Photos of Falmouth

 

The editor of the newsletter of the local division of the NMRA needed some photos of my layout to announce an open house. I thought that was a good excuse to shoot some new photos of the almost finished area near Falmouth. Focus stacked and sky replaced in PS.

Topaz Photo AI - Upscaling Low Res Images

 

Full original unsharpened image.

Photographers might be interested in this, especially if you have some low res images you want to use in a print project. I was going through some of my older railfan images for use in a writing project. I found some low resolution images I took around 2001 that I would like to use. The base image was about 3.1 mega-pixels (2160 by 1440 pixels) at ISO 100 and 1/180sec. The image was not noisy, but it was low-res and a bit soft.

I put the image in Topaz Photo AI and let the software recommend improvements. It can remove noise, sharpen, and upscale. In this case it only recommended a 2x upscale. But in the process, it made the image sharper. So it doubled the resolution in both axes for an image size of 11.9 mega-pixels (4234 by 2822 pixels) and gave a sharper image. That is some black magic.

Here is a comparison of both images in Photoshop. The upper image is the original image enlarged to 200%. The bottom image is the same image after Topaz AI upscaling. Check it out.  

Original image at 200% compared to the image in Topaz Photo AI upscaled and sharpened at 2x

But wait you say, what if you just took the original image and sharpened it in Photoshop? I tried the same image using Photoshop's new neural filter Superzoom. It didn't work near as well. It did upscale the image, but it was soft. If I tried to use Photoshop smart sharpen or unsharp mask on the upscaled image, I did not get as good results as there was a lot of fringing and artifacts See the second image for the comparison.

Photoshops new neural filter Superzoom compared to Topaz Photo AI

Topaz Photo AI also works on old slide scans. It can get rid of grain and other artifacts too. You can even upscale low res images you get off the internet. It is very impressive software. 

O Scale Trains Magazine Article Jan 2023

O Scale Trains Magazine is featuring the USMRR Aquia Line on the cover and article inside. I haven't seen the actual issue yet, but I have been getting nice notes from folks that have.  

If you want to get a copy you can find it at Barnes and Noble or order it direct from their website. https://shop.whiteriverproductions.com/products/ost-202301

What's up with all DeNoise?

Danica the Cyborg - rescuing a old picture with Topaz Aps

The year has started out very busy with no work on the Aquia Line but lots of other fun projects and distractions. I spent a good part of the week working on some track plans that will be published later this year. In between that I have been doing some birdwatching and learning more about how to use photoshop. 

I recently purchased the Topaz AI suite of products for photo enhancements. These products aren't that useful for model railroad photography as we can usually shoot those images in ideal condtions with low ISO. But if you are doing any action photography such as wildlife, or even fast moving trains in low light where you use high ISO,  you might be interested in the aps. I was skeptical of them at first as they use social media to advertise. But I watched enough Youtube videos to think they might be worthwhile. They allow you to freely download their products to evaluate them, you just can't save until you purchase or activate them. So I was able to give them a good test before buying. And I was very pleased to see they really work. I find that the DeNoise program is the best as it consistently gives good results. I find the sharpen function to be less in demand, but it is useful when it is needed. They also offer an all-in-one application that will analyze your image and suggest denoise, sharpen, and even upscaling.  It works well too. 

Here is an example of a high iso image that I processed thorough Topaz applications. I shot the cardinal on my Canon R7 at 3200 ISO, but after Topaz DeNoise there is practically zero noise in the image.  That is pretty amazing given the high ISO I used on a compact sensor camera. 

Old snapshot that I cleaned up with Topaz AI

The Topaz aps work best with RAW images, but they are also useful when taking older images and cleaning them up. Here is an example where I took an old snap shot of my daughter at one of her modeling shoots.  I used Topaz AI to clean it up, sharpen and upsample. 

Since she doesn't normally wear her hair and makeup like that, I decided to manipulate the photo for a new effect. She reminded me of Pris from the original Blade Runner movie. 

I used Photoshop to convert her into a cyborg warrior. This was an exercise in using many of the features in  Photoshop including layer masks, blending modes, etc. There are over 30 layers, including adjustment layers and masks.  I think it came out pretty well. My daughter suggested some weathering on the arm and vest. So she liked it too.