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Last updated on January 25th, 2024

Topaz Gigapixel AI is an advanced image enlarging software that uses artificial intelligence to upscale photos by up to 600% without losing quality. It often enhances the final photo by restoring detail with extra pixels.

Related: You should also check out Topaz Photo AI, which also enlarges images.

If you’re looking for a cheaper alternative, check out my ON1 Resize review and the full suite of ON1 products.

You can get a free download of Gigapixel AI for 30 days.

Topaz Gigapixel AI Alternatives

Several other image enlargers offer similar features and benefits for those looking for an alternative to Topaz Gigapixel AI. These include:

  1. Upscale AI with Luminar Neo – One of the first photography software to use machine learning, this app offers incredible scaling technology available today, with a great selection of preset settings and an easy-to-use interface.
  2. Photoshop CC – Consider the king of image editing; nearly every photography software is compared to Photoshop or its brother, Lightroom.
  3. ON1 Resize AI – ON1’s next-generation photo resizing software allows photographers to enlarge photos while still maintaining incredible detail and sharpness. Our super-resolution AI image resizer ensures the highest quality photo enlargements and allows for quick processing.

Whether you’re a professional photographer or just looking for an easy way to improve the quality and detail of your photos, many alternatives to Topaz Gigapixel AI will help you get the job done.

In my Topaz Gigapixel AI review, I will provide you with important information on how I tested the software and my results. On January 27, 2024, Topaz Labs released their latest upgrade with Topaz Gigapixel AI 7. The interface was refreshed with several performance updates.

There are too many updates with Gigapixel AI 7 to list, but here are the main ones:

  • The software was updated to work with the most recent GPUs, including NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, and Apple Silicon M3.
  • The AI models were updated. Two new model versions were added, Standard v2 and High Fidelity v2; they will eventually replace version one.
  • Preferences were updated, so when you update from Topax Gigapixel 6 to 7, your preferences will reset. Make sure to update them manually.
  • Other minor changes were added, such as pinch panning to zoom, updated RAW preview handling to resemble Photo AI, and before-and-after side-by-side and split views.

Why would you need to enlarge a photo?

  • Prints – Large prints require large image resolutions.
  • Crop Size – Cropping usually reduces the image resolution, especially if you crop to a small sample size of an original image. In this case, you may want to upscale the cropped image.
  • Stock Images – If you sell stock images, you’ll want to offer images in various sizes.
  • Old Photos – Digital photos from 10+ years ago most likely have small resolutions, and you now need a larger version.
  • Improve AI Photos – With more small and large businesses turning to AI-generated content, marketing teams are now utilizing AI art and photos for product promotions. Now, you can improve upon those AI-generated media by upscaling and adding detail to the final photo.
topaz gigapixel 7 review face recovery
screenshot from our Gigapixel AI 7 review

What is Topaz Gigapixel AI 7?

Topaz Gigapixel AI is a software that can increase the size of photos without losing quality by using Artificial Intelligence. It helps create large prints or cropping images without sacrificing detail. Many people believe it is the top software for this purpose.

Gigapixel AI’s enlarging algorithm can produce sharper and clearer upscaled images even from low-resolution files, unlike traditional enlargement software, which tends to lose detail. This happens because Gigapixel AI’s algorithm can identify details and structures in these files.

The Topaz software utilizes AI to preserve and enhance the original details of your images, enabling you to resize them up to 6 times their original size.

Topaz Gigapixel AI has recently released an updated version with various advanced enlargement AI models to cater to different images and upscaling requirements. It includes a new face recovery AI model designed explicitly for enlarging portraits.

Topaz Gigapixel AI Review

Topaz Gigapixel AI is a straightforward software to learn. There really is no learning curve like Photoshop or Capture One Pro.

This image enlarging software works as a standalone app or can be used as a plugin with Photoshop or Lightroom.

The PS and LR plugins will install automatically when you install Gigapixel AI on Windows or macOS.

Interface

Accessing and downloading Gigapixel AI from Topaz Labs is a fast and straightforward process, as well as installing the editing software from what I observed in my Topaz Gigapixel AI review.

I found Gigapixel AI easy to use and understand. I could grasp its logical steps within a few minutes of using the interface.

To upload your images onto the AI photo tool’s software, click on the folder icon labeled “Open” when launching the program. This will take you to your upload folder, where you can select single or multiple images.

Once your image is loaded and previewed, you should see a screen similar to the screenshot above. The image on the left is the original one, and the one on the right is the preview of your edited image.

In the Gigapixel AI interface, you can view information about your original photo (Input) and edited photo (Output), including file details and the location where the file will be saved.

The control measures are located in the right-hand panel, starting with the Processing menu, where you can resize the image. Depending on your editing style, you can choose scaling, width, or height, and I prefer using the scale as it is a more straightforward method.

Then you can choose the magnification with some preset options and the ability to enter a custom level between 0.5 to 6.0 times the scale.

You can select Auto or Manual from the settings to choose your preferred option.

The manual option allows you to adjust noise reduction and blur reduction settings. You can also choose to enable or disable ‘Face Refinement.’

The Face Recovery feature in Gigapixel AI is designed to enhance facial details when enlarging photos. Typically, enlarging small faces in images can cause them to become pixelated or unclear, but this feature aims to prevent that.

The tool can identify tiny faces measuring from 16 x 16px up to 64 x 64px and use specialized machine learning techniques to improve the image’s resolution. You can see an example of how this works by hovering over the demo on the sales page.

Here’s a more precise explanation of how the new Face Recovery model works, as explained by Topaz:

“The new Face Recovery model is designed to address issues with low-quality photos, such as those that are highly compressed, noisy, artifacts, shaky, or blurred. It uses a deep learning process that builds on the previous Face Refinement model but with improved training using a larger library of high-quality faces. The goal is to recover a wider range of facial features that may have been lost or distorted in the original photo.”

You’ll find the Output menu as you scroll through the panel. Here, you can choose the folder where your file will be saved and give it a prefix and a suffix for its name.

The last menu, “File Format,” allows you to choose the file type and image quality. You can also choose whether or not to keep your color preferences.

After you finish, click on ‘start,’ and Gigapixel AI will begin processing either your single image or multiple images individually.

A percentage count will show you the progress of the process while it is happening. You can quickly improve the clarity or resolution of your old images by upscaling them.

How to Use Topaz Gigapixel AI

topaz gigapixel ai face recovery

The software’s user interface is simple and user-friendly. It has a modern design to speed up the photography workflow. I’ll review how to use it in this Topaz Gigapixel AI review. The image above is the latest version of Gigapixel AI, 7.0.0, in January, 2024.

Step 1: Run the Topaz Gigapixel AI app

Once you have installed and launched the software, you will be in the “New Project” window. Here, you can choose to resize an image or a whole directory of images.

Step 2: Drag (or open) your files into the app

In this step, I used a portrait of a girl, as seen in the above image.

Step 3: Select the scale at which you would like to resize your image

The next step is choosing how much we want to upscale the image. As I want to make a large print, I chose 6x, which brings my image from 320×450 pixels to 1920×2700 pixels.

Step 4: Choose the most suitable AI model

Gigapixel AI offers several options when it comes to increasing resolution. Here, you can choose between 6 different AI models: Standard, Lines, Art/CG, and Computer Generated, High Fidelity, Low Resolution, and Very Compressed.

Step 5: Adjust and improve the AI model’s settings

You can refine your resize settings in this menu by moving the sliders. This is useful if you want to adjust the sharpness, reduce noise or apply a custom profile. For this Topaz Gigapixel AI review, I used the standard AI model.

Step 6: Choose the format in which you want to save your new image’s output

Finally, you can choose your output format and where to save your new image.

Test Results

Now let’s dive into the case studies in this Topaz Labs Gigapixel AI review.

To test Gigapixel AI, I first used a 4032×2268 JPEG image that I photographed with my Samsung Galaxy S8. I enlarged the image by 600%, the largest size the software can produce.

I was surprised by the quality; it’s good. I did notice halos along the horizon on the enlarged photo, but some artifacts were already in the original horizon. But it is only noticeable when you really zoom in.  

Topaz Gigapixel AI example 1
Before image.

Another thing I noticed is when you zoom in on the original photo, it looks pixelated — as expected. On the other hand, when you zoom in on the same area on the upscaled photo, it looks painterly. Remember that the original image quality is not great in terms of professional photography standards. I did take it with a mobile phone while on a boat (think moving platform).

However, this image is good to set a floor quality for Gigapixel AI. To compare the images yourself, you’ll need to see the original and expanded files. The enlarged photo is a whopping 183 MB which I’m not going to load on this blog post. Lastly, I used a 5496×3670 TIFF image (originally a DNG image) and expanded it by 400%.  

Gigapixel AI example
Cropped JPEG image sample I used for the TIFF scenario. See the link for the actual files.

The results were amazing. Not only was the final image still sharp, but the noise was also reduced. See the before and after. The final image is an insane 1.80 GB.

Topaz Gigapixel AI also has face refinement. When enabled, this feature will enlarge small faces (16×16 to 64×64 pixels) with more detail and sharpness.

A few important notes about Topaz Gigapixel AI: Gigapixel caps upscale by either height or width to 22,000 and 32,000 pixels for TIFF and JPEG outputs, respectively. So, you can’t enlarge everything by 6 times. I tried enlarging a RAW file. The software will not output a RAW file.

Also, Gigapixel’s RAW rendering is not good. The color and contrast look washed out once completed to a TIFF or JPEG file. I tried correcting the color and contrast by playing with the color settings and spaces in Photoshop, but it didn’t work. If you want to enlarge a RAW file, I suggest saving the image as a TIFF file and then using Gigapixel to upscale it to TIFF.

In addition, it doesn’t support TIFF layers. If you enlarge a TIFF file with layers, then the layers would be merged. Gigapixel AI is GPU intensive. It can sometimes take 5 to 10 minutes to process an image. This isn’t a bad thing since you can do something else in the meantime.

The software has batch processing if you want to process hundreds of images. This will take a while. There is no option to customize the resolution ppi during output.

I also tested the facial recognition feature. I used a 640×1030 pixels image of a woman sitting down. The size of the face is small relative to the rest of the image. I enlarged the image by 6 times and compared the details of the before and after faces. Gigapixel AI’s results are acceptable.

Topaz Gigapixel AI facial recognition test
Results from our Topaz Gigapixel review

When to Use Topaz Gigapixel AI

When to Use Topaz Gigapixel AI depends on the size of your project and the quality of the original image.

Professional photographers who want to produce large prints should consider using it, as it can increase an image’s resolution up to 600%. It’s also great for hobbyists looking for large images for digital projects or cropping images with a small sample size.

Using Gigapixel AI is also beneficial for those working with stock images, as its AI capabilities can help you offer various sizes to customers.

Old photographs from 10+ years ago can be improved with Gigapixel AI, as it will enhance their resolution and sharpen features lost over time.
Using this software, you can make more vibrant prints that capture full detail and sharpness.

Is Topaz Gigapixel Better Than Photoshop?

Is Topaz Gigapixel Better Than Photoshop?

After some quick testing in this Topaz Gigapixel AI review, I found it is better than Photoshop when it comes to enlarging images. With Gigapixel AI, you can increase the size of your photos while maintaining and even improving their detail. This software has less noise in its enlarged images than Photoshop, making it an outstanding choice for professional photographers who want to print their photos.

Gigapixel AI also offers features that make editing more straightforward and efficient. It has an intuitive user interface that makes it easy to use and understand.

If you’re a parent looking to enlarge images of your family and have no PS experience, then Gigapixel AI is a better choice

Additionally, it allows you to adjust the sharpness and contrast of your images with just a few clicks. This makes it much faster than using Photoshop for these tasks.

Even if Photoshop is your go-to image editing software, you can still use Gigapixel AI as a plugin for Photoshop.

Price

Topaz Gigapixel AI costs $99.


You can also purchase the Topaz Labs Image Quality Bundle for $199.99, which saves $59.98 and includes:

  • Topaz Denoise AI
  • Topaz Gigapixel AI
  • Topaz Sharpen AI

Gigapixel AI does not support Intel HD Graphics 4600 or lower. A minimum RAM of 8GB is required. 16GB is recommended, and 32GB is optimal. An Internet connection is required to log into the software. We found the software works with CPUs Intel i3 and Ryzen 3, but from our Topaz Gigapixel review, you should get a faster CPU.

On June 25, 2020, Topaz Labs released Gigapixel AI version 5.0.0. This update includes an improved model for better upscaling, view previews as a single image, new zoom options, and a new man-made mode to better boost the details in typography, architecture, cityscapes, and other images with defined outlines and sharp edges. I quickly tested the man-made mode on typography. I noticed the type was noticeably improved. You’ll notice some smudges on the type; it’s because I used blend modes.

The latest Topaz Gigapixel Ai version is now 7.0.0.

topaz gigapixel 7 wildlife

Topaz Gigapixel AI Review Conclusion

Topaz Gigapixel AI is a great product, and it does the job, unlike many free online image enlargers, which are limited. I also did a quick test and compared it to Photoshop’s image size tool. I have to give a slight edge to Gigapixel AI because its noise reduction on upscaling is better. Furthermore, Gigapixel AI can be used as a plugin with Photoshop and Lightroom.

If you want to enlarge a video, read the Topaz Video AI review. Have you tried Gigapixel AI? What were your results?


Frequently Asked Questions

What is a gigapixel?

In digital terms, a gigapixel is one billion (109) pixels or 1,000 megapixels.

What is Topaz Labs?

Topaz Labs is a software development company that makes a suite of photography applications, including plugins for Photoshop and Lightroom. Right now, their main products are Topaz Photo AI, Video AI, DeNoise AI, Sharpen AI, and Gigapixel AI.

What does Gigapixel AI do?

Topaz Gigapixel AI is an image-enlarging software that uses artificial intelligence to upscale your photos by up to 600% accurately. Detail is retained or improved with sharpening. Furthermore, the software applies some slight noise reduction to ensure the upscaled image improves its quality.

Vincent Croos
About the Author: Vincent Croos

Hola Parceros,

I’m the founder of Aperlust. I enjoy web development and SEO and am into snowboarding and linguistics. In my spare time, you can find me destroying my opponents in chess across the globe.

Topaz Gigapixel AI
Topaz Gigapixel AI review

Uncover the power of AI with our comprehensive Topaz Gigapixel AI Review. Discover how this technology transforms your images, enhancing resolution and detail like never before. Dive into the world of AI-powered photo editing now.

Operating System: Windows, macOS

Application Category: Photography

Editor's Rating:
5

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