two leading photo enlargers tested on three high resolution images which one will produce
the best image quality that's today's challenge today i'm putting topaz gigapixel ai6 and on1
resize ai to the test i want to test which one these will produce the best quality enlargements
to test these two photo enlarges i've chosen three sample images in this testing i'm not interested
in speed special features or anything else i just want to compare the quality of the enlarged image
to see visually which i prefer the first image we'll be testing is this landscape
i shot it as a raw file using the fuji xt3 with a fuji 10 to 24 lens it was then converted to an
image using dxo photo lab if you want to know my workflow in photo lab i'll include a link in the
youtube description to a video where i explain it after opening the image in topaz gigapixel ai
i have a choice of ai models i can use for the enlargement which one is best depends on what's
in the image that i'm enlarging for this test i'll leave the model set to the standard image
as we'll be working with a high resolution landscape there's then a choice of settings
which i can use to suppress image noise and remove any blur as part of the enlargement
above these is a switch to allow the software to analyze the image and automatically set the
value of these sliders i'll just accept the default to see how well the software does
what is important though is the output width and resolution that i want to produce
the original image from this camera is around 21 inches by 14 inches at 300 dpi i'm going to
increase this to produce a 60 inch image at 300 dpi which is around 300 percent increase
now let's do the same thing as near as possible using on1 resize ai with the image open in
the software you can see the current size and resolution i'll set this to produce a 60 inch
image on the long edge to match the gigapixel enlargement as with gigapixel resize ai has a
choice of resizing methods in the settings section you can choose from two ai methods and you'll also
find two legacy methods in the drop down after looking into the ai methods i understand the
faithful method applies slightly less noise reduction and sharpening i'll therefore use
the standard method in this head-to-head challenge unlike with gigapixel there doesn't seem to be any
control over the noise reduction and sharpening applied during the enlargement and it seems to be
taken care of by the algorithm there is an option to apply additional sharpening but i think this is
additional post enlargement so i'll try without this at the moment now you understand what i've
done let's compare the results of this first test i've opened both images side by side in photoshop
with the view set to 100 magnification to compare them in this first area taken from the rocks in
the foreground the on one results appear to be a little sharper and more detailed than gigapixel
but there is something that looks slightly synthetic about the on1 results
now let's look at the photographer in the distance he looks slightly better defined in the gigapixel
version than the on1 enlargement but there isn't much in it but something i have noticed while
checking these results is that gigapixel has made a better enlargement of the sky in the on1
enlargement i can see the clouds appear to have been over sharpened i can also see a faint pattern
in some of the areas which isn't present in the gigapixel enlargement on these results i would say
that gigapixel produced a better result because of the over sharpening and faint artifacts i'm
seeing in the on one enlargement we'll be coming back to this later because i need to share some
findings with you first up let's look at enlarging the second example image this is an image that i
downloaded from a stock library and i don't have the camera data because it's been stripped out
what i can tell you though is that loading it in on one it produces at 18 x 12 image at 300 dpi as
before i'll enlarge this to a 60 inch image on the long edge which is slightly over a 300 increase
this time though i'm going to change the enlargement method to faithful ai to see
if it produces the pattern i was seeing with the previous enlargement now with the imaging
gigapixel i'll set the output width to 60 inches i'll use the standard ai model for the enlargement
and i'll leave the settings section switched to auto so the software chooses the noise and
blur reduction levels to apply now let's compare the results side by side in photoshop if we look
at the first comparison of the woman's face the gigapixel version on the right appears sharper but
i would say this time the image looks too sharp and the skin texture seems to be overemphasized
the on1 version in comparison appears slightly softer and to my mind looks more natural i'll
accept that it would be possible to improve the results from both packages using their additional
features but that's not the idea of this test this test is to see how they perform in default mode
given that both are ai software now let's look at the second area of the image to compare the hair
again topaz gigapixel has produced amazingly sharp detail but to my mind it looks too sharp
and synthetic in contrast on one resize ai appears more natural the final area that i
want to compare in this image is the outer focus background with the on one image you can see the
hair in this area remains more natural but the background has retained a slight texture
in the gigapixel version the hair looks overly sharp but the texture is gone personally i'd
like to see the faint texture rather than the super smooth look of the outer focus
area with this image i would say that on one wins out based on more natural looking results
reassuringly what i can't see in the on1 enlargement is the strange grid pattern that i
saw with the first image perhaps switching to the faithful ai method is producing a better result
so let's put that to the test with a third example and go back to another landscape
this time it's an image i shot using a panasonic g9 micro four thirds camera it's a raw capture
which i then processed using dxo photo lab this produced a 17 by 13 inch image at 300 dpi
as before i'll set the output size on the on one resize to 60 inches at 300 dpi and i'll continue
using the faithful ai resizing method with the same image in top as gigapixel i'll also set
the output to 60 inches wide at 300 dpi as before i'll continue using the standard ai model and i'll
leave the noise suppression and blur removal set to auto levels determined by the software
after processing the images let's compare the results side by side at 100 magnification
in this first section from the foreground rock the on1 sample on the left appears far too sharp
once the gigapixel result looks softer and more natural this overly sharp appearance from the
on one enlargement has happened despite using the faithful ai enlargement method
when i look around the image there are a lot of areas where the detail appears just too sharp and
if i look very closely there seems to be a kind of mesh pattern that's emphasizing the detail you may
be able to see this in a second comparison taken from the cliffs at the back of the frame now i
did discover that i can reduce the over sharpening using the smoothness slider but it didn't remove
the pattern entirely so let's talk a minute about what seems to be happening before i pick a winner
after carrying out some more tests i found that on1 seems to generate a mesh pattern onto some
areas but not all images it also restricts the pattern to areas where you might expect
to see lots of detail but it can spill over into clouds and other areas where you don't want it
the images from my micro four thirds camera seem to be particularly susceptible to this problem but
look at this image taken with a canon 5d mark ii full-frame camera from 2011. when i enlarge this
image to 60 inches wide i don't see the mesh pattern in the on one enlargement although the
detail still appears slightly too sharp this mesh pattern that i'm seeing may be a way that
the software is trying to create the appearance of detail in the enlargement but it may also be
due to something else i have another theory about what could be causing the mesh pattern if you're
interested there's a link in the video description to an article i published a while back about this
no to the winner of the challenge and i want to say that i'm really impressed by both of these
packages the 60-inch images i produced in this video are all excellent i would
happily use either of these two products in my workflow if i wanted to produce an enlargement
remember i haven't tried to maximize image quality here with the additional software features
but today the winner from my testing is topaz gigapixel it produced great results
with all of the images i tested and there are no obvious problems in any of the enlargements
on one resize ai came a very close second and i did prefer it for the enlargement of the portrait
it was the overly sharp appearance in the landscape images that really let it down now
if you like today's software challenge you'll probably find this video interesting as well
in it i compare on one no noise ai with dxo's deep prime noise reduction don't forget to
subscribe if you haven't already and thanks for watching i'll see you soon for another video