I am curious if anyone knows more. It looks like Topaz Labs is switching Photo AI (along with their other tools) to a subscription model. Topaz Photo (Photo AI) will now be about 200 per year.
I have been a long time Topaz user. DeNoise AI is still my favorite noise removal tool. But I'm not sure photo AI is really worth 200 a year, practically double the price if you bought each version on upgrade pricing. Personally, I am also not a fan of yet another yearly subscription.
According to their emails, I am going to be eligible for lower pricing, since I am an existing customer, so I will have to wait and see what they offer me ot decied if I want to keep Photo AI. But I will definitely have to think twice about recommending Topaz products to people in the future.
Haven't renewed my license for Photo and Video AI in almost a year now. Same thing happened before for Lightroom and C1 before I dropped them completely. For stills Luminar Neo has been great with updates for my lifetime license though I don't use the generative features that are included that much. But their Denoise and Supersharp is just as good as Topaz now. And instead of Video AI, I just use Davinci Resolves frame NR built-in, it's industry standard and free.
Almost every competitor to Topaz I use has either caught or bested them. A real shame they are moving away from the buy-once model, but that's our world now.
RoamingScott wrote:
Almost every competitor to Topaz I use has either caught or bested them. A real shame they are moving away from the buy-once model, but that's our world now.
I like Topaz Sharpen AI (vs the combined Photo AI), any suggestions on what other tools to try?
If you are a LR user I don't see any reason to keep paying for Topaz. I haven't touched Topaz since LR Denoise was a thing.
PureRAW may outperform LR on really high images but I never found any images Topaz outperformed it on.
$200 a year is a tough ask IMO.
Is there any plugin competitor for Topaz's sharpening (either the standalone SharpenAI or PhotoAI)? I have done much testing against LR/PS, and there is still a special sauce in the Topaz ability to make acceptable and even very sharp images out of soft/out-of-focus/blurred images that simply isn't there in adobe's apps...but I don't see paying $200 a year for it.
The individual apps were good tools but the quality took a big step back when they combined them into one, Photo AI. I tried it for awhile but never could get it to work as well as the individual apps. I use DXO Photolab for noise reduction anyway so all I miss from Topaz is the sharpening. I did find the resize worked well the one or 2 times I tried it. But they don’t offer enough to get me to pay again.
RustyRus wrote:
ARR - (Annual Recurring Revenue) is what all software sales are moving to.
They are leaving money on the table by not moving to this model-
Yep, on one hand, I am sure that for at least the first few years, Topaz will end up making more money. But unless they seriously improve their photo software, I have to wonder if long term it will be neutral at best. As a few people have noted, other companies have been catching up, if not surpassing Topaz, since they switched to an all in one app. You can get LR for about 150 a year, which offers a lot more than Photo AI and is cheaper. Also, while LR upgrades might not be as fast as we would like, the LR we have today is definitely better overall than the LR we had 3 years ago. In my experience, Photo AI has yet to reach the quality of the standalone plugins.
RoamingScott wrote:
Almost every competitor to Topaz I use has either caught or bested them. A real shame they are moving away from the buy-once model, but that's our world now.
Have you happened to find a denoise tool that works as good as DeNoise Ai for TIF files?
jwpstl wrote:
The individual apps were good tools but the quality took a big step back when they combined them into one, Photo AI. I tried it for awhile but never could get it to work as well as the individual apps. I use DXO Photolab for noise reduction anyway so all I miss from Topaz is the sharpening. I did find the resize worked well the one or 2 times I tried it. But they don’t offer enough to get me to pay again.
Yep, I don't understand how making one app somehow made the results worse than the standalone apps. I really wish they would give DeNoise AI the Gigapixel treatment and bring back a standalone version.
DWOfPaul wrote:
Have you happened to find a denoise tool that works as good as DeNoise Ai for TIF files?
I have a slew of things I do to my files between LR and PS if they need the denoise and sharpening treatment, but in general, I've become a little more discerning with my output and if it needs that much work I typically bin it.
So lots of talk about competitors surpassing Topaz. I use either LR DeNoise or DxO PureRaw for noise reduction. For sharpening, are there competitors (outside of LR/PS....take them out of the mix for a moment) that surpass Topaz Sharpen AI?
RoamingScott wrote:
Almost every competitor to Topaz I use has either caught or bested them. A real shame they are moving away from the buy-once model, but that's our world now.
I actually just deinstalled Topaz Denoise because I haven't used it in such a long time. LRC is good enough for my purposes.
Yes, the subscription model is the revenue model the world is moving towards. Even Blackrock, the asset manager, has figured this out in housing - they have bought over 275,000 houses and apartments (paying cash at up to 30% above local prices) in order to get people renting, which is a form of subscription.
I suspect the photography industry supports this move because I think that once you own a camera and you have bought a perpetual license to a software that supports that camera, but not future models, then it becomes an obstacle to upgrading your camera, resulting in more costs incurred.
I wonder when you will start paying for a subscription for your camera gear?
Topaz AI is one of my big three software along with Adobe Photoshop and DXO PL 9 Elite. They are the reasons why I bought my last FF camera in the R6MKII and will just continue to support the A6xxx, Fuji X100xx and iPhone Pro Max lines going forward. So I am not opposed to a monthly subscription. If there is a monthly subscription I will cancel it will be my gym membership because as a senior I am getting it for free near a community venue.
