So if you want to geek out and do some pixel-peeping to see what this new interpolation tool has to offer, feel free to check out the video:
I did and found your video very interesting , thank you!
Maybe eventually the AI method will have a better data base to work from but the slow speed seems to be a big disadvantage.
Terry
Yeah, maybe it'll improve over time. I think it's a good option when you really need to push the pixels, even if those times may be rare these days with 24+ MP cameras. I honestly can't think of a time in the last few years where I've had a crop tight enough or a print big enough where I'd need something that heavy handed, but when trying to rescue an older or cell phone photo, it's a good option. It works well on "random" scenes like sunsets, landscapes, flowers, etc. but things like line art, faces, geometric patterns like wheels, can show "weirdness" because you are familiar with what they should look like. Meaning, you won't notice a random tree branch out of place, but the wrong eye color or mouth shape: that stands out.
Speaking of improving over time, I'm not clear on how they are doing their A.I. and whether or not they have an online database or a local one that just improves with each version. Either way, that brings up the issue of consistency and reproducibility: if you use it on the same image a week from now, will you get the same results? Not sure about that. I tried the new 1.1 version and while the same areas had similar anomalies, the anomalies looked "randomly different".
My suspicion is that you'll always be able to pick out some anomalies in recognizeable subjects because in order to keep the results sharp, they have to pick what type of missing information to insert... and there's just not enough data to determine that precisely. So the end result is that you either end up with something that is a bit soft (as with the math methods) or sharp but with some artifacts (A.I.). I do think the tool mitigates those artifacts quite well, so it's not like they ruin the image. Let's face it, by the time you get to the point where you see artifacts (or softness), you're really pushing the limits. And if you are NOT pushing the limits... you probably don't really need heavy handed methods anyway. Kind of a catch 22.
Mike