best upscale software?

[Richard Wong]

hey guys
i'm looking at doing a video to see if hi res mode on camera like the S5II is actually useful or is it more like a gimmick.
One of the things i want to test is, whether there is much difference compared to using some upscale software.

I'm wondering what is the best upscale software out there right now? Has anyone tried it? Ideally, it's a software with trial available as i don't really want to spend $50-100 for a quick test.
Note: I do have latest Lightroom Classic/Photoshop myself

thanks
Richard

 

[kbouk]

Hi Richard

I think Gigapixel AI is one of the best. There’s a free trial period.

 

[Richard Wong]

I think Gigapixel AI is one of the best. There’s a free trial period.

kbouk, awesome thanks a lot! that's perfect i will give it a try

 

[JohnnyMauser]

It would be nice, if you try to upscale the hi-res pix also. And include the results in the test.

 

[Richard Wong]

It would be nice, if you try to upscale the hi-res pix also. And include the results in the test.

yes that's what i've planned to do as well. planing to upscale a 24MP normal shot to 192 MP.. and compare it with upscale 96MP high res to 192..
I also just stole a S1R from Panasonic to compare

 

[CharlesH]

I have used Gigapixel AI compared to the X2 doubling feature with the Sony A1. This isn't super convenient because the Sony A1 requires external software to get the X2, unlike the Lumix S5II which does this internally. Anyway, I got consistently better results with Gigapixel AI than with the Sony's doubling feature. Another advantage of Gigapixel AI is that it is not affected by camera motion.

I just did some testing with the new S5II firmware 2.2 handheld high-res mode. It works pretty well, better than I expected. I've wondered if i could use Gigapixel AI on those shots to get another X2.

 

[Richard Wong]

hey Charles,

X2 doubling feature with the Sony A1.

Do you mean A1's multi shoot pixel shift function ? or something else? I remember the older Sony camera has some kind of single shot software interpolation feature to generate higher resolution photo. i wonder what are you referring to.

 

[CharlesH]

hey Charles,


Do you mean A1's multi shoot pixel shift function ? or something else? I remember the older Sony camera has some kind of single shot software interpolation feature to generate higher resolution photo. i wonder what are you referring to.

Yes, sorry, the A1 has 16-image pixel shift multi shooting. This produces a 199 MP image with full color at every pixel. Here is a video of how it works (on the A7RIV where it gives a 240 MP image). As I mentioned this is not processed in the camera, you export the 16 images and process them on your computer.

Also, I just did the Panasonic upgrade on my S5IIx (firmware 1.3 for the S5IIx). And I took a very nice handheld X2 picture, a 96 MP image. Then I doubled it with Gigapixel, for a really good 384 MB image. Over the years I've used Gigapixel to effectively blow up cropped pictures. It works well to crop pictures in Lightroom and use the Lightroom to Gigapixel interface to blow them up, and I've found that different camera/lens combinations work better than others at this. I have not done much of this yet with the S5II/S5IIx, but I expect it will work well.

Finally, Topaz Photo AI has evolved to the point where I generally use this instead of Gigapixel AI. Photo AI has the Gigapixel AI function, plus AI noise reduction and AI sharpening, and you can use whichever function you want, or any combination, depending on the photo.