Community Expert

Question

Topaz Photo Ai Alternatives?

Forum|Forum|4 months ago
March 14, 2026
3 replies
841 views

I have been using Topaz Photo Ai for a couple of years, and was super impressed right from the start. At the end of the first year I was asked to pay for another year of updates, and decided to wait till some real changes in the app’s quality. When I saw the Wonder model examples I thought the time to pay out had come, only to find they had switched to a subscription only payment model, with a commitment to a full year at significant cost!

I have found DXO PureRaw which gets good reviews and is attractively priced.

I have also seen mention of OnOne NoNoise, and I know I can get similar sharp images from blurred originals with NB Gemini 3 so I love to hear if other people are in a similar position, or have experience with DXO Pure Raw or alternatives?

R

RancourtG

Participant

Did anybody use the new Topaz Labs cloud online version and features for wildlife photos?

Trevor.Dennis

Author

Community Expert

Since I last responded to this thread, Topaz offered a better deal for Studio for what they referred to as ‘founding’ users. That was NZ$163 which seemed like a good deal, so I have had all of the Studio apps for a while now. With the full versions, compared to what we can use as Partner models from within Photoshop, you get more options, and they make quite a difference.

Note: I found this with Google. It’s 640px X 750px The IQ is pretty dire.

These are the Sharpen options in Topaz Photo. Note: ‘denoise’ has also been applied at 60%

Gigapixel has a heap of options, and they really make a difference, but it can get a bit crunchy if the original was not flash. It looks like it has invented detail in the pine trees, but this would not look good on a young person’s face. It’s a 2 X upres.

This is 4 X using the Low Res preset. Every other preset amplified noise in the sky.

We know that Adobe has bought Topaz, but do not know how this will affect topaz apps as partner models in Photoshop etc.

If you have specific questions I’ll do my best to answer, but use my ID in your post (@trever.dennis) so I get a notification. You should also look at NR in Camera RAW as I believe it is very good now. I use Topaz because I am used to it. I love the other Studio apps, but I often just do it all with a single Gemini 3.1 prompt as it is much faster, .

rayek.elfin

Legend

One developer decided to work on an open source Topaz Photo AI replacement. Might be good enough?

https://github.com/vegidio/open-photo-ai

V

Valda

Participant

Same here! I think Topaz Photo AI is really good, but the subscription price is getting pretty hard to justify.
I've switched from Topaz Photo AI to HitPaw FotorPea recently. Overall, the enhancement quality is quite good for the price, although I still think Topaz does a better job with very fine details like animal fur.
I'm keeping FotorPea for now mainly because of the value and the extra AI features. I also use AI image generation for some work-related graphics, and having models like Seedream 5.0 Pro, Nano Banana, and GPT Image 2 in one place is pretty convenient.

A

AxelMatt

Community Expert

I am in a similar situation. I came from Topaz SharpenAI and DenoiseAI which are great tools. Then both tools were integrated into PhotoAI which I’ve used a long time. Since last year Topaz released Topaz Photo and switched to a subscription only payment model. I'm currently benefiting from a low price, but that also means I can't use the full range of features.

Yesterday I’ve take a look on my hard drive and see the the installation folder of Topaz Photo has a size of approx. 10GB.

I need and use only a little part (sharpening and sometimes denoising) of Topaz Photo. I have a lot of baggage that I don't need, and I'm even paying for it.

In the Topaz forum, I asked if it would be possible to offer a stripped-down version (e.g., only sharpening and noise reduction) at a lower price, as I don't need the other features.

The only response I received was to cancel my subscription and go back to Topaz PhotoAI.

I’m already use DxO’s PureRAW since it was released. Actual I’m use the recent version 6 and I’m very happy with this tool. It's amazing what this tool can bring out of noisy images.

My solution for the future would be this: I'll use PureRAW for smoke removal and return to Topaz PhotoAI or SharpenAI for sharpening. I don’t renew the Topaz Photo subscription.

I'll also try the sharpener from the Nik Collection; perhaps that's another option.

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 9 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI

Trevor.Dennis

Author

Community Expert

This is my second try at answering this after losing a long reply yesterday. Grrrrrr :-(. Fingers crossed.

Axel, I can see you have been using Topaz for a good while. I have licenses for Adjust, Simplify, Glow and Clean. I was on the brink of committing to a year of Topaz Photo, and considering Studio for the video apps, but it’s a bit of money. Just how good is the Wonder 2 model? The examples are impressive, albeit a tad overdone (plastic looking in some areas).

I’ve had some impossible results sharpening blurry images with NB Gemini 3 using a simple quote (change focus making everything sharp), but it arbitrarily replaces areas. Does Topaz do the same with eyes and mouths, for instance?

Fortunately, I am away from home till early April, with limited bandwidth, and don’t have the option of installing it on the laptop I have with me. So, I am going to hold back on Topaz, and get DXO PureRAW when I can, and also give Ged’s suggestion a try. Like you said, we’ll always have Photo Ai.

I’d still love to know:

Other alternatives to Topaz Ai
Real world examples of Topaz Wonder 2 model
Where we’ll be natively with Photoshop in the coming months. Obviously have to wait for that answer.

Thanks for your thoughts guys.

A

AxelMatt

Community Expert

@Trevor.Dennis I don’t have use functions as Wonder in Topaz Photo. So I don’t have any experience. At the moment I don’t see any cases for using Wonder and similar functions.

If I really need to upscale a photo, I can resort to Gigapixel AI or Lightroom.

I use only Topaz Photo for sharpening and denoising. Topaz Photo delivered good results here.

The results from PureRAW are just as good, if not better. I think for denoising is a good alternative.

A alternative for sharpening can be the Sharpener from the Nik Collection. I’ve done some tests and the results are good, but the handling of Topaz Photo (AI) is much easier.

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 9 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.