Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
As creators we all have our favorite projects. For me one of these was a marketing video I did for PRS Guitars back in 2009. It had great production, fabulous interviews, powerful quotes from rock legends and the best ending quote for a video that I have ever produced. In a video about the magic of handcrafted guitars, English guitarist, Paul Allender says, "I got an advance from a record label and my entire advance went to buying a second hand PRS. I could live or I could buy the guitar. Fuck it. I bought the guitar and I'm hooked."
So the problem of sharing work like this in today's world of 4K video is that my master is in standard definition, 480. Remember those days? Nobody wants to watch that.
So how do you bring back the magic. Years ago I ran some tests with Topaz upscalers (widely considered the best for both photography and video). I was not impressed. Then about a year ago I explored their offerings again. They have come a long way with many specialized models for specific applications. Options for running locally and online, versions to run AI and add elements (all sorts of stuff). So I bought a full subscription to test again and this time I was impressed.
My main application was to up-rez still photos to use in AI workflows. Then render the AI videos in 720 to avoid the insane fees for rendering in HD or 4K. To my surprise this workflow worked incredibly well.
So then it got me wondering about the old work. The stuff that has magic but no one wants to watch because of the poor image quality. To my surprise it did a great job. This is a one pass of Topaz Video running the Proteus model locally, upscaling from 480 to 1080. Its not perfect but good enough to show. There is still some minor artifacting, especially in the text of the lower thirds. I could have clipped those sections out and re-run them with a graphics/text based model and then re-edit those sections back in. Honestly, to just show of some old work this one pass run was plenty for me.
So what do you think? If you have some old work laying around and want to show it off, give Topaz a try.
#prsguitar #topazlabs
As creators we all have our favorite projects. For me one of these was a marketing video I did for PRS Guitars back in 2009. It had great production, fabulous interviews, powerful quotes from rock legends and the best ending quote for a video that I have ever produced. In a video about the magic of handcrafted guitars, English guitarist, Paul Allender says, "I got an advance from a record label and my entire advance went to buying a second hand PRS. I could live or I could buy the guitar. Fuck it. I bought the guitar and I'm hooked."
So the problem of sharing work like this in today's world of 4K video is that my master is in standard definition, 480. Remember those days? Nobody wants to watch that.
So how do you bring back the magic. Years ago I ran some tests with Topaz upscalers (widely considered the best for both photography and video). I was not impressed. Then about a year ago I explored their offerings again. They have come a long way with many specialized models for specific applications. Options for running locally and online, versions to run AI and add elements (all sorts of stuff). So I bought a full subscription to test again and this time I was impressed.
My main application was to up-rez still photos to use in AI workflows. Then render the AI videos in 720 to avoid the insane fees for rendering in HD or 4K. To my surprise this workflow worked incredibly well.
So then it got me wondering about the old work. The stuff that has magic but no one wants to watch because of the poor image quality. To my surprise it did a great job. This is a one pass of Topaz Video running the Proteus model locally, upscaling from 480 to 1080. Its not perfect but good enough to show. There is still some minor artifacting, especially in the text of the lower thirds. I could have clipped those sections out and re-run them with a graphics/text based model and then re-edit those sections back in. Honestly, to just show of some old work this one pass run was plenty for me.
So what do you think? If you have some old work laying around and want to show it off, give Topaz a try.
#prsguitar #topazlabs
