[Leica] Leica 50mm Apo-Summicron-M & Topaz's AI Gigapixel

[Paul Roark]

Yes, with Topaz AI Sharpen I am detecting non-random patterns in the red
channel in clear blue skies, at least when viewed on my monitor (which I
trust).

My Sony a7rii images seem to be much cleaner than the Fuji compact's
images.  I'm guessing there are artifacts in their different OEM RAW file
formats' compression algorithms that are causing the artifacts.

I have not done any printing with black and white images that utilized the
red channel that had been processed with the AI Sharpen software.  So, I
can't comment on the real world impact, but I have seen enough to never use
this software until just before printing, and then only on a copy file so
that my original is not damaged.

I have a lot more trust in the Topaz AI Gigapixel 2 times enlarge, which
has nearly the same sharpening effect without the artifacts I'm seeing with
AI Sharpen.  But, again, I would not use this until just before printing
and then saved as a different named file.  (In fact, Topaz automatically
saves the processed files with a term in the name that identifies the
process used.)

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com