Adobe has announced that it’s acquiring Topaz Labs. Anybody in post-production knows Topaz as create some of the best video and image enhancement models, denoising and upscaling tools in existence. I don’t think I’ve met a professional editor in years who does not, or has not at some point used some of the Topaz products. Topaz Labs isn’t just plug-ins for video editing applications, but they also make stand-alone desktop apps, and have recently gotten into a suite of web apps which are incredibly useful to use right through a web browser. They also recently released a panel for Adobe Premiere, which brought the Topaz tools directly inside Premiere. Perhaps we should have seen that foreshadowing today’s announcement. But there are many panels available for Premiere.

One thing that Premiere has been missing that the competitors have is good noise reduction and very high quality upscaling. I don’t think it’s unusual for Adobe to acquire products that Premiere might need, as we saw with Adobe’s acquisition of Film Impact. That said, this acquisition of Topaz Labs isn’t just about bringing new tools to Premiere, as Topaz works wonders with still images, as well as moving images. I would expect Topaz integration across the entire Adobe product line.

The question is: How will the standalone tools and the web apps continue to be supported and developed under new Adobe ownership? There are a lot of people using Topaz that have not and do not touch Adobe products. And there’s also a Topaz plug-in for DaVinci Resolve so what’s the future of that product?

All these are questions that will have to be answered.

Here’s more information about this Adobe Topaz Labs acquisition from the Adobe press release.

• Adobe has seen strong demand for its AI products for creatives, including Adobe Firefly, the all-in-one creative AI studio, and Firefly Services, a collection of creative and generative APIs and services for enterprises

• The combination of Topaz Labs, which specializes in developing industry-leading video and image enhancement models, with Adobe’s leading creative products will provide creators, designers, video professionals, photographers and enterprises the tools to achieve exceptional quality across every format and workflow

• Topaz Labs brings deep expertise in optimizing large, complex AI models to run directly on device, a capability that will allow Adobe to deliver faster, more responsive creative experiences for customers and make advanced AI more accessible and cost effective for creatives

And the execs have spoken as well!

“Adobe Firefly, Firefly Services and Creative Cloud offer the industry’s best creative tooling and top AI models for creators and brands, and we’re excited to build on the strong demand for these products with Topaz Labs,” said David Wadhwani, President, Creativity & Productivity Business, Adobe. “Creators are creating more content by mixing captured and generated images and video, and with Topaz Labs we will give every creator the quality and control to easily produce that content at higher quality and resolution.”

“Building technology to make images and videos look their absolute best has been our life’s work for more than twenty years,” said Eric Yang, CEO of Topaz Labs. “We’ve always believed that technology should serve human creativity rather than replace it — and so has Adobe. Together, we believe we can dramatically expand what’s possible for filmmakers and creators everywhere.”