If you’re a creative mind, you’ve probably heard of Topaz Labs in some capacity. This company is known for its powerful suite of photo editing software, and now they’re using artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline video editing too.
Whether you’re searching for a way to improve your videos without reshooting clips or are just browsing around for a new software tool to use, Topaz Video Enhance AI is one of the best options on the market.
But is it the right software for you and your videos? I took a deep dive into the software to find out if the software was worth it and had all the best features. Here’s my honest Topaz Video Enhance AI review.
What is Topaz Video Enhance AI?
What exactly is Topaz Video Enhance AI? It’s a software application that comes from the minds at Topaz Labs. The program uses AI technology to enhance and upscale the quality of video files.
The program is built with advanced AI algorithms that help analyze and understand everything that’s already in the video before applying enhancements that make sense based on the content.
Some of the enhancements that the software might apply to videos include adjusting the resolution, details, sharpness, and overall quality of the video so that it looks better to viewers.
Topaz Video Enhance AI and Its Impact on Videography Workflow
Topaz Video Enhance AI’s impact on videography workflow is substantial.
It’s helped artists streamline their workflow by spending less time editing and more time shooting and getting the products to their clients or ready for publishing.
It’s helped photographers and videographers enhance the details of the video without spending hours on end adjusting various aspects one by one.
Overall, this software’s impact on the video world is significant, and it may only continue to make a difference for those who use the program for their work.
Topaz Video Enhance AI Specifications: Minimum and Recommended
When you’re considering adding any new editing software to your computer, ensuring that you have the proper hardware for it to run well can mean the difference between a terrible experience and a great one. Here’s a look at the minimum recommended computer specifications for Mac and Windows computers.
Minimum Requirements for Mac
If you have a Mac desktop or laptop, here’s what the minimum recommended specifications are when using Topaz Video Enhance AI:
- Operating System: macOS 10.14 (Mojave)
- Processor: Intel i5 or equivalent
- RAM: 8 GB
- Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 (4GB VRAM) or AMD Radeon RX 560 (4GB VRAM)
- Disk Space: 10 GB of free space
- Display: 800×600 resolution
Minimum Requirements for Windows
Even though they’re different operating systems, many of the minimum requirements for Windows are similar to that of a Mac computer. The minimum requirements for a Windows user:
- Operating System: Windows 10
- Processor: Intel i5 or equivalent
- RAM: 8 GB
- Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 (4GB VRAM) or AMD Radeon RX 560 (4GB VRAM)
- Disk Space: 10 GB of free space
- Display: 800×600 resolution
Recommended Hardware for Optimal Performance
The above specifications are strictly the minimum requirements, but some specifications are ideal for those who want to use the Topaz Video Enhance AI. While the minimum is acceptable, these are the recommended hardware specifications for optimal performance:
- Operating System: Windows 10 (64-bit) or macOS 10.14 or later
- Processor: Intel Core i7 or higher or AMD Ryzen 7 or higher
- RAM: 16 GB or more
- Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super, or higher-end GPUs from the NVIDIA RTX series
- Disk Space: More than 10 GB
- Display: A high-resolution monitor (more than 800×600) with high color accuracy
It’s important to note that you will need a strong internet connection to download the software onto your computer. Remember, even with the recommended specifications, how well the software will run on your computer might be different from someone else’s.
Topaz Video Enhance AI: The Pros and Cons
As someone who’s played around with the Topaz Video Enhance AI software, there were a lot of things to love about it, but nothing is perfect, so there were some shortcomings. Here are what I would deem the pros and cons of the Topaz Video Enhance AI software to help you decide if it’s something you think is worth trying.
What Topaz Video Enhance AI Excels At
Everyone will have their own opinion on what they think the software did well at what it didn’t, but these are the things I believe Topaz Video Enhance AI excelled at:
- Detail Enhancement: Topaz Video Enhance AI goes frame by frame to analyze the video for where improvement in detail enhancement can be made. It did a pretty good job with this; nothing it suggested looked weird or unnatural.
- Restoration of Low-Quality and Old Videos: The AI algorithm of this tool is built to enhance the resolution of low-quality videos and older ones. It can help you bring older videos back to life without deteriorating the images.
- Upscaling and Resolution Enhancement: This is the main thing the tool excels at, in my opinion. It can quickly increase the resolution of the video without compromising on the visual quality. It creates new pixels and other enhancement details with ease.
- Noise Reduction: The denoising capabilities of Topaz Video Enhance AI stood out as some of the best. It was easy to do and compressed artifacts easily without distorting other parts of the video.
- Preserves Natural Motion: Unlike other video editing software, this one did an excellent job protecting the natural motion the video already has. The temporal techniques allowed for original flow, and it doesn’t turn out to look overly AI or unlike the original video.
- It’s User-Friendly: The interface that Topaz released for this video editing software was one of the most user-friendly ones I’ve used. Importing videos, applying enhancements, and choosing from preset customizations was easy.
The Shortcomings of Topaz Video Enhance AI
As many things as there are to love about the Topaz Video Enhance AI, there were a few things that I think could use improvements or are generally just not worth it. The shortcomings of this software include the following:
- Hardware Requirements: While I didn’t struggle with the hardware requirements, I think they’re pretty tricky for many people to have. Even the minimum requirements that aren’t difficult to meet won’t run as well as higher specifications.
- Processing Time: I found the processing time to be overly time-consuming. While running it through the AI detection process didn’t take too long, the changes it would suggest took a lot longer than you would think it would work for a high-quality AI editing tool.
- User Control: Despite the user-friendly interface, it did take a little bit of getting used to when working with the platform. It requires a bit of trial and error, which, if you have the time, you might not have an issue with this.
- Over Enhancement: While the enhancement tool is one of the best things about the software, it sometimes tried to over-enhance the video to the point it looked weird and unnatural. You’ll have to tweak the settings to adjust this.
- Quality Limitations: The software does a pretty good job of enhancing the quality of videos, but it still has its limitations. It can’t magically create a perfectly clear video from a blurry one, so setting realistic expectations for the software is important.
- Source Content Limitations: I found the software works best with standard video footage. In my opinion, it didn’t do nearly as well with more artistic styles of videos, heavily edited video clips, or computer-generated images, but you might disagree.
Is Topaz Video Enhance AI for You?
With so many video editing software on the market, knowing which one to purchase and use for your videos can feel challenging.
That’s why it helps to read reviews from people who’ve tried the software to see if you can determine if it’s right for you. Remember that your experience with a specific software won’t always be the same as everyone else’s. You have to read reviews and often try the software yourself.
Why You Should Consider Topaz Video Enhance AI
There are many reasons why you should consider using Topaz Video Enhance AI for your video editing process. The main explanations you might want to consider implementing this software into your editing repertoire include the following:
- It has a user-friendly interface.
- Produces high-quality videos
- It can save you a lot of time.
- It can restore older video footage.
- You have more flexibility and customization options.
- Topaz offers regular software updates with new features.
- You have ongoing support from Topaz Labs’ customer service.
Why Topaz Video Enhance AI May Not Be Your Best Choice
Despite having some excellent features, there are some reasons why you might not want to invest your money and time into working with Topaz Video Enhance AI. Besides the shortcomings I mentioned earlier, these are the main reasons this won’t be your best choice.
If You Have an Outdated or Slow Computer
Topaz Video Enhance AI has very specific computer requirements that allow the software to not only run but run smoothly on your computer. For those with an outdated computer or one that doesn’t meet the minimum requirements, this software won’t be worth it.
Not meeting the minimum requirements will cause the software to either not work at all on your computer, or if you manage to get it downloaded, it will malfunction when you try to use it. You’ll want to put off trying this software until you get a more updated computer or a new one with the recommended hardware specifications.
If You’re a Highly Experienced Adobe Premiere Pro User
While Topaz Video Enhance AI is an excellent tool for people to enhance their video footage, if you consider yourself someone with a lot of experience in Adobe Premiere Pro, then you might not find this software useful.
It has some great features, but Premiere Pro is more comprehensive, and if you have the skillset and know how to work with Adobe well, then spending your money on this additional software isn’t worth it for you.
For anyone with more editing experience, going with a tool other than Premiere might seem like a downgrade. That doesn’t mean you can’t use it, though.
If You’re a Purist
Last but not least, if you consider yourself a purist, then there’s nothing that you’ll appreciate about this software. Or, if you understand it in the sense that you don’t care that other photographers and videographers use it, but it’s not for you, then it’s not what you’ll want to use.
Purists don’t believe in over-editing or enhancing video too much, and especially don’t use AI to alter their works because it takes away from “natural” images or video frames. Purists won’t enjoy working with Topaz Video Enhance AI unless they’re breaking free from their purist views on the craft and are ready to experiment with new software.
Deep Dive Into Topaz Video Enhance AI Features
Now that you have a decent overview of Topaz Video Enhance AI, let’s take a deep dive into the features, how to install the software, and more.
Installation & Setup
The installation and setup of the Topaz Video Enhance AI are pretty straightforward and simple as long as you have any basic computer knowledge. Here’s a quick glimpse of how to install the software onto your computer:
- Purchase the software from the Topaz Labs website.
- Download the software to your computer.
- Download the installer and click on it once it’s finished downloading.
- Run the Topaz Video Enhance AI software installer and follow the directions as prompted.
- Follow all the on-screen instructions.
- Complete the installation
Setting up the software is even easier once everything is downloaded onto your computer. You’ll open the software via the desktop shortcut icon. From there, you have to activate the software based on your license and subscription that Topaz Labs provides you.
Importing, Browsing, and Organizing Video Clips
Before you can run the AI technology on your video footage, you’ll need to import the video into Topaz Video Enhance AI. To do this, you’ll need to make sure that the video footage is uploaded to your computer somewhere so you can access the file.
You’ll launch the software and then navigate to the “file” tab, where you’ll see an option to import files. From here, you’ll click on the video footage you want to use in Topaz Video Enhance AI.
Once you upload the video or videos that you want to work with, you can easily browse them and organize them in the catalog interface.
The Catalog Interface
The catalog interface allows easy navigation of all the video footage you uploaded into the software. You can categorize it by the date you imported it, the name of the footage, and more. Regardless, it makes it easy to keep track of all your video footage in one place as you edit it to the quality that you want.
Exploring the Editing Interfaces
hen you choose to use Topaz Video Enhance AI software, there are multiple editing interfaces that you can use. The software comes with a standard editing interface, one for AI and one that includes all the presets that are included in your purchase of the software.
Standard Editing Tools
You can go to the standard editing interface once you import a video file into Topaz Video Enhance AI. This area allows you to make adjustments to the video on your own accord and toggle the settings based on what you think the video needs. Some of the features of the standard editing interface are:
- Noise reduction
- Resolution settings
- Temporal enhancement
- Sharpness
- Pre-processing options
AI-Driven Editing Tools
Besides all the manual editing tools that you can use with Topaz Video Enhance AI, there are AI-driven editing tools. These are some of the main reasons the software appeals to photographers and videographers. Here’s a look at the AI editing tools and what they can do for your videos when you use this software:
- Detail Enhancement: Topaz Video Enhance AI goes frame by frame through your footage to pick out details that need enhancing. It can improve the texture of the footage and find hidden information that you might not have picked up on.
- AI Upscaling: Thanks to AI technology, you can use this software to upscale the video. It will maintain the quality of your video if you’re happy with it and enhance the overall quality if you’re not. It will create new pixels to help improve the quality and produce a higher-resolution video.
- Artifact Removal: Compression artifacts can ruin your video footage, and Topaz Video Enhance AI can easily remove these with its AI technology. It analyzes the video and removes artifacts that will improve the overall quality.
- Noise Reduction: The software uses AI tools to denoise any video footage that you import. It can automatically reduce the artifacts and grain when you shoot in low-light areas or with high ISO settings. This allows for a smoother and cleaner video.
- Motion Optimization: The best part of all the AI editing features is that it has motion optimization. It aims to keep all the natural movements in the video so that it doesn’t turn out to look overly AI. It enhances the video without taking away from the original flow of the video.
The Presets Interface
Lastly, the reasonably new preset interface with Topaz Video Enhance AI exists. It’s pretty minimal, but it provides some decent presets you can choose from if you want to play around with them rather than manually adjust the settings or use AI technology.
The presets range from different levels of sharpness, contrast, resolution, and more. While this is a great tool to have, it won’t work on most video footage, and your best bet is to manually adjust the settings yourself or utilize the specific AI technology.
Once you find a combination of settings you like, you can create your own presets and save them in the preset interface. Creating your own presets and adding them to the interface is great for having multiple videos shot in the same lighting. Still, you don’t want to have to adjust every video file individually.
The Power of Topaz Video Enhance AI Extensions
As of now, Topaz Video Enhance AI doesn’t have any official extensions. That isn’t to say that there won’t be any coming out in the future, but there are none as of now.
Performance and Output Sharing
The performance of the software is pretty good as long as your computer meets the minimum hardware requirements for the software to run. Even with the bare minimum requirements, it did process videos of larger file sizes a bit slower than you’d think it would, but overall the performance isn’t bad.
Pricing and Purchasing Topaz Video Enhance AI
Topaz Video Enhance AI isn’t free software, but knowing the price and comparing it to the features you want can help you determine if it’s worth the money for you and your videos.
That said there are always discounts running at Topaz where you can get $50-100 off the retail price. So keep an eye out.
Cost of Topaz Video Enhance AI
If you want to purchase Topaz Video Enhance AI, it will cost you $299 on the Topaz Labs website. This includes a year of free upgrades, and then after that, you might have to pay for software updates, but it will be less than what you initially paid for the software.
You can try the software for free for a limited time to see how well you like it. You don’t get all the features with the free version, though.
Special Discounts and Offers
At the time of writing, no discounts and offers are included in your purchase of the Topaz Video Enhance AI software, but that doesn’t mean they don’t run promotions throughout the year. You might just have to keep checking with them to see any price drop for the software.
User Support for Topaz Video Enhance AI
When it comes to using a platform like Topaz Video Enhance AI, knowing that there’s customer support there when you need it is vital. Topaz is a great company that provides all its customers with different backing on various topics.
Topaz Video Enhance AI for MacOS and Windows
Since Topaz Video Enhance AI is software, there are bound to be times when you run into issues. When you run into technical problems, you can contact Topaz Labs customer support for any questions that you might have.
You can contact them via live chat and email with any questions, comments, or concerns that you might have. They also have plenty of helpful guides online that go over everything from troubleshooting the software to the different filters and understanding the different preferences available on the software.
Learning Topaz Video Enhance AI: Is It Hard?
Whether you think learning how to work Topaz Video Enhance AI is hard or not will depend on your skill level with technology and just you as a person. Most people would agree that learning how to work Topaz Video Enhance AI isn’t challenging.
As with all editing software, there will be a learning curve, primarily if you haven’t worked with AI editing tools before or with videos. The good news is that it’s pretty simple once you catch on, and they offer a course and helpful guides so you can learn how to use the software the best way you can.
Preview of the Topaz Video Enhance AI Course
The Topaz Video Enhance AI course shows you everything you need to know about working with the software. It goes over everything from the beginning, like how to install the software and get started, and then how to use the various tools to get the perfect video edit that you’re looking for.
Alternatives to Topaz Video Enhance AI
I think many people will enjoy working with Topaz Video Enhance AI, but if you want to browse your options before committing to this editing software, here are two alternatives you might want to consider.
Sometimes, you might feel like using Topaz Video Enhance AI for certain videos and then the alternatives for others.
Premiere Pro’s AI Upscaling
That’s right. The video editing software giant also has features that use AI to their advantage. The Content-Aware Fill for Video is Premiere Pro’s tool in charge of updating the low-resolution frames of the video, and using AI to transform them into higher resolution frames. This works by analyzing all the pixels in the frame, and generating content (other pixels) that would seem to fit in the area.
Aiseesoft Video Enhancer
Aiseesoft Video Enhancer is another editing software that allows you to adjust the noise and resolution and upscale your videos without compromising on the natural motion of the videos. It’s the most similar to Topaz Video Enhance AI of the alternatives I’ve brought up, but it does lack some of the most advanced AI technology.
It’s great for beginners, but if you have any interest in using AI to enhance your videos, then you might be better off with Topaz Video Enhance AI.
The Future of Topaz Video Enhance AI: Roadmap and Expectations
It’s hard to say for sure what the future of Topaz Video Enhance AI holds, but if I had to predict anything, I’d say it’s here to stay. I’m sure that creative minds will continue to build upon their features as AI technology improves.
What added features will come out in the future is unknown, but it could possibly have to do with more precise AI editing tools, adding in features with AI technology that videos are missing, and more.
Only time will tell what the future holds for the Topaz Video Enhance AI editing software.
Since Topaz Labs is known for releasing software updates for most of its products, I’m sure we’ll continue to see updates to the software as technology advances.
Verdict: Is Topaz Video Enhance AI Worth It?
So, what’s the verdict on Topaz Video Enhance AI? It’s an excellent tool for videographers who aren’t pros at Premiere Pro, or any other software and are looking for a way to streamline their editing process. While it’s not for everyone, a lot of people can benefit from the editing tools that Topaz Labs piled into this editing software.
Situations Where Topaz Video Enhance AI Shines
Topaz Video Enhance AI shines as an AI video editing software in many ways. It’s one of the best on the market for those just getting into using AI to edit their videos.
It provides you with a simple and user-friendly interface which makes editing even more straightforward. It also shines with motion optimization because it will edit your video without taking away from the natural movements that the video features. Other areas that this video editing software shines are:
- Easy enhancement
- Detail sharpening
- Noise reduction
When Not to Buy Topaz Video Enhance AI
As great as Topaz Video Enhance AI is, there are a few reasons why it might not be the best idea for you to buy. Some of those reasons:
- You have more experience with Adobe Premiere Pro
- You don’t appreciate AI tools or have no interest in using them
- You don’t want to pay for a tool you aren’t sure you’ll use often
Conclusion
Topaz Labs is a brilliant creator when it comes to editing software, and the Topaz Video Enhance AI is no different from their other creations in that respect. It allows you to upload your video footage and use AI tools to automatically adjust the quality, sharpness, resolution, and noise so you can have clearer video in your finished product.
It’s an excellent option for beginners looking to get into AI video editing because it has a user-friendly interface, is pretty affordable in comparison to others, and has plenty of helpful guides online to allow you to create the best videos possible.
Overall, Topaz Video Enhance AI is a solid choice for those looking to experiment with AI video editing.
