{"id":5385,"date":"2026-02-01T16:29:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T00:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/plugsandpixels.com\/blog\/?p=5385"},"modified":"2026-02-02T07:16:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T15:16:38","slug":"blow-it-up-on1-vs-topaz-for-restorative-upscaling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plugsandpixels.com\/blog\/blow-it-up-on1-vs-topaz-for-restorative-upscaling\/","title":{"rendered":"Blow it up! ON1 vs. Topaz for restorative upscaling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you’re like me you have decades of old photos in your collection, from scanned prints and negatives to lo-res early digital captures clogging up a hard drive. These beloved images do not hold up well technically in today’s hi-res digital world, but thankfully the software exists to salvage these challenged shots to the point where the viewer might not notice the difference between old and new.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Two of my favorite apps for doing restorative upscaling are ON1’s Resize 2026<\/a><\/strong> (standalone and part of the Photo RAW<\/a><\/strong> suite) and Topaz Gigapixel<\/a><\/strong> (offering both local and cloud processing). Since I am a long-time “friend” of both developers, my goal is not to favor one over the other but to present the results of each test where they fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s start with the lowest form of digital imaging, a flatbed scan from a small print… This 1997 original was printed at 3×5, which I scanned several years ago at 200ppi. I do not have the negative for this image:<\/p>\n\n\n

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Here is a comp, as seen at 50% in Photoshop, of the results of 6X enlargements from 3 different Topaz cloud models (Wonder v1, Wonder v2, Recover v3) and the Highest Quality settings available in ON1’s local-only processing. In this case, Topaz’ Wonder 2 provided the best results (upper right):<\/p>\n\n\n

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Now let’s continue climbing up the evolutionary scale of digital quality to hi-res scans from 35mm film, in the following cases, photos shot in the early-to-mid 1990s. Here is the full-frame of a couple of giraffes at a zoo in Texas, reduced, for reference:<\/p>\n\n\n

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Now another Photoshop view (at 100% this time) of the same apps and models (using Topaz’ Recover 2 this time). Once again, I think Topaz’ Wonder 2 at upper right provided the most natural and accurate results overall:<\/p>\n\n\n

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This alligator was also found in a zoo, and again shot on 35mm film. Here is the full frame for reference:<\/p>\n\n\n

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For this and the rest of the results I will present 100% screenshots of a small section of each image for comparison (please open in a new tab or window and view full size). Here is Topaz Gigapixel<\/a><\/strong>‘s Redefine>Realistic result:<\/p>\n\n\n

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Now ON1 Resize<\/a><\/strong>. I am leaning toward this as being the better result overall:<\/p>\n\n\n

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For the last film scan example we head west to Catalina Island where the celebrity seagulls model for photographers! Here is the full frame:<\/p>\n\n\n

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This is a crop of the Topaz Gigapixel<\/a><\/strong> Recover v2 result at 4X:<\/p>\n\n\n

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And a crop of the ON1 Resize<\/a><\/strong> result. Each version has its strengths and weaknesses \u2013 Resize is softer overall but doesn’t have the artificial texture on the right side. So the nod goes to Gigapixel (above):<\/p>\n\n\n

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Now we switch to a 2014-era 16MP capture from a Nikon COOLPIX L810 (non-DSLR). Here is the full frame:<\/p>\n\n\n

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This is a crop of the Topaz Gigapixel<\/a><\/strong> Recover v2 result at 100%:<\/p>\n\n\n

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And a crop of the ON1 Resize<\/strong> result. This one is clearly the winner:<\/p>\n\n\n

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Some may consider the use of AI generative imaging a regression of our digital progress, but we need to include these as well! The first example is from 2021 where I was using NVIDIA’s online Canvas app to manually draw an oceanside scene I imagined while it previewed and rendered in real time:<\/p>\n\n\n

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I simply cropped this screenshot to the rendered preview and ran it through both Topaz Gigapixel<\/a><\/strong> and ON1 Resize<\/a><\/strong> at 4X. Here is the Resize result (100% view):<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Gigapixel Redefine>Realistic result is very similar:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gigapixel has the advantage of much more flexibility of model options and model setting choices than Resize. This is what becomes of the scene when a higher level of Redefine>Creative is applied:<\/p>\n\n\n

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This same approach holds true for the next DiffusionBee AI-generated example from a year ago, shown actual size here:<\/p>\n\n\n

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I turned on face recovery in both apps. First, the ON1 Resize<\/strong> result at 4X:<\/p>\n\n\n

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Now Topaz Gigapixel<\/a><\/strong> with the Recover v3 model:<\/p>\n\n\n

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Then Gigapixel with a higher level of Redefine>Creative applied:<\/p>\n\n\n

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Finally \u2013 whether or not you like the concept of generative AI, we can all agree that using digital zoom on an iPhone is not a good idea! But I did that anyway for this hazy SoCal sunset shot, shown here full-frame. Even when zoomed, the subject (the sun and clouds) is too far away:<\/p>\n\n\n

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I cropped to the sun and clouds area in Photoshop and used that resulting crop for upscaling. Topaz Gigapixel<\/a><\/strong> Recover 3 (left) and ON1 Resize<\/a><\/strong> (right) gave pretty much the same result:<\/p>\n\n\n

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I needed to go into Gigapixel’s Redefine>Creative to coax some life out of this mush at 2X:<\/p>\n\n\n

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After a visit to Photoshop for some spotting and color correction, I brought the result into ON1 Photo RAW<\/a><\/strong> for some creative post-processing (which Topaz does not offer), including preset-based color adjustment, vignette and tilt-shift bokeh:<\/p>\n\n\n

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Another iPhone digital zoom source with restoration using Gigapixel Redefine>Creativity, a comp of High and Max:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I had come to this conclusion before, but for the best results salvaging and restoring your older images, you need both Topaz Gigapixel<\/a><\/strong> and ON1 Resize<\/a><\/strong> (or Photo RAW)! Each has strengths and weaknesses that the other fills in. Don’t give up on your old, sad images, restore them with cutting-edge upscaling!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re like me you have decades of old photos in your collection, from scanned prints and negatives to lo-res early digital captures clogging up a hard drive. These beloved images do not hold up well technically in today’s hi-res digital world, but thankfully the software exists to salvage these challenged shots to the point Read more about Blow it up! ON1 vs. Topaz for restorative upscaling<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5442,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,25,31,4,7,1],"tags":[281,1408,1409,900,854,634,927,860,1240,1414,437,1327,385,1411,66,172,922,1412,182,1406,201,8,86,38,689,1314,184,77,215,439,453,118,153,173,806,764,1413,1407,1410],"class_list":["post-5385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","category-photography","category-post-processing","category-reviews","category-software","category-uncategorized","tag-ai","tag-ai-models","tag-alligator","tag-birds","tag-bokeh","tag-catalina-island","tag-cave","tag-clouds","tag-diffusionbee","tag-digital-zoom","tag-forest-fire","tag-generative","tag-gigapixel","tag-giraffe","tag-image-enhancement","tag-iphone","tag-nvidia-canvas","tag-oceanside","tag-on1","tag-on1-software","tag-photo-raw","tag-photoshop","tag-portraiture","tag-post-processing","tag-recover","tag-redefine","tag-resize","tag-seagull","tag-smoke","tag-socal","tag-sunset","tag-texas","tag-topaz","tag-topaz-labs","tag-upscaling","tag-vignette","tag-waterfall","tag-wonder","tag-zoo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/plugsandpixels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/plugsandpixels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/plugsandpixels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plugsandpixels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plugsandpixels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5385"}],"version-history":[{"count":49,"href":"https:\/\/plugsandpixels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5466,"href":"https:\/\/plugsandpixels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5385\/revisions\/5466"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plugsandpixels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/plugsandpixels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plugsandpixels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plugsandpixels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}