Understand the Topaz Photo AI user interface.

The interface is divided into 8 sections.

The preview will show the changes made to the original image when the preview is done processing.

 You can zoom in/out with the scroll wheel and drag the view to inspect parts of the image.

Click and hold the preview or hit the spacebar to view the original image.

Use the scroll wheel to zoom or change the zoom with the dropdown menu.

Select how to display the preview from the menu on the bottom right. There are 3 configurations. 

The entire preview is populated by the edited version.

The image is split by a white line, with the original version displayed on the left and the edited version on the right. Click and drag the line across the image to view the edit.

You can view the original version and the edited version side-by-side to compare them.

The mini preview displays the entire image and is an easy way to pan around the image to sections you want to view.

This section displays three important sections: Autopilot, image quality, and upscale settings. Adjust the filters in this panel to edit the image. 

This indicates the state of the preview, if it's currently processing or completed. Change a filter setting or moving the view will force the preview to reprocess.

This will indicate which file is selected and the software you are using. It'll also display the software version number.

This button will indicate if there is an update available. Click it to view the release notes and update Topaz Photo AI.

Windows

The Preferences menu allows you to toggle on/off various settings and configure the app to your needs. 

The Autopilot tab controls the AI filters and strength automatically applied to images. 

Learn about the Autopilot and controls here in the Autopilot article.

AI Processor: Select which processor you want to use to run the software

Lens Correction: This corrects optical distortions introduced by camera lenses to produce a more accurate image.

Close Images After Saving: Automatically close the image file after you save it to streamline your workflow.

Show Help Prompts: Receive helpful tips when relevant with suggestions on how to improve your experience.

You can open and close images and locate them in your computer.

By default, none of the image editing options in “Edit” are available until an action has been performed on the image.

In the “Edit” option, you can manage the Mask and Autopilot settings, which become visible once you make adjustments in the image settings panel on the side.

You can zoom in and out, as well as zoom to fit your page.

In addition to the “View” option, there are 2 other ways to zoom in and out of the image.

Choose your preferred zoom percentage from the dropdown menu located at the bottom right corner.

Scrolling on your mouse will also allow you to zoom in the same increments as the dropdown menu.

The “Help” option is where you can access tools to assist with using the software.

Give Feedback: This directs you to the general section of the community forum page. 

Report An Issue: This directs you to a section of the community forum to report details for bugs.

Technical Support: This directs you to articles with instructions and advice for particular issues. 

Product Roadmap: This directs you to descriptions of product updates. 

Release Notes: This directs you to the technical documentation produced and distributed alongside the launch of a new update.

Open Log Folder: This opens the  file that contains data about usage patterns, activities, and operations within the software.

User Interface

Autopilot is your image quality specialist built into Topaz Photo AI. It analyzes your image for:

Metadata - such as ISO, camera information, and lens information

Autopilot displays the quality issues for the image, then picks the best filters and settings needed to optimize the image. Green lights appear next to Autopilot selected AI filters.

view the subject mask by hovering over the "Subject" text

refine the subject mask by clicking "Refine"

view the faces detected and selected for face recovery by hovering over the "Faces" text

select and deselect faces for recovery by clicking the "Select" text

Personalize Autopilot from the Preferences menu.

Click the Save button after your changes to apply the current settings to all images in the current session and future sessions.

Subject Detection controls the model used for subject masking and sharpening. Click on the dropdown menu to view the options.

: identifies and selects an object in focus

: identifies land or water in focus and deselects sky

Face Detection controls which faces are automatically selected to recover and the default Face Recovery strength. Click the dropdown menu for face selection settings:

: low quality faces are selected improved

: faces in the subject mask are selected and improved

: face detection is turned off and no faces are improved

Selecting None disables face detection and will reduce processing time if your images have no faces to recover.

Sharpen controls when Autopilot enables the Sharpen filter.

Auto-Upscaling controls when upscaling and enhance resolution are applied to your images.

: the default setting, automatically upscales small images

: set the pixel height, pixel width, or scale factor (2x, 4x, 6x) for all images on Autopilot

Set Output Size >Height or Width can be used to upscale large batches of images to a specific size.

Return Autopilot to normal behavior by clicking "Reset to default settings" at the bottom of the menu. This will set controls to:

Autopilot & Configuration

The Remove Noise filter will detect and remove noise caused by: 

inconsistency in the sensor used for image capture

Topaz Photo AI comes with six remove noise models, each trained for a different situation. 

The Raw models are enabled when Topaz Photo AI detects Raw data in the image. They use the Raw sensor data in the file, which contains the most image information and detail.

For non-Raw images such as TIF, JPG, PNG, etc, the non-RAW Remove Noise models are used. The non-Raw models process the pixel data to remove noise.

Use RAW images with Topaz Photo AI to enable the Raw Remove Noise models and get the best noise reduction and detail in your image.

Enabled when an image with Raw data is detected. Analyzes the sensor color filter array data to detect and remove noise. Best for low-medium noise images.

Enabled when an image with Raw data is detected. Analyzes the sensor color filter array data to detect and remove noise. Best for medium-high noise images.

Enabled for non-Raw images. Analyzes pixel data to detect and remove noise. Best for low-medium noise images.

Enabled for non-Raw images. Analyzes pixel data to detect and remove noise. Best for low-medium noise images with better detail retention and controls.

Enabled for non-Raw images. Analyzes pixel data to detect and remove noise. Best for medium-high noise images.

Enabled for non-Raw images. Analyzes pixel data to detect and remove noise. Best for medium-high noise images with better detail retention and controls.

Enable/disable Remove Noise by clicking the toggle.

When turned on, Remove Noise displays two AI models, a Strength slider, and a Detail slider. Control the remove noise effect with these options.

: controls the amount of noise removed from the image. Increasing the Strength slider too much can remove fine details.

: controls a minor sharpening on the entire image. Use this slider to recover details if the Strength is increased to remove difficult noise and details are affected.

There are two alternatives if Remove Noise removes too much detail and  low noise reduction is needed:

Enable the Sharpen filter and increase the Clarity slider

Enable Enhance Resolution and increase the Suppress Noise slider

The Sharpen clarity slider performs a mild noise reduction on the subject in the image.

The Enhance Resolution suppress noise slider performs a minor noise reduction to the entire image.

Remove Noise & Raw Remove Noise

The Sharpen filter detects existing details in the image and uses them to recreate details lost to blur. 

Use it to save your blurry images caused by:

Topaz Photo AI comes with two sharpen models, each trained for a different situation.

Use the Standard model to avoid over-sharpening which can make your image look unrealistic.

Best for low-to-medium soft and blurry images. This model is for all-purpose sharpening.

Best for medium blur and out-of-focus images. This model performs a medium strength sharpening to bring the image into focus. 

Good for medium-blur and out-of-focus images. This model performs a strong sharpening for blurry images.

Good for medium-blur and streaking in images. This model performs a strong sharpening to correct movement.

Enable/disable Sharpen by clicking the toggle.

When turned on, Sharpen displays two AI models, a Strength slider, a Clarity slider, and the Subject Only toggle. Control the sharpen effect with these options.

The Strength slider increases detail. Too much sharpening can create an unrealistic result.

The Clarity slider will clean up noisy pixels that hide details. This is for the Standard model only.

The Subject Only controls whether the subject mask is used for sharpening or if the entire image is sharpened.

Sharpen is best when applied selectively to the subject.

There are two alternatives if Sharpen over-sharpens the image or a low sharpening is needed:

Enable the Remove Noise filter and increase the Detail slider

Enable Enhance Resolution and increase the Remove Blur slider

The Remove Noise Detail slider increases sharpness for the entire image.

The Enhance Resolution Remove Blur slider performs a slight sharpening on the entire image.

Sharpen

Autopilot will automatically analyze your image to mask the subject. This mask is used primarily to selectively 

Hover over the "Subject" text in Autopilot to view the current mask. Click Refine to open the masking menu and change the mask.

The masking menu includes AI models for automatic subject detection, mask feathering and color settings, and two brushes for manually changing the mask.

The subject detection comes with three models and a None option to turn off automatic detection.

The feathering slider increases the mask softness at the edges. Less sharpening is applied at the edges. Comparison below is feathering at 0 (left) and 100 (right).

The overlay color and opacity will change the mask visibility. This does not affect the sharpening.

Topaz Photo AI comes with two brushes of varying sizes. Swap between them with this toggle.

This brush creates and selects groups of pixels. Patch size can be increased with the menu below.

A circular brush. Brush size can be increased with the menu below.

Brush the image by selecting Add or Subtract. Click and drag on the image to brush. Right click to use the unselected option.

if Add is selected, right click Subtracts

if Subtract is selected, right click Adds

Clear Strokes removes all user changes to the mask. Switch between the brushes with this toggle.

Configure Autopilot For Subject Selection

Change the default subject type in the Autopilot settings. Navigate to the Preferences > Autopilot menu. Default Subject Type will let you pick the subject detection model used for every image. 

Subject Mask & Refine

This filter detects faces in your image and increases face quality.

Autopilot face detection and strength are controlled from the following menu:

The Face Detection menu will let you control which faces are selected by Topaz Photo AI to recover automatically and the strength of face recovery.

Set the default strength to your preference.

Hover over the "Faces" text in the autopilot to view the faces detected.

faces selected for processing are outlined in yellow.

low confidence faces are outlined in dim grey.

By default, only high confidence faces are selected for recovery. Low confidence faces must be added manually for recovery.

To select/deselect faces for processing, click the Select button in Autopilot section or in the Recover Faces filter and open the Select Faces menu.

Decide which faces to recover in this menu. In general, pick important faces to improve and leave the rest to become part of the background.

Click on a face to select it. The buttons in the right menu let you quickly select or deselect faces.

Select All faces enables every face for recovery, including low confidence faces

Select High Confidence Faces picks faces which are easily detected by the face detection model

Select None deselects all faces and turns off Face Recovery

Apply your changes by clicking the Apply button at the bottom.

This filter improves faces in the image by detecting details in the face and constructing a high quality version that is blended with the current face. For best results, control the strength to blend the generated face with the original face and the rest of the image. This creates a realistic, high quality result.

For low confidence and low quality faces, this filter can generate an unfamiliar face as it does not have enough detail about the original face.

Recover Faces & Select Faces

This filter analyzes the image and intelligently generates new pixels to improve image quality. It cleans up imperfections due to minor noise and reduces blurry edges to increase detail. 

When Upscale is used, this filter is always enabled. It is required to produce new pixels in the image.

Enhance Resolution can be used without upscaling to:

reduce noise if Remove Noise removes fine details

increase details if Sharpen is over-sharpening your image.

make mild improvements to your image to increase quality further

Enable/disable Enhance Resolution by clicking the toggle.

The Enhance Resolution filter comes with different models for different situations.

For medium-quality images from point-and-shoot cameras and older smartphones

For high-quality images from DSLRs and most modern smartphones

For low-quality images that have been highly compressed

These models can have up to three sliders to control the processing:

: improves the details by correcting pixels on edges

: reduces distortion due to low starting quality

Enhance Resolution

The Upscaling menu appears at the bottom of the AI filter list.

scale options, with shortcuts for upscaling 2x, 4x, 6x (Max)

You can manually input the output scale and or width/height pixel dimensions.

Images can be downscaled (smaller than the original size). This will decrease the image quality and file size.

Any time an image is resized to smaller or larger than the original, Enhance Resolution will be turned on and cannot be disabled.

Topaz Photo AI will upscale your image width and height up to 6x, increasing the image pixels by 36x. The maximum image size it can output is 32,000x32,000 pixels (1024 megapixels).

To upscale an image more than 6x, you can process the image in Topaz Photo AI a second time.

Click the Crop button to enter the crop tool and change the input image size.

By default, the aspect ratio is locked to the dimensions of the original image. Click the dropdown to select commonly used aspect ratios.

Select Custom or click the lock to freely change and move the crop area.

Move the crop handles to change the crop area.

Click the Apply Crop button to save the selection.

Upscale & Crop

Use Topaz Photo AI in stand alone mode to control the following save settings:

When using Topaz Photo AI as plugin to another application (Photoshop, Lightroom Classic, or other plugins) these save options are not available.

This shows the files that will be saved. Preview the name changes and file type changes.

Prefix and Suffix field add text to the file name when saving. Toggling "Add applied filters to filename" will help identify the AI filters used to process the image.

When Prefix and Suffix are blank and "Add applied filters to filename" is toggled off, the "Allow overwriting" toggle will appear. We recommend against overwriting files.

This section allows you to select the output location. Click the dropdown and Browse to pick a location for your new files.

This controls the file type that is exported. "Preserve Input Format" will export the same type as the original. RAW is exported as DNG (an open source RAW file type), TIF as TIF, JPG as JPG, etc.

JPEG format allows you to control the output quality. 

Default JPEG save quality is 95%, which is the most space and quality efficient way to save JPG.

Lower quality decreases image size dramatically and creates compression artifacts.

PNG format allows you to control the compression and bit depth. 

Compression decreases image size without decreasing quality, but increases save time. 

Bit depth increases color accuracy/detail and prevents artifacts, but increases image size. Preserve bit depth uses the same value as the original file.

TIFF format comes with multiple compression methods and bit depth. 

Compression decreases image size but can increase time to open and save.

For maximum quality and lowest file size, use ZIP compression and 16-bit depth.

DNG format will only work for RAW images and export full size DNG files. If you try to convert a non-RAW to DNG, the file will instead be saved as TIF.

After saving your file, click the folder icon to open the folder that contains your processed image.

Saving

Plugins

User Guides

Dive into the details of various features of Topaz Photo AI. Learn different elements of the app and best practices for how to use them. 

Features