Gigapixel AI Review - Is Gigapixel AI Worth It

When it comes to upscaling images, maintaining quality can be a challenge. Whether you are a photographer, designer, or hobbyist, you want images that look sharp and professional—even when enlarged. That's where tools like Gigapixel AI come into play. But is it the best option available?

In this Gigapixel AI review, we'll explore what Gigapixel AI offers, how it performs, and whether it's worth the investment. We'll also consider its limitations and why you might be looking for alternatives. By the end, you'll have a clear understanding of whether Gigapixel AI is right for you, or if there's a better choice for your needs.

Key Takeaways

Gigapixel AI offers powerful AI-driven upscaling with advanced features like face recovery, multiple AI models, and intuitive batch processing. While it excels in preserving details, its price and performance requirements might be a concern for some users. For those seeking a more affordable alternative, Aiarty Image Enhancer provides similar features at a lower cost, making it worth considering if budget is a priority. Check out our detailed review on this Gigapixel AI alternative.

Pros & Cons

When considering whether Gigapixel AI is the right choice, it's important to weigh its strengths and weaknesses. Below, you'll find an overview of the key pros and cons to help you decide if it suits your specific needs.

What Does Gigapixel AI Do

Gigapixel AI is an advanced AI image upscaling software designed to enhance the quality of low-resolution images. Powered by artificial intelligence, it allows you to enlarge photos while preserving details that typically get lost during upscaling. Whether you're a photographer looking to print larger images or someone who needs to improve old photos, Gigapixel AI offers a solution to make your visuals sharper and more detailed.

Gigapixel AI Requirements

Before diving into Gigapixel AI, it's important to know whether your system can handle it. Gigapixel AI is available for both Windows and macOS, but it requires a relatively powerful setup to run smoothly. Check Gigapixel AI minimum requirements below.

Installation and Setup

It's simple to install Gigapixel AI. Download the software from the Topaz Labs website for Windows or macOS, and follow the prompts in the installation wizard. Make sure your computer is connected to the internet during installation, activation, and updates. However, you don't need an internet connection to use Gigapixel AI after setup.

One thing to note: the model files are double-zipped, so there's a model-downloading process during the installation. For a smooth installation, temporarily disable any antivirus, firewall, or VPN, as they may interfere with downloading model files. Once installed, you can activate your license, purchase the application, or use a free demo.

Usability and Interface

Gigapixel AI offers a clean and intuitive interface, making it easy for both beginners and professionals to navigate. The software is divided into several key sections: the main menu for preferences, a preview area to compare images before and after enhancement, and a file list to show all the imported images. The filters panel is where you can adjust essential settings, such as image scaling, noise suppression, and blur removal, giving you full control over how much enhancement is applied. Batch processing is also available, allowing you to work with multiple images at once.

Key Features and Functionality

Gigapixel AI offers a range of features designed to upscale and enhance images with precision. These features are the criteria for evaluating whether this AI image enhancer meets your needs.

1. Resize Mode

Resize Mode is the core function of Gigapixel AI, allowing you to change image resolution by up to 600%. There are two methods to let you resize your image: use a multiplier of up to 6x or input a custom dimension depending on your needs. You can also use the 1x scale to enhance your image without upscaling.

This Resize mode also provides a Pixel Density option to give you full control over the upscaling process. You can set the PPI or PPCM value you need here. The software intelligently resamples images while preserving details and minimizing artifacts with AI algorithms.

2. AI Models

Gigapixel AI offers several specialized AI models, each crafted to handle different types of images and enhance specific features with precision. These models work by analyzing the image's characteristics and applying adjustments that best suit the content, from preserving natural textures to restoring lost detail in compressed or low-resolution files.

• Standard: Overall recommended model. Best for most photos, graphics, and generated images, balancing sharpness and detail retention.
• High Fidelity: Maintains original image details without creating distortions, perfect for preserving the natural look.
• Low Resolution: Ideal for upscaling very low-resolution images, screenshots, images pulled from the web or images with 72 PPI.
• Text & Shapes: Optimizes text clarity and shapes, ideal for logos, graphic design, images with street signs, or text on architecture, automobiles, etc.
• Art & CG: Enhances digital artwork, drawings, illustrations with artificial textures.
• Very Compressed: Repairs highly compressed images at a small size, scanned images, or old digital images, reducing visible artifacts.
• Lines: Optimized for images with strong edges, like architectural drawings, cityscapes, and any image with thick lines.
• Recovery (Beta): Focuses on detail restoration, best for images under 1000 px on its longest side. It is recommended that your computer has at least 6GB of VRAM.

3. Settings

Gigapixel AI provides advanced settings that allow you to fine-tune your image enhancements. These settings include:

• Sharpen: This option helps you minimize motion or lens blur, making your images appear crisper and more defined.
• Denoise: This option can slightly reduce noise in grainy or low-light photos.
• Fix Compression: This option is only available with Standard and High Fidelity models. It's specifically designed for fixing JPEG artifacts and other issues caused by image compression to improve details.

You can adjust these settings using an intensity slider with a custom value from 1 to 100.

4. Face Recovery & Selection

When enabled, Gigapixel AI's Face Recovery feature will scan across the entire image for human faces, then categorize them into high confidence faces (with blue colored box) and low confidence faces (with gray colored box). This is particularly useful for improving portraits or group photos.

• Select Faces to Recover: You can manually choose which faces to enhance, focusing only on those that need improvement.
• Version: You can select between different versions of the face recovery model, depending on the image type and the result you wish to achieve.
• Mode: Gigapixel AI offers two modes—Realistic Mode for natural-looking results, and Creative Mode, which generates additional details.
• Face Recovery Strength: This slider lets you control the intensity of the recovery process, from subtle improvements to stronger corrections.

These settings give you flexibility to recover and fine-tune facial details based on your needs.

5. Gamma Correction

The Gamma Correction feature processes your image in a higher gamma color space. This adjustment is particularly useful for images with highly saturated colors or those taken in low-light conditions. It helps reduce color bleed and enhance the details in darker areas of the image. By toggling this option in the Filters Panel, you can achieve more balanced and accurate results, especially when working with high-contrast images.

Exporting and Outputting

Once you've finished enhancing your images, Gigapixel AI offers a variety of export options. You can choose to save your images in popular formats such as JPEG, PNG, and TIFF. Additionally, you can adjust the compression settings to control the file size and quality. Gigapixel AI also supports batch exporting, allowing you to process multiple files at once with the same settings, saving time and effort. This flexibility ensures that your final images meet both quality and size requirements.

Performance and Real-World Examples

To test the capabilities of Gigapixel AI, I ran several images through the software, covering a variety of scenarios—low-resolution photos, compressed images, and high-noise pictures. Each type presented unique challenges, and the results varied depending on the image. Below, you'll find detailed comparisons showing how Gigapixel AI handled each case, offering insight into its real-world performance.

Review Test 1 - Wildlife

The upscaling process seems to have enhanced the clarity without compromising the natural feel of the image. The details on the bear cub's fur stand out well. The bokeh provides a beautiful contrast to the focused subject, drawing attention to the bear while maintaining a soft, harmonious backdrop. The lighting seems slightly enhanced, giving the bear a clearer presence. The subtle shadows and highlights on the bear's body appear slightly more pronounced.

Review Test 2 - RAW Portrait

The image looks natural, with no overt signs of over-processing that can sometimes occur with heavy-handed upscaling. The balance between sharpness and smoothness is nicely maintained, and the upscaling effectively enhances details without introducing unwanted artifacts. There's a noticeable smoothness to the background, and any potential noise in the darker areas has been handled well. However, the fine details, particularly in the subject's hair and skin texture, are quite pronounced.

Review Test 3 - Architecture

As you can tell, the lines of the buildings, especially the sharp edges and reflective surfaces, look clean and defined. The contrast between the dark buildings and the brighter sky is handled smoothly without unnatural transitions. The sky and some uniform surfaces appear smoother, indicating some degree of noise reduction by the AI.

Review Test 4 - Anime

The details on the character's outfit, particularly the straps and metallic accents on the belt and shield, stand out more clearly. The glowing effect of the sword is retained and looks even more pronounced and vivid after upscaling. The forest background looks smoother and less noisy. However, the edges around the character and the sword may seem slightly too sharp in some areas, which could make the image look less natural. Some finer textures in the forest foliage seem slightly washed out.

Support and Documentation

Gigapixel AI comes with extensive support and documentation to assist users. The official Topaz Labs Help Center provides detailed user guides, FAQs, and troubleshooting tips. Additionally, the software includes a well-organized in-app help section, making it easy to access instructions while using the tool. For further assistance, users can submit support tickets or engage with the community forum, where both Topaz staff and other users actively provide guidance.

Is Gigapixel AI Worth It

Gigapixel AI offers two pricing tiers. The Personal version of Gigapixel AI is priced at $99, which includes 12 months of updates. For commercial use, Gigapixel Pro is available at $499 per seat annually for individuals, or $1,999 annually for teams of 5 or more. For those unsure, a free trial is available, allowing you to test the software's capabilities before making a commitment.

It's no doubt that Gigapixel AI offers powerful AI-driven upscaling and enhancement. However, its price may feel steep for some users, especially those with tighter budgets or less powerful computers. If that's the case, there are some good Gigapixel AI alternatives on the market that provide competitive image enhancement features at a more affordable rate.

Final Verdict

Gigapixel AI is a powerful tool for anyone looking to enhance and upscale their images. Its AI models, intuitive interface, and advanced features like face recovery make it a top choice for both professionals and enthusiasts. While the price and system requirements may deter some, the software's ability to maintain detail and improve image quality is unmatched. For those needing a budget-friendly alternative, other options are available, but Gigapixel AI remains a strong contender for top-tier image enhancement.

Gigapixel AI Alternative

If Gigapixel AI doesn't meet your needs or budget, Aiarty Image Enhancer is a strong alternative. Priced at $75 for a Standard License and $99 for a Lifetime License, Aiarty offers a more affordable option with comparable AI-driven upscaling features. It's a 4-in-1 process, so you can maximize your efforts by letting the AI do the heavy repetitive work and focus on the creative part.

1. Denoise

Image noise is often a problem. It used to be a very hit-and-miss affair trying to find the best denoising settings. But with the advanced AI technologies, Aiarty Image Enhancer offers content-aware functionalities and automatic adjustments.

Aiarty's advanced AI algorithms can distinguish between noise and important details, preventing over-smoothing and ensuring a natural look. It handles low-light or high-ISO noise effectively, removing noise from images while preserving intricate details. The performance is fast, even when processing large batches of pictures, and the quality of the denoised images is consistently high.

2. Deblur

The main challenge with deblurring an image is to not introduce unwanted artifacts like halos and noise. Aiarty Image Enhancer is designed for this. It excels at transforming blurry images into high-definition without introducing artifacts.

By analyzing the textures and patterns within the image, Aiarty can intelligently reconstruct a sharper version of your photo. It fixes motion blurs, lens blurs, and out-of-focus issues, making compressed and hazy pictures appear sharp and clear. The performance is efficient, and the quality of the restored images is superior, with no graininess or pixelation.

3. More Details

The finer details of an image can make a significant difference in the overall visual impact. The strength of Aiarty Image Enhancer is that it not only preserves details but also generates more vivid details.

Aiarty's More Details model is designed to generate realistic and natural details, especially for skin, hair, and textures. Whether enhancing at 1x or upscaling 2x, 4x, or 8x, Aiarty preserves all elements and creates necessary details, bringing out details that were previously hidden or indistinct. It excels in providing razor-sharp clarity and improved textures, making low-quality images look professional.

4. Upscale

Topaz Gigapixel AI offers upscaling up to 6x, but the process can be slower and requires high-end hardware for the best results.

Aiarty Image Enhancer can upscale images to 8x stunning resolutions, up to 32K on Windows and 16K on macOS. The generative AI models excel in enhancing intricate textures such as skin, hair, fabrics, and other fine details, ensuring that every element in your image looks sharp and realistic. It's perfect for creating high-quality prints, wallpapers, and posters. The upscaling process is efficient, maintaining image clarity and detail without introducing pixelation. Aiarty's performance is optimized for speed, even with high-resolution outputs.

5. Speed

In addition to the core features, Aiarty Image Enhancer offers a range of additional tools and capabilities, including batch processing. While Gigapixel AI supports batch processing, its performance can degrade significantly with large batches, especially on lower-end hardware.

On the other hand, Aiarty Image Enhancer excels in batch processing, handling large volumes of images efficiently without significant slowdowns. Thanks to the special optimization for various hardware, it maintains speed and reliability even under heavy usage. In our test, Aiarty can process 3000 images with 1024x1024 resolution per hour on average while maintaining a lower hardware usage than Gigapixel. That makes Aiarty well-suited for professional use, catering to photographers, designers, and other high-demand users who need to process numerous images quickly and effectively.

See our detailed Aiarty vs Topaz test and review.

Aiarty Image Enhancer - Gigapixel AI Alternative

• 4-in-1 AI image enhancer, denoiser, deblurer, and upscaler
• 8x AI enhancing up to 32K(Win)/16K(Mac) with better details
• AI models for any image type, incl. JPEG, PNG, RAW...
• Intuitive UI with no artifacts, limitations or quality loss
• Fit different budgets with a free trial and subscription options

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