detection and masking too so if its better and faster what’s not to love about that.
Why the Topaz photo AI Review now?
Recently, I have come across some amazing Topaz Photo AI reviews, so I started to wonder was it just me? Was I missing a trick here or something? So, I asked a few more serious profesional photography friends had they found Photo AI to be a lot better now and they all seemed to have very mixed reviews of it, out of 16 of them only 5 were actively using Photo AI in their workflow.
So that left me very confused as I had been getting loads of comments recently on my Youtube videos from people using Topaz Photo AI saying how great it was and of course there are hundreds of sponsorred ads on social media from photographers saying how much of a “game changer” it is so I decided to test it again. This time I was going to do a full Topaz Photo AI Review and no matter what the results I was publishing it.
As soon as I opened up the application I again updated it and I wondered could this be the moment it I finally start to use it and love it?
Let’s have alook at when Photo AI was released and who are its challengers now.
Topaz Photo AI Release Date
Topaz Photo AI was officially released on the 15th of September 2022, interestingly it didn’t replace the Image Quality Bundle but sat alongside it in their product range.
There were several updates in a very short space of time which threatened this app could be epic but it just kept tripping up when comparred to its older siblings. On the other side then Sharpen AI, Gigapixel AI and Denoise AI got very few updates and they seemed to stagnate.
Nearly two years later now we are finally at a stage where Photo AI has caught up with the apps but at what cost? Two years is a very long time in AI and in the photography business
Seeing Photo AI getting massive support and the other apps getting no updates it kind of showed early on the way Topaz were going with this and the end game was always to have a single app. This is both a brave move but also a very risky one as if you think about it how often do you take a noisy blurred photograph? Hasvin gthe multiple features in one was the serious time saver in Photo AI but most photographers would generally only use a single enhancement at a time and we have other options when it comes to convience and editing apps.
Topaz Photo AI challengers
Now, all the time Topaz Labs is developing Photo AI Adobe have been developing its own version of Denoise AI with proper upscaling and sharpening being on the horizon now too shortly and having this all in one full editing app and as part of your subscription could this spell the end for Photo AI just as it lands its feet on the ground finally?
But wait we then have Luminar Neo coming in with their own serious Sharpening, Noise Reducing and Enlarging extensions and the crazy part of this is you can buy Luminar Neo which is a full editing app for approx $72 a year right now whereas Photo AI is $199.- a year. With yearly updates costing $99.- again per year.
Lightroom is also around $12.99 a month so Photo AI would want to be very good when you consider you have to send photos back and forth to the app to edit them and the other two do it all in app.
On the price side of things Photo AI is a mile behind, it really is. I would think the realistic price should be $99.- for the intial purchase and $59.- a year then for updates and even at that it’s still expensive.
The pressure is on Topaz but ye have a pedigree of producing amazing editing software so I am possibly more confident then I should be.
You also have ON1 with their range of plugins and Photo Raw 2024 catching up rapidly on Topaz and putting some serious pressure on. Have a look at the video at the end of this article to see my ON1 NoNoise AI 2024 vs Topaz Photo AI Review.
So there have been several shots fired at Topaz over the last few months the real question is now when can we expect a reply and are you up to the challenge Topaz?
Can I just say that I love the fact there is more competition in the market and so should you as we the consumers are the winners here then. At the end of the day we get better software and hopefully cheaper software then too, so we should all be hoping this battle rages on for some time yet. So, come on Topaz pull the finger out and do something.
Below is the first of four Topaz Photo AI Review videos I have put up on my YouTube channel, the one below is Topaz Photo AI vs Sharpen AI.
Photo AI Review
There are two great things that AI technology can do for us in photography… It can help to dramatically improve the quality of our photographs as in to repair mistakes or older images and secondly it can save us time by automating a lot of the editing process.
Topaz Photo AI promises to do both and hey I am all for thatSo let’s take a closer look at both of these steps individually, for a fair review I think that’s what’s really going to be important here.
Please remember this is my personal review of this software and what fits right for me may not be right for you. I also work with Adobe, ON1 Software (review here), Skylum Software (reviews here) and DxO labs (reviews here) so I have fairly high standards when it comes to editing software and the results I expect from them.
Let’s start off on a positive note and look at its editing speed first.
Topaz Photo AI Speed
Topaz Photo AI is without doubt staggeringly faster at editing a photography that’s not sharp, is noisy and needs upscaling in comparison to using all three separate applications like DeNoise AI, Gigapixel AI and Sharpen AI but I would also hope most of us photographers won’t need all three apps at once 🙂
The more common case is we would need one or two of these AI facilities to edit or enhance our photographs.
When just using one of the AI enhancements there is practically no time saving in using Photo AI over one of the other Topaz apps. Where Photo AI comes into it’s own is when you need to use noise reduction and also enlarge a photo in one go.
It also has another very handy trick up its sleeve in that it knows which AI edit to perform first so that is very handy and makes it easier for people unsure what to do next.
Topaz Photo AI Results.
As I mentioned above I was less than impressed when I first tried Topaz Photo AI so I decided to update all my Topaz Labs Apps and record my editing results and directly compare them to the same shots being edited in Gigapixel AI, DeNoise AI and Sharpen AI.
Even after app updates in Topaz Photo AI you can still see that in the results that the individual apps are still better and give consistently better results. I had an image I was restoring for someone recently and when I tried it in Photo AI it came out like something out of a cartoon so I popped the very same image into Sharpen AI and Gigapixel AI with far superior results.
My third videos below is where I directly compare Topaz Photo AI vs Gigapixel AI even reading the comments on these videos you can see most photographers believe the individual apps are better than. I say most as you get a few die hard fans that just cant see the difference.
Topaz Photo AI Conclusion
In this Topaz Photo AI review I have possibly cheated a little bit by giving them a 4 star rating… Let me explain why they don’t deserve it in my mind and yet do at the same time…
Personally, I am disappointed in Topaz Labs here and I believe you should be too. I love rewarding companies that push products and software forward in a bid to advance technology, these are the companies that deserve our support and also our money.
I have two conclusions here both a harsh and positive one as I feel they are both needed.
Harsh conclusion 2.5 star rating.
For me right now Topaz Photo AI is a good belnd of all three apps from two years ago and it just hasn’t progressed past the performance of any of the apps it has replaced. I could still use any of the other Topaz apps over it which is a serious pity.
In my mind applications like this should be jumping forward rapidly every three to six months now, considering the advances in machine learning and AI technology but instead we are getting software that still isn’t as good as the individual apps were more than twelve months ago. I just can’t understand that and struggle to say anything positive about it.
At the same time social media is being drowned by ads from Topaz Labs and from people selling Topaz products (at least mine is anyway) which makes me wonder if too much of the R&D money is going into advertising now? Is that a bit harsh or is it reality?
Heck even from a design point of view the logo looks like very blah… That shouldn’t matter but it all points to something that for me lacks thought or direction or maybe I just don’t get it and I hope that’s what it is.
One of the things that seriously annoys me though is the price of it and how can that be justified? It’s just three apps rolled into one after all without a complete editing platform behind it and yet it’s dearer than the Lightroom Luminar Neo ON1 and DXO?
Even the yearly update costs are more than the cost of Luminar Neo! How is that possible and what makes it worse is DeNoise AI is still better than Photo AI in my eyes.
I am not doubting that Photo AI is a great app and yes it could very well work fine for you and that’s great I am delighted for you and keep it up. I just find it very hard to write a positive review on a mediocre all in one product.
Positive Review 4.2 star rating.
If I hadn’t used any other editing apps before doing this Topaz Photo AI review then I would probably love Photo AI and think wow this is ground breaking, so, for that I have to applaud them and give them a 4.2 star rating.
Photo AI is a good all-around editing application for certain issues but it’s not great and there are so many other companies now progressing so quickly that Topaz Labs would want to start moving in the right direction quickly if they want to keep their customers.
They are all the positives I have for now but I hope that will change soon and Photo AI will develop into the app we all want it to be.
Is Topaz Photo AI worth it?
Now, that again is a difficult question to answer but right now I would think it’s rapidly going towards being a $99.95 price tag and even at that I think it’s going to be expensive unless they drop the yearly updates down to $49.95. There is so much competition out there right now that I can’t see the price staying as high as it is.
It just doesn’t make sense to me how this is worth $199.- for the first year and $99.- a year after that.
Final Thoughts…
Could Photo AI be good? Yes, it most certainly could and I for one will be very happy to see that happen. I just hope it starts to happen soon though. With all those other companies chasing them down rapidly it needs to be soon. Advertising can only keep you there for awhile.
The last video is below where I compare ON1 NoNoise AI to Topaz Photo AI and it wasn’t a positive result for Photo AI.
Topaz Photo AI Real Rivals
It’s biggest rivals are it’s own stable mates as let’s face it if you already bought Topaz products right now there is no point in updating to Photo AI after that you have to look at some of the other amazing companies out there Like ON1, DxO and Skylum…
Look at what ON1 have done with NoNoise AI 2024 and how that has stepped forward dramatically now to over take DeNoise AI and DxO for the title of best Noise reduction software.
Look at Skylum breaking new ground with SuperSharp AI from a company that never released AI sharpening software before that’s a statement and something I seriously applaud.
Heck even from a design point of view the logo looks like very blah… That shouldn’t matter but it all points to something that for me lacks thought or direction, surely a step backwards is not the way forward!
Maybe I am looking at this all wrong and Topaz Photo AI is just for the novice who doesn’t understand the slider controls and how to use the other stand alone apps and in what order.
Topaz I seriously hope there will be a proper update to this app soon as competition is very good for us all.
With Topaz Studio being “sun-setted” as well as “Topaz Mask AI”, “Topaz JPEG to RAW AI” and “Topaz ADJUST AI” and the massively increased competition from some very serious competition it’s not looking very positive.
See you out there,
Kieran.
Topaz Photo AI Review by Kieran Hayes for Landscape Photography Ireland.
Topaz Photo AI Review -better than the Image Quality Bundle?
Welcome to my Topaz Photo AI Review and if it it's worth it if you already have the image quality bundle should you upgrade the simple answer is NO for me.
3.2