Tag Archive for: images

This is a game changer: Topaz Photo AI

It seems the world is going really fast nowadays.

Where a few years ago the term AI (Artificial Intelligence) was just something that you talked about in connection to some robot vacuums that were actually pretty dumb today the story is completely different and in all fairness, it’s an exciting but also frightening time.

 

Personally, I’m all for innovation but also have problems with some applications. Like probably most of you I am totally stunned by the quality of photorealistic images you can get from several AI image generators. But I also have to add I don’t see this as “art”. Of course, it looks insanely good, but it’s not “real” like where you create a set, light the set, coach the model, and take the image. In a group of its own yes! But Instagram is almost overflown with awesome-looking fashion shots where I literally thought “What a great photographer” until I scroll down more and see that the rest of his/her work is often below average/ It’s something I struggle to recognize as art, but maybe that’s just me.

 

The chatbots are also getting incredibly good and will probably be a real problem for education, but can help with writing articles and/or doing research. But do we really want to see the same kind of reviews without any personal input from a real human being? I don’t think so, but again it can help a lot with research and I’m excited to see how AI can be used for medical and scientific applications. I truly believe we are on the verge of some major breakthroughs. We have to find ways to incorporate AI into our workflows without losing the “soul” we all put into our work.

 

So why this intro about AI? 


Well, a lot of software nowadays uses the term AI. And in all honestly most of the time it does do it work pretty well. But nothing where I really had to pick my jaw up from the ground. Yes, the first time I saw Content Aware Fill I had that kind of moment, and that was way way before it was officially released and became much better. Today I can tell you I had the same sort of experience, and probably even more important.

 

Photography for me is freezing unique moments in time that will never come back again.
But Photography sometimes also means we have to capture those moments in situations that are far from perfect. So sometimes images are a little bit soft or have some tremendous noise because there wasn’t enough light to capture a razor-sharp clean image. Now I can’t even remember how many images I threw out that were just not “usable” at that time… But what if I told you that those cherished memories from our loved ones can be saved? That those concert images can be stunning and noiseless? And that time you missed focus is not a real problem anymore… would you label me crazy? or tell me “yeah, well we can sharpen it a bit, and use some filters, but it’s not sharp so it can never be as good as shot right at the moment we took it”

 

Well, I would have said, “absolutely” a few weeks ago, but not anymore.
Enter Topaz Photo AI.

 

Topaz Photo AI 

 

I’ve been a Topaz fan for years. They always deliver awesome plug-ins or standalone solutions that really add something to my workflow. It’s hard to really describe, but a lot of plugins work great on razor-sharp images, or images where there is a little bit of noise. But when I started testing Topaz Photo AI my jaw literally dropped to the floor, and for the first time, I was literally wondering how the heck did they do this….

I can talk for hours about the importance of proper focus, controlling noise on location, etc. but sometimes you just don’t have that option. All the images that would normally be unsuitable for release are now…. “perfect”. So let’s take a look at some samples.

 

Let’s start very simply with something that happens to all of us.
I took this shot during a visit to the Orchideeënhoeve (the largest tropical attraction in Europe).

It’s a screenshot straight out of Topaz Photo AI

I am using the sharpness here on full blast to see the effect of ringing (artifacts) and to be totally honest…. this is so much better than expected. The image really jumps out and is sharp enough to publish. It’s also incredibly handy that the software gives you the option only to affect the subject and not the background. In other words, keep your silky smooth bokeh but fix your foreground….

 

And what about an image where the focus is just slightly off, let’s be honest this happens a lot.

As you can clearly see it’s a HUGE improvement, and you can also see a boost in the 3d look, something I’m always looking for in images.
So it’s pretty clear now it can fix images where you missed focus.

 

But that’s not all, what if you’re perfect and always shoot sharp images?
How about using it on an image that was already pretty sharp?

Even on an image like this, the improvement is pretty substantial to the point the original actually starts to look soft…..
But lets up the ante a bit.

 

The following image I shot during a workshop with our model Claudia. This was shot with continuous lighting and although my Sony A7RIV is pretty good with noise,  it is still an image that looks a bit flat and noisy. So I was curious to see what it could do with this one… and again I was stunned.

 

It’s not only the noise that is gone, but look at the depth in the image….. this is just insane.

 

Depth in an image is always something that is very hard to do in post. It’s a combination of contrast in your lighting, lens choice, and even the sensor has a huge deal to do with this. For example, a Medium Format camera renders depth a lot better than even the best full-frame 35mm camera. Well, at least the Medium Format cameras I used over the years. And I’m totally honest when I say that for the studio Medium Format is awesome, but with Topaz Photo AI for the first time I see that depth also in my Sony images. Look at the way the mask wraps around the face, this is HIGHLY addictive.

 

By now I was convinced about the magic of Topaz Photo AI and I was ready for the real test.

 

As many of you know I’ve been shooting Wibi Soerjadi for years. One of the highlights is the Christmas concert in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. But this its also a real challenge for any camera. ISO values of 32000 are almost standard (yes indeed 32000) and in some cases I have to shoot at even higher ISOs to be able to capture Wibi’s hands in motion.

This image is already a real challenge, but as you can see it works like a charm.

 

When I saw this result I thought “let’s throw something in there that’s really terrible and unusable for publication”.

Let’s be honest when someone is filling the frame noise can be “ok” but when you shoot something with a wide-angle look it can really ruin a shot. The following shot is one of those images where you shoot it more to remember the situation than to ever publish it….. or………

 

As you can see… this is insane.
No loss of sharpness, no dull colors, no ringing, and all the noise is gone….

 

But there is more

In this short review, I only show you the tip of the iceberg.
There is also an excellent upscaling engine, and for example, the face recovery option is great for bringing back detail in faces that are shot with low-resolution cameras or are covered in noise.

 

Conclusion

 

It doesn’t happen a lot that I have to pick my jaw up from the ground. But while reviewing Topaz Photo AI it happens continuously. It didn’t matter what I threw at it, it did improve every single shot. Now don’t get me wrong, I still strongly believe you should try your best to shoot everything as well as possible on location. But when for one reason or another you don’t get the shot perfectly sharp or there is a lot of noise, there is absolutely no reason anymore to throw it out. I really hope you did save some of your images of loved ones or special locations that were not 100% perfect and in the past seemed unusable.

 

It might be a bold statement but with Topaz Photo AI you can bring your images/memories back to life and enjoy and keep those special moments forever in much better quality. And only for that, I would love to say to Topaz, “Thank you so very much from the bottom of my heart and from many other photographers out there for saving some of my precious memories which are now looking 100x better”.

 

As a tool, I think Topaz Photo AI should be installed on all workstations and should be a standard part of your workflow. The improvements are just too good to not use. It doesn’t just act as a great noise killer (one of the best I ever saw) but it also doubles as one of the best sharpening engines I ever worked with. Add the options to select only the subject and change the effect with sliders and add in the upscaler and face recovery option and you probably know why I’m so incredibly enthusiastic.

Buy Topaz Photo AI through our link 

Disclaimer:
I’ve been working with Topaz software for as long as I can remember and I get my software for free from Topaz, however, this has and will never influence my opinion about the software, I’m always 100% honest in my reviews and don’t believe in telling you guys stuff that doesn’t reflect reality. 

Huawei real life photography situation

Everytime I upgrade my phone I try to write a small review about it, mainly focussed on the camera.
With the P20pro I have to be honest I’m so impressed but also pushed by the reactions and questions I get that it’s becoming a really long review, and we have some more coming.

Yesterday it was time for the workshop at “Buurtspoormuseum”, or in English… a railroad museum.
Before and during the workshop I squeezed in some images with the P20pro (including modelshoots which will be shown later), the idea was to test out how good the P20Pro now really is when you take it with you during a trip to a museum etc. And I can say…..

It’s very very good
Considering it’s a smartphone I have to add.

Of course you have to realize that to shoot on the 40MP RAW setting you’re stuck with the wideangle view which is app 27mm compared to a full frame. This does limit you somehow in where you can take the camera with you. When you can get close to your subjects, or when you love wider shots it’s really a full replacement for a compact camera with fixed lens, the 40MP files are a whopping 78-80MB and contain a load of detail and color. Also dynamic range really surprised me for a smartphone. Now do remember I won’t say it’s better than a fixed lens compact, I say you can leave it at home for a trip (Huge difference).

 

“So Frank, the 40MP is according to some only usable in good light, what’s your opinion”
Well of course it works best with good light, that’s obvious, still I took a lot of images with it inside the museum and it really shows that a larger sensor is hugely beneficial, I think also that that is where the clue is. Loads of those reviews were written before someone got the camera for a longer time, and I can imagine that when you shoot images under tungsten that it’s terrible (most cameras are very bad under tungsten), I shot some in the museum yesterday in pretty dark areas but with “daylight” and to be honest the images really are very good, you can see noise, but nothing a very simple push on the noisekiller will take away, use a plugin in like topaz denoise (use FrankDoorhof for a cool discount) and you will end up with superclean images that can be printed REALLY large.

 

“how fast does it start, is it annoying?”
One of the most important things.
On the Note8 the camera booted pretty fast, but the P20Pro beats that by a margin.
Just double tap the volume down button twice and you’re first image it shot and you’re ready for the next, or if you don’t like that… (like me)… just disable that option and you’re camera starts up in I believe 0.3 seconds and it doesn’t take the first shot. It’s faster than starting up my A7RIII actually.

 

“Does it start up in Pro?”
Yes, thank you Huawei, I’ve had several complaints from people that their phones always booted up in JPG mode and they had to change it to pro to be able to shoot RAW. With the P20pro it seems that as long as you don’t close/kill the camera it will always boot up in pro if you ended in pro after the last shot.

 

“How about that night mode… gimmick or really that awesome?”
Well yeah… really that awesome and I can add a AWESOME to that. It’s pure magic. Just hold the camera relatively steady and it does it work, now that alone is not the magic. But….. what I never expected was the intelligent system behind it. I shot several night mode shots with students moving around, our makeup artist at work etc. and to my surprise ALL those shots really look like they were one shot slight HDR exposures, I have no clue how the camera does it, but a 4 second exposure where a moving makeup artist is captured completely still….. maybe it’s haunted or something but it’s almost scary.

 

“how about zoom?”
I did tell you guys before that I would probably not use the zoom lens because I would rather just crop the 40MP image, and I still stand behind that remark, but I’m a photographer by trade. I’ve shot some images on 3x tele (app 80mm) yesterday and must say, it’s far from bad, in fact… if you only need the JPG… no reason to not use that zoom option and just use the image without cropping. The lens does render very nicely and is actually very sharp and contrasty enough.

 

“Can it trigger studio strobes?”
Eh… well…. that’s a cool one.
I tried to learn my Elinchroms the preflash of the strobe hoping it would trigger my Elinchroms, but I had no luck, it did work but it’s very very instable and not workable at all. I also got a Godox A1 at the moment in our studio and that product really looks interesting, we tried it this weekend with a Godox system and an iPhone and it’s absolutely awesome, you can trigger the A1 from the iPhone and it even does ETTL, cool (and the app supports RAW), but… according to Godox there would be an Android version before September 2017 and…. well….. there is nothing yet…. not even a beta I can try. This is REALLY bad I think from Godox, the product is awesome don’t get me wrong, but it’s almost May 2018 by now and there is not even a beta yet while they promised September 2017, absolutely ridiculous. When they fix this however you will have a great way to trigger your strobes. For me it will be fun to test it a few times, but it will of course not replace my A7RIII in the studio. However drop an A1 in your bag and you have a kick ass portable strobe solution just in case. It’s like having an off camera speedlight with you. Godox HURRY UP YOU HEAR ME…

 

There are a lot more questions, so maybe I’ll answer those in another post or video, just let me know in the comments below.
To close this one….
Here are some images I shot yesterday, just quick snaps but you can see how the camera held up in these situations, I tried to not make it too easy with very high contrast scenes, darker areas etc. I think it did really well. These are straight out of the camera, RAW, adjusted in lightroom CC classic without any presets, noise killing or plugins.

Now a very quick semi conclusion
Most images you shoot with your smartphone will end up online, 10MP is more than enough for that, and all the modes that work in that resolution are absolutely well thought out and handy. When you are more serious without a doubt don’t underestimate that huge (for a smartphone) 40MP sensor, it really really surprises me. This is the first major step forwards for photography in years in smartphones. If you’re up for renewal and you love photography I can’t think of any other smartphone out there that will even come close. (yes it’s that good)

Some fun model shots with the Huawei P20 pro (review Part III)

Just for fun some shots I took with the Huawei P20 pro during todays workshop at #alabfotostudio
And of course you want my opinion on the phone so far….

Well in all honesty it really blows my mind to see what this phone/camera can do. The OS experience, or let me say the “look and feel” is ok, but I like the Samsung OS just a tad better, mostly because I can place more apps in a folder, it would be possible on the Huawei but somehow they choose to probably “copy” Apple and only add a few, I loved the Note 8 for just letting me use a lot of space on screen when the map was open.

The navigation with the home button if fricking awesome and I’m already fully used to that and I don’t see any need for the bar anymore, this is “perfect”. The screen is more than OK, the speed is good, battery life is very very good, I did charge a little bit in between and ended day 2 with 25% left, I guess I charged maybe a max of 40% in total during these two days, the Note8 wouldn’t make it till the end of the day, just like my iPhones.

I do experience some issues with BT disconnecting when an app is running in the background but this seems to be an issue with Ore0 8.1 someone told me and not Huawei, let’s hope Android fixes this in the near future, it’s not a big deal (and probably why my battery life is so long) but it’s a bit annoying when I run my iTPMS system in the RV in the background.

But most of all the camera…..
I expected the 40MP camera to be ok in good light and actually very bad in normal lighting situations I experience in the studio. Everytime I get a new Phone I try some modelshots with it, and always I end up laughing a bit… not because they are so good but more at the advertising guys claiming “the camera reinvented” yes sure…. in bright light its great but don’t even think about more challenging situations…. the P20 Pro IS different, trust me.

I’ve shot the images in this blogpost with the P20 pro with the modelling lights from the Broncolors, and to be fair, these modelling lights are a lot less bright than the Elinchroms I have in our studio so I expected the results to be worse than the Note8, especially because the light is so much lower in intensity…. now I’m not gonna tell you it beats or even equals my 42MP Sony A7RIII, FAR from…. but man is this one SWEET camera, the images are pinsharp and can actually be pushed pretty far. Nadines outfit was pretty dark and I was able to use the dodge tool to get back some details from the blacks without any real sacrifice to the shots WOW.

I still have my 30 days return policy…..
Not going to use it.
LOVE the camera, and this is all 40MP, imaging what you can do with the pixel”binding” at 10MP, I can’t wait to take this baby out with me during a street shoot, or with proper ledpanel lighting, I think it will blow everyone away.

Many reviews online focus on the 10MP performance, or JPG. I really have to stress that although those are far from bad (in fact for a smartphone they are really good), but where the camera really shines is in RAW, now I understand that for some people the RAW workflow from a phone doesn’t sound appealing, my answer is just very simple…. if you want quality don’t shoot JPEG, unless you need to… which in the case of the P20 Pro means…. nightshots, even panoramas I would shoot in RAW 40MP and just stitch them together in Lr.

Zooming…. I won’t really use, I’ll just crop in on the 40MP RAW file, because the zoom essentially is just 10MP and it’s JPEG, I can probably get a better quality by just cropping in on the RAW file. The nightmode is something else… I really hope that in the future something like this is also possible with 40MP RAW files (far future) because that mode is VERY addictive. I constantly see myself looking for situations where I can try it out 🙂

 

Anyway…. let’s show you the images I shot today.

 

Model/stylist : Nadine

Ingrid during glamour workshop

Today some images we shot from Ingrid during her first glamour workshop.
Ingrid is a new model for our workshop and will be appearing in both our fashion as glamour workshops, in short… she’s a blast to work with.

 

Some images might be considered NSFW (Not Safe For Work) but I think they are ok 😀
Enjoy.

 

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