Originally posted by photoaki What kind of hw are you guys using?
Intel i7-8550 @ 2Ghz., 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Intel UHD Graphic 620 the lousy part of the system
Most important for image processing is to have lots of RAM and a high performance graphic card.
When image processing software use the graphic card hardware acceleration, image processing is quite fast even with large files.
Sharpen AI is very slow process anyway, but once sharpening and noise reduction parameters are defined and assigned to each image file, the processing can be postponed in a batch, e.g run at night.
---------- Post added 15-05-21 at 09:50 ----------
Originally posted by gatorguy Topaz most recent recommendations are NoiseAI before anything else, followed by SharpenAI, and if you intend to use Gigapixel too then save it for last, tho there is an exception as noted in this Q&A.
I've used Gigapixels AI, and seen Denoise performance. But I decided to use only Sharpen AI due to Gigapixel introducing some fake textures and Sharpen AI already able to reduce noise. I get the best quality output by up-sampling to final size (@ 300 PPI), no sharpening applied, then sharpen AI. Most often most effective for me , is the stabilize mode (it corrects subject motion blur, effects of camera shake or shutter shock blur, superior to unsharp mask method) and apply noise reduction (it is also possible to add grain).
---------- Post added 15-05-21 at 09:54 ----------
Originally posted by photoaki I’ve been tempted by the occasional offers in the forum, but haven’t tried it yet.
I've missed the offer on the forum, unfortunately. When discounted, it's not expensive for the job it does, in my opinion, but it's a slow to process software, I only apply to selected files for making large prints.