After 10yrs of Testing, This is the BEST Upscaler. Period.
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Date: 2025-12-23
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Comments and reviews: 20
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AI Overview
Topaz Photo AI: Is it Worth the Money
For the best dedicated photo enhancement (upscaling, noise, blur), Topaz Photo AI generally wins for quality, especially with its Gigapixel AI; for integrated creative features & workflows, Adobe Firefly (within Photoshop/Creative Cloud) offers powerful generative fill/text effects; while Freepik is great for stock assets, templates, and simpler background removal but not a core enhancer like Topaz or Firefly's deeper AI. The best depends on your goal: Topaz for pure pixel perfection, Firefly for AI creation/editing, Freepik for assets/quick fixes.
Topaz Photo AI (e.g., Gigapixel AI)
Best For: Professional-grade upscaling, noise reduction, sharpening, and deblurring, especially for photographers needing maximum detail preservation.
Pros: Highest quality results for upscaling (Gigapixel), supports RAW, one-time purchase, good performance, face refinement.
Cons: Can overprocess, lacks basic editing (white balance/exposure), potential learning curve, face recovery can look artificial.
Adobe Firefly (in Photoshop/Creative Cloud)
Best For: Generative AI (text-to-image, text effects), seamless integration with Photoshop, quick content creation.
Pros: Excellent generative fill, text effects, integrates into existing Adobe workflow, good for commercial use.
Cons: Credit-based system (limits), output size limitations in some upscaling features, less focused on pure pixel-level enhancement than Topaz.
Freepik
Best For: Huge library of design resources (templates, icons, stock photos), quick background removal, general design tasks.
Pros: Massive asset library, great for small businesses/designers, effective background removal.
Cons: Not a dedicated photo enhancer like Topaz; more about resource acquisition and simple edits.
Which is Best
For Photographers: Topaz Photo AI for sharpening and upscaling, combined with Adobe Firefly (via Photoshop) for creative edits like object removal/addition.
For Designers/Marketers: Freepik for assets and quick work, plus Adobe Firefly for unique generative content.
Overall Enhancer: Topaz Photo AI likely offers superior technical enhancement for existing photos, while Firefly excels at AI-powered creation and manipulation, note DPReview and Slashdot.
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AI Overview
Topaz Photo AI: Is it Worth the Money
For the best dedicated photo enhancement (upscaling, noise, blur), Topaz Photo AI generally wins for quality, especially with its Gigapixel AI; for integrated creative features & workflows, Adobe Firefly (within Photoshop/Creative Cloud) offers powerful generative fill/text effects; while Freepik is great for stock assets, templates, and simpler background removal but not a core enhancer like Topaz or Firefly's deeper AI. The best depends on your goal: Topaz for pure pixel perfection, Firefly for AI creation/editing, Freepik for assets/quick fixes.
Topaz Photo AI (e.g., Gigapixel AI)
Best For: Professional-grade upscaling, noise reduction, sharpening, and deblurring, especially for photographers needing maximum detail preservation.
Pros: Highest quality results for upscaling (Gigapixel), supports RAW, one-time purchase, good performance, face refinement.
Cons: Can overprocess, lacks basic editing (white balance/exposure), potential learning curve, face recovery can look artificial.
Adobe Firefly (in Photoshop/Creative Cloud)
Best For: Generative AI (text-to-image, text effects), seamless integration with Photoshop, quick content creation.
Pros: Excellent generative fill, text effects, integrates into existing Adobe workflow, good for commercial use.
Cons: Credit-based system (limits), output size limitations in some upscaling features, less focused on pure pixel-level enhancement than Topaz.
Freepik
Best For: Huge library of design resources (templates, icons, stock photos), quick background removal, general design tasks.
Pros: Massive asset library, great for small businesses/designers, effective background removal.
Cons: Not a dedicated photo enhancer like Topaz; more about resource acquisition and simple edits.
Which is Best
For Photographers: Topaz Photo AI for sharpening and upscaling, combined with Adobe Firefly (via Photoshop) for creative edits like object removal/addition.
For Designers/Marketers: Freepik for assets and quick work, plus Adobe Firefly for unique generative content.
Overall Enhancer: Topaz Photo AI likely offers superior technical enhancement for existing photos, while Firefly excels at AI-powered creation and manipulation, note DPReview and Slashdot.
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useraccount-b2h
hey unmesh i have a question answer this in the video please. the question is this lest suppose when we have a night scene of a person standing in nature in night we want to brighten the shadows of the scene we simply use curves and brighten the shadow taking the bottom point to up but we only want this effect on just shadows so then we use blend if but the problem start here when we use blend if it effect of all shadows are but lets suppose we only want to brighten less shadowe places like trees not the black sky cause if we bright the whole are shadows its start looking fake. we realy need a slider in blend if that can only limit to bright less shadowe area under or between the two sliders that we call take away this effect from highlights and take away this effect from shadows.. what if we get a brand new sliders that can only effect the less dark area that would we wonderfull. raise this question from our side or please tell how do we achieve that same result.
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hey unmesh i have a question answer this in the video please. the question is this lest suppose when we have a night scene of a person standing in nature in night we want to brighten the shadows of the scene we simply use curves and brighten the shadow taking the bottom point to up but we only want this effect on just shadows so then we use blend if but the problem start here when we use blend if it effect of all shadows are but lets suppose we only want to brighten less shadowe places like trees not the black sky cause if we bright the whole are shadows its start looking fake. we realy need a slider in blend if that can only limit to bright less shadowe area under or between the two sliders that we call take away this effect from highlights and take away this effect from shadows.. what if we get a brand new sliders that can only effect the less dark area that would we wonderfull. raise this question from our side or please tell how do we achieve that same result.
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PIERCED6966
Last time i take your advice, yeah it looked great in your video, in reality it suk, they have the gaul to charge 200 credits for using open source AI, Qwen image is unlimited on their own website, nano, flux, grok, chatgpt, they all give FREE usage on a daily basis, these people have the nerve to charge for them from the first image you create. As for magnific, they really like to screw you with that one, for premium and your link i got just over 222,000 credits. Sounds pretty impressive when they claim with that amount you can create over 43,000 images. I only upscaled 6 family photos and it cost over 4,500 credits. They are lying and the amount of credits mean didly squat when they charge hundreds of credits for one simple upscale.
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Last time i take your advice, yeah it looked great in your video, in reality it suk, they have the gaul to charge 200 credits for using open source AI, Qwen image is unlimited on their own website, nano, flux, grok, chatgpt, they all give FREE usage on a daily basis, these people have the nerve to charge for them from the first image you create. As for magnific, they really like to screw you with that one, for premium and your link i got just over 222,000 credits. Sounds pretty impressive when they claim with that amount you can create over 43,000 images. I only upscaled 6 family photos and it cost over 4,500 credits. They are lying and the amount of credits mean didly squat when they charge hundreds of credits for one simple upscale.
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IFGchannel931
4:51 I paused here to analyze the before and after frame by frame. The technology is not there yet. Be honest, if that person was someone you know, from your family, you would not be satisfied with the end result. Her whole expression has changed, the eyes look different, her hairline shape has changed, the way light reflects inside the eyes is different, her necklace / collar ornament is gone, her neck looks thinner... I'm hopeful one day we'll get a perfect tool for flawless restorations that don't change random things in the image.
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4:51 I paused here to analyze the before and after frame by frame. The technology is not there yet. Be honest, if that person was someone you know, from your family, you would not be satisfied with the end result. Her whole expression has changed, the eyes look different, her hairline shape has changed, the way light reflects inside the eyes is different, her necklace / collar ornament is gone, her neck looks thinner... I'm hopeful one day we'll get a perfect tool for flawless restorations that don't change random things in the image.
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nwcic
As a long-time pro in the field, I see one fantastic thing, and one questionable thing.
The upscale results in many cases are stunning. Much better than my Topaz
The assumptions it makes with nature settings are faked in many cases. I looked at every example on their website. In many cases, leaves, rocks and other natural elements were replaced with generated images that are not part of the original photograph. While they look nice, details show many parts are no longer the same image. Hard pass for me.
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As a long-time pro in the field, I see one fantastic thing, and one questionable thing.
The upscale results in many cases are stunning. Much better than my Topaz
The assumptions it makes with nature settings are faked in many cases. I looked at every example on their website. In many cases, leaves, rocks and other natural elements were replaced with generated images that are not part of the original photograph. While they look nice, details show many parts are no longer the same image. Hard pass for me.
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Q36BN
Remember when everyone was praising Topaz for details and what not, when Topaz was unveiled, no competition...
And now Look at this, now Topaz looks like some free alternative, like Gimp vs Photoshop.
Hah, even Photoshops upscaler is not as good as this freepik. I wonder how much time till Adobe decides to buy freepik, just to eliminate the competition... freepik is killing it.
It's not just comparable, or slightly better than other tools. They look like a real threat to Adobe and others...
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Remember when everyone was praising Topaz for details and what not, when Topaz was unveiled, no competition...
And now Look at this, now Topaz looks like some free alternative, like Gimp vs Photoshop.
Hah, even Photoshops upscaler is not as good as this freepik. I wonder how much time till Adobe decides to buy freepik, just to eliminate the competition... freepik is killing it.
It's not just comparable, or slightly better than other tools. They look like a real threat to Adobe and others...
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masterinico
13:42 I’m honestly extremely disappointed. I tried about 30 times to fix an out of focus image and not once did it even get the focus part right, mostly just hallucinating various blurry angles of the same person or crazy weird hallucinations of whatever.
I return to my stance that AI is trash garbage and needs to die. If any other business spent this many billions on something that worked so terribly they’d be gone in a month. The world is on crack and I hate it.
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13:42 I’m honestly extremely disappointed. I tried about 30 times to fix an out of focus image and not once did it even get the focus part right, mostly just hallucinating various blurry angles of the same person or crazy weird hallucinations of whatever.
I return to my stance that AI is trash garbage and needs to die. If any other business spent this many billions on something that worked so terribly they’d be gone in a month. The world is on crack and I hate it.
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ryancooper3629
I used to use Magnific, and I agree their results are still fantastic, but they are so expensive. For the cheapest plan on Magnific, you pay 3x as much as Gigapixel, and the number of credits you get is pretty restrictive if you often work with high-resolution upscales. To do the work I typically do, I'd need the next level up, which is $100/month. I expect Gigapixel will catch up to Magnific in the near future, all these AI apps just leap frog each back and fourth.
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I used to use Magnific, and I agree their results are still fantastic, but they are so expensive. For the cheapest plan on Magnific, you pay 3x as much as Gigapixel, and the number of credits you get is pretty restrictive if you often work with high-resolution upscales. To do the work I typically do, I'd need the next level up, which is $100/month. I expect Gigapixel will catch up to Magnific in the near future, all these AI apps just leap frog each back and fourth.
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MasonTorrey
One year ago, I just looked at hands to tell if something was AI generated, but now I almost can't tell. I've been restoring photos with Photoshop for over 20 years, and yes, I have implemented AI in my workflow to make tasks quicker, but as of not even a week ago, I've realised I'm out of business. I've been sticking up for AI so long and now it's come back to hurt me. I'd say just two more months and my photo restoration service is obsolete.
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One year ago, I just looked at hands to tell if something was AI generated, but now I almost can't tell. I've been restoring photos with Photoshop for over 20 years, and yes, I have implemented AI in my workflow to make tasks quicker, but as of not even a week ago, I've realised I'm out of business. I've been sticking up for AI so long and now it's come back to hurt me. I'd say just two more months and my photo restoration service is obsolete.
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TheDrLecter
Look at 16:17 it’s clearly not the same image at all. This isn’t upscaling; it’s a reinterpretation. Be cautious: much of this is AI hallucination. We need tools anchored in real data, even if the originals are far lower resolution, to genuinely discuss restoration and enhancement. Imagine sending in old photos of my greatgrandmother for restoration, only to receive an uncanny, entirely different person presented as her.
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Look at 16:17 it’s clearly not the same image at all. This isn’t upscaling; it’s a reinterpretation. Be cautious: much of this is AI hallucination. We need tools anchored in real data, even if the originals are far lower resolution, to genuinely discuss restoration and enhancement. Imagine sending in old photos of my greatgrandmother for restoration, only to receive an uncanny, entirely different person presented as her.
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polystormstudio
Unmesh, you got me excited to try it! Well, that was until I learned that you can only upscale on Freepik's $40/month Permium plan. Maybe I'll try it for a month. But I recently discovered SeedVR which is a ComfyUI workflow. Hands down, it blew every single upscaler I've ever tried, out of the water. Including Magnific about half a year ago on free credits. But now I'm curious to see how far Magnific has progressed.
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Unmesh, you got me excited to try it! Well, that was until I learned that you can only upscale on Freepik's $40/month Permium plan. Maybe I'll try it for a month. But I recently discovered SeedVR which is a ComfyUI workflow. Hands down, it blew every single upscaler I've ever tried, out of the water. Including Magnific about half a year ago on free credits. But now I'm curious to see how far Magnific has progressed.
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MrSociofobs
You don't want to show pictures of a product that's not the actual one - you should tell that to most online retailers. Even the AI models are advertised as great for generating product photography now. Shops already used digital product mockups before, but now, both product photos and videos will be generated en masse. The only way to see the actual product will be to go see it in person.
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You don't want to show pictures of a product that's not the actual one - you should tell that to most online retailers. Even the AI models are advertised as great for generating product photography now. Shops already used digital product mockups before, but now, both product photos and videos will be generated en masse. The only way to see the actual product will be to go see it in person.
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HarryGreen333
thanks! Does it work when start with high resolution images (eg, Fuji GFX 100 vII) Most of Photoshop & LR Classic AI tools smudge cloning and upscaling (ie, can't keep up and match resolution) (I see you point out blotches in smooth gradients such as the lake. This affect is seen in spades when using high resolution, medium format raw negatives)
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thanks! Does it work when start with high resolution images (eg, Fuji GFX 100 vII) Most of Photoshop & LR Classic AI tools smudge cloning and upscaling (ie, can't keep up and match resolution) (I see you point out blotches in smooth gradients such as the lake. This affect is seen in spades when using high resolution, medium format raw negatives)
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Harh1981
Please note that the photos made with smartphone were alreadly not genuine since the phone obviousely added its own AI details into the processing. It is clearly seen on the watches photo where Magnific upscaler mismatched the already mismatched details. In result it just made the details mismatched by the phone more prominent.
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Please note that the photos made with smartphone were alreadly not genuine since the phone obviousely added its own AI details into the processing. It is clearly seen on the watches photo where Magnific upscaler mismatched the already mismatched details. In result it just made the details mismatched by the phone more prominent.
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zootrh
To be fair you are using standard model in Topaz, which is not comparable, You have more models that could perform much better in these scenarios, like Redefine Realistic Beta and Recover v2.
For products, you should use High Fidelity model and it will perform great. So I think this is not an apples to apples comparison.
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To be fair you are using standard model in Topaz, which is not comparable, You have more models that could perform much better in these scenarios, like Redefine Realistic Beta and Recover v2.
For products, you should use High Fidelity model and it will perform great. So I think this is not an apples to apples comparison.
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pixelocean101
This isn't as good as it seems. Just wasted my Rs. 600. The fake details it generates is not as good as it is showcased here. I had some important images to restore which it couldn't do. Even free tools work like this. Sorry Unmesh, but seems like there is something wrong with this model or the tool overall.
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This isn't as good as it seems. Just wasted my Rs. 600. The fake details it generates is not as good as it is showcased here. I had some important images to restore which it couldn't do. Even free tools work like this. Sorry Unmesh, but seems like there is something wrong with this model or the tool overall.
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gr33nDestiny
I used to love Topaz but like everyone, now that it’s a subscription it’s pointless and it was getting worse anyway. Thanks for the vid I was deciding if I should get DXO pureRAW but I will try this one first. Thanks so much! Most of the time I’m just trying to sharpen an already good photo just a bit.
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I used to love Topaz but like everyone, now that it’s a subscription it’s pointless and it was getting worse anyway. Thanks for the vid I was deciding if I should get DXO pureRAW but I will try this one first. Thanks so much! Most of the time I’m just trying to sharpen an already good photo just a bit.
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piximperfect
Seedvr2 is better and is the only upscale in existence that will not change faces at all...magnific stiil changes faces.... not sure how you faked your results here, but magnific is not able nor capable to do what you show here. i challenge anyone out here to do his sample workflow and see for themselves.
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Seedvr2 is better and is the only upscale in existence that will not change faces at all...magnific stiil changes faces.... not sure how you faked your results here, but magnific is not able nor capable to do what you show here. i challenge anyone out here to do his sample workflow and see for themselves.
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bobbavet
After testing, to be honest no better than Nano in Photoshop. It's only the 4k difference that is allowing you to see the difference ie more detail. Also found Freepix strayed from original facial feature more so than the photoshop vers. Photo shop should allow the orig 4k in Nano, Topaz is garbage.
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After testing, to be honest no better than Nano in Photoshop. It's only the 4k difference that is allowing you to see the difference ie more detail. Also found Freepix strayed from original facial feature more so than the photoshop vers. Photo shop should allow the orig 4k in Nano, Topaz is garbage.
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Drakmour666
Is Freepik uncensored for upscaler instrument Not for image generation and stuff but for exactly upscaling. Or it is same no no no, don't show me minors on that birthday party of your 3 year old daughter Does it even has that filters and it's own build in censorship in upscaling my photos
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Is Freepik uncensored for upscaler instrument Not for image generation and stuff but for exactly upscaling. Or it is same no no no, don't show me minors on that birthday party of your 3 year old daughter Does it even has that filters and it's own build in censorship in upscaling my photos
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