Just wanted to let sharpening addicts out there know that Topaz Labs just released a sharpening plug-in called InFocus. I'm pretty excited about this for a few reasons:
- it uses de-convolution sharpening methods
- it is works in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Photoshop
I have been a long-time user of Focus Magic for my deconvolution sharpening and I also have respect for Focus Fixer. Unfortunately both of these products are from small software shops that have been promising 64-bit versions forever but have still yet to deliver.
I am also kind of amazed because coincidentally I sent Topaz a suggestion a few weeks ago for exactly this type of product. Boy do they listen to their customers!
I am just starting to try it out so I'll reserve judgement on actual results but based on the controls offered, I have high expectations. For example, there is an "estimate blur" button that attempts to adjust the deconvolution settings based on the portion of the image you are zoomed in on. There are also controls for motion blur, more traditional sharpening, and micro-contrast.
You can try it out for 30 days free and Topaz is offering a $40 discount ($29.99, regularly $69.99) until 03-Dec. I already have the Topaz plug-in bundle and so far it hasn't asked me for a registration code so it may be free for existing bundle owners but don't consider that a fact yet. Still, not a bad price with the discount even if I have to pay for it. Here is the link:
I bought the bundel in August 2010 and the registrationcode didn't work with InFocus, so I use now the 30 day trial registrationcode.
But indeed its not a bad price!
I tried it, and I think Focus Magic is the best. Of course neither program can perform miracles with camera shake, but I get a good result with Focus Magic very quickly while InFocus took more work and the result was not as good.
I have not tried Focus Magic but I downloaded Topaz InFocus today (free trial) and played with it. My first reaction is that it is an excellent tool, especially for capture sharpening using deconvolution (which is in its Deblur slider).
And the last is my best attempt to fix the motion blur in the previous image with Focus Magic with a direction of 140 degrees and distance of 5 pixels:
I don't have a result for InFocus because I still cannot get something as good as Focus Magic. If somebody can give me good settings for InFocus I'll be glad to try them.
Thank for the Tip! YES I am tired of Focus Magic's, broken, promises for a Mac compatible product. I have Focus Magic installed on the virtual PC side of my Mac but never seem to use it since it is such a hassle to transfer files, etc. My impression is that Focus Magic uses some variation of "Local Contrast" and traditional but advanced sharpening.
I had already bought the Topaz DeNoise plug-in (because of the 64 bit problem with Noise Ninja) and am very happy with it. After just a little experience with DeNoise I trust Topaz' software so I went with "buy and try" to take advantage of their bundle upgrade offer (thru only 3 Dec).
The 7 plug in bundle is normally $300. But with the coupon code "SuperSharp," the grand total is only $99-6 more plug-ins than I have now. If Focus Magic is truly better than Topaz then maybe this will light a fire under them. Meanwhile, I will have a convenient program I can use with 64 bit CS5 on my Mac.
SoundHound wrote:
The 7 plug in bundle is normally $300. But with the coupon code "SuperSharp," the grand total is only $99-6 more plug-ins than I have now. If Focus Magic is truly better than Topaz then maybe this will light a fire under them. Meanwhile, I will have a convenient program I can use with 64 bit CS5 on my Mac.
How did you arrive at the $99 figure? I thought the code SuperSharp only gave a discount on InFocus.
Well, this comparison is going to be tougher than I thought. It's a little bit like comparing raw developers since it is difficult to equate different controls to similar results and it is easy to penalize a new piece of software due to unfamiliarity with how it works compared to what you're used to.
Anyway, I have been comparing the new Topaz InFocus to Focus Magic. So far I have went:
- from being pretty excited about InFocus when I saw it was available and what it was trying to do
- to being pretty disappointed in my initial results
- to now thinking it may have possibilities but with a definite learning curve (and perhaps in some need of further tweaking by Topaz Labs).
I generally use Focus Magic for 4 things, more or less in this order of frequency:
A. Capture sharpening when I want to be more particular than what ACR can give me, when I want sharpening with essentially no haloes, and when I want all elements sharpened - not just high-contrast edges.
B. Final sharpening for web presentation after a final resize.
C. Emergency correction of images where I missed the focus
D. Emergency correction of images where the subject or camera was moving.
So far with some limited comparisons InFocus seems to be able to produce similar results for A. I am still learning the controls and experimenting but it seems to struggle more with B, C, and D.
Here is an example test I did for an "A" capture sharpening scenario:
It seems to be able to produce similar "no halo" results to Focus Magic. As I mentioned at the start referring to raw developers, there are many ways to tweak the controls, especially with InFocus, so it is difficult to do a true apples-to-apples comparison. This particular image had no smooth areas like sky so I couldn't simultaneously compare for artifacts for both packages on this image.
I am going to continue to experiment, particularly with the B, C, and D scenarios I mentioned above but in the meantime, here are my preliminary Pros and Cons for InFocus as compared to Focus Magic:
Pros:
- Full-screen preview
- Code seems to use multi-core processor to the max.
- More controls (artifact supression, micro-contrast, USM sharpening, etc.). Micro-contrast, in particular, is pretty handy for when you want a little more emphasis with textures.
- Works with 64-bit versions of Photoshop
Cons:
- Slower preview re-draw (probably due to full-screen preview)
- More complexity, more tedious to tune (largely due to additional controls and not totally intuitive reactions to changes in those controls)
- Easily creates artifacts in smooth areas of the image. Can be controlled somewhat with the Supress Artifacts and Edge Softness controls but the Supress Artifacts control is rather blunt (something like Threshold for Unsharp Mask).
- InFocus seems to over-react a bit to high-contrast edges causing clipped sharpening highlights. Again, this can be controlled somewhat with Suppress Artifacts (bluntly) or with Edge Softness in Estimate Mode. This behavior reminds me a bit of PS's Smart Sharpener (which is supposed to be a deconvolution sharpener also but which I think is pretty bad compared to Focus Magic).
Tie:
- Even though InFocus seems to use my multi-core processor better, the speed of processing of both packages seems more-or-less similar. I haven't used a stop-watch yet but that is my initial impression. Both packages can cook for quite a while once you start to crank the de-blur radius above 4.
Finally, as someone else pointed out InFocus is NOT free to previous owners of the bundle. Still, the price right now with the discount seems reasonable. My jury is still out if it is worth it once the price goes up to $69.99.
Oddly/Fortunately the $40 discount applies to the bundle also. I have already paid, downloaded, installed, licensed and am using the software so I know it works.
Thanks for your trouble! Please continue to experiment!! I would imagine that only processing a selection of the image would make artifact suppression more effective.
For those of you that use LR, Aperture and iPhoto Topaz the bundle downloads with (free) "Fusion Express." This allows you to use any of these programs with the Topaz plugins without transiting to PS.
Wow, if this software actually works as advertised, this could be a boon to macro shooters like myself when dealing with diffraction softness.
Would the owners of this plugin mind posting some bigger examples? I'm extremely interested in this sharpener but somewhat sceptical about the examples on their website.
Played around with the trial version, not very impressed to be honest. All the samples I've seen look promising, mine did too... but only after it's been sized down.
I downloaded the trial version as well and am so far quite unimpressed. I much prefer Nik's Sharpener Pro which gives as good or better sharpening results, is simpler to use and can be applied selectively very easily.
It's also really slow and I'm using a Mac with an i7 processor and 12 gigs of memory.
As with the other Topaz products it does have the advantage of being quite inexpensive.
If you don't have Nik (or some other third party sharpening program) and are unhappy with USM or Smart Sharpen in Photoshop, it could be a good choice.
The effect of deconvolution processing on a normal image from a digital camera is subtle. That's why it's great for capture sharpening where you want the effect to be a subtle correction for slight imperfections in the optics. So I think it's important not to expect too much, because the program might be doing its job correctly, and it's something you'd only see in a very large print.
On the other hand, using deconvolution processing for camera shake is relatively dramatic. For example, in my earlier sample of motion blur, there are places in the image where two tree branches merge into a single blurred object. Then deconvolution, when done correctly, separates them back into the two separate branches again. This is where Topaz seems to be a complete failure, unless I haven't figured out how to use it.
I'm going to compare it with Topaz's other plugin Detail. It seems to have more options for bringing out details and it has a convolution Deblur option too.
The Topaz sharpening plugin doesn't seem to be unique (their de-noise plug in might be?) but it is 64 bits and works in CS5. Pretty fast on my Mac (faster than Focus Magic which often crashes on my virtual XP machine).
I'm a long time Focus Magic user but I have gone to 64bit. So, I gave InFocus a try and I'm very happy with it. Granted, I don't try to recover pictures suffering from camera shake or much out of focus, but I never found that Focus Magic recovered such pictures to the point I would want to keep them.
I used Focus Magic, and now use InFocus to make good pictures better - mainly capture sharpening. For that use I find InFocus better if a bit more time consuming than Focus Magic.
