Recently (mid June 2026) Adobe announced that it intends to acquire Topaz Labs. Assuming the deal gets regulatory approval, Topaz will become part Adobe in the latter half of 2026.
Here’s a link to the incredibly boring and legal-marketing-speak announcement if you need a nap today. 🙂
But, since that announcement, I’ve received a bunch of messages asking my thoughts and what it could mean for us photographers, so I figured I’d let you know what I think (which isn’t much to be honest).
I’d also be interested to hear your comments and what you think this all means so feel free to leave one below.
Don’t Expect Anything Soon
First, I think a lot of people automatically assume that every Topaz feature will magically appear in Lightroom next week. But I doubt that’s the case and remember that the press release reads “The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2026”. In the short term, I don’t think you’ll see any changes.
Adobe Isn’t Buying a Photography Company
This is the first thing I think is easy for us photographers to overlook. Sure, Adobe makes Lightroom and Photoshop. Those are the products we use. But Adobe isn’t primarily a photography company.
It’s a global software company serving photographers, graphic designers, filmmakers, marketing teams, agencies, publishers, Fortune 500 companies, educators, and enterprise customers. Its decisions are driven by a much broader market than photography alone.
The same goes for Topaz.
Most photographers know Topaz for Photo AI, Gigapixel, and its sharpening and noise reduction tools. But Topaz has also invested heavily in AI models for video, web services, cloud infrastructure, and technologies that help large AI models run efficiently on local hardware. Those capabilities have value way beyond photography.
In fact, if you went through Topaz’s website menu you’d see: Photo AI, Web apps, Astra, Premier Panel, Topaz Video, Gigapixel, and Enterprise solutions. Of all of those Photo AI and possibly the web apps are the only things of interest to photographers – so basically 2 categories out of 7.
In other words, Topaz does A LOT more than photography. After watching their direction and product releases over time, I’d actually bet Topaz has been positioning itself for an acquisition for years now.
So I think Photography is definitely part of this acquisition, but it’s only one part and possibly a small one.
Why Adobe May Want Topaz
Adobe has obviously been aggressively investing in AI over the recent years.
Topaz seems to fit that strategy. Adobe has traditionally done well with building complete creative workflows and Topaz has done well with specialized enhancement models: Upscaling, Noise reduction, Sharpening, Video restoration.
In many of those categories, Topaz has some of the best results available. And as you probably know, Adobe has already partnered with Topaz by integrating some of its AI models into Photoshop and Lightroom (neither of which I like the implementation of). So the two companies were already working together before this acquisition. I’d guess that this acquisition simply brings more of that technology in-house.
Does This Mean Topaz Is Going Away?
Obviously I don’t know anything more than you do. But based on Adobe’s announcement, no I don’t think so. Adobe has said that Topaz’s products will continue to be available as standalone applications, and Topaz CEO Eric Yang will continue leading the team.
“After the transaction closes, Topaz Labs customers of all sizes can expect continued support and investment in future innovation and Topaz Labs products will remain available as standalone offerings through the company’s website. Upon close, Topaz Labs CEO Eric Yang will continue to lead the Topaz Labs team.”
Could that change someday? Sure. But today there’s nothing I’ve read that Adobe plans to immediately eliminate the standalone products.
The Possibilities for Lightroom
This is where things could get interesting. Imagine opening Lightroom or Photoshop and finding:
- Better AI sharpening.
- Better AI noise reduction.
- Better image upscaling.
- Faster local AI processing.
- Higher quality detail enhancement.
Those improvements could absolutely come from Topaz technology. In fact, Adobe has specifically said it wants to expand Topaz’s enhancement models “across Firefly and the Creative Cloud”. Whether those improvements arrive this year or three years from now is another question. Large acquisitions usually take time before customers notice any impactful changes, if any at all.
What About Pricing?
This is probably the biggest concern I’ve heard and who the heck really knows right? It’s not like they’re going to announce an acquisition and tell everyone that pricing is going up.
I get it, and it’s understandable that people worry whenever software companies merge.
Sometimes acquisitions lead to better integration. Sometimes they lead to new subscription models. And Sometimes almost nothing changes. At this point, I have no idea.
My Biggest Hope
Personally, I’m more interested in seeing fewer reasons to leave Lightroom.
Today’s workflow for many photographers looks something like this:
- Lightroom
- Topaz
- Back to Lightroom
If Adobe can bring more of those enhancement tools directly into Lightroom, that makes editing simpler.
But here’s the big kicker… I don’t mean the crappy Vegas Slot Machine-like Generative Credit thing we have today.
Photoshop and Lightroom (not Classic) now have Topaz upsizing and sharpening as options. But they cost you a ridiculous amount of your credits for a poor experience. And if you haven’t heard my thoughts, just watch the last 2 minutes of this video (start video at 10:10).
I’ll save you the time though. I think it’s an extremely poor use of the tools and I hate to mention it because I don’t want to encourage anyone to use it. Don’t get me wrong… Lightroom and it’s developers are fantastic. I have to assume Topaz, and their developers, are great. And I doubt either side – if you asked them honestly – actually think this implementation is a good thing for you and I.
That’s not the integration I’m looking for. I want to click on Noise reduction or sharpening, natively and with a seamless experience, and have it work great and not have to worry about it costing me extra.
But Let’s Keep Some Perspective
One thing I always try to remember is this: Software doesn’t make great photographs.
Great photographs still come from:
- Good light.
- Strong composition.
- Interesting focal points.
- Intentional and tasteful editing.
Whether Adobe owns Topaz or not doesn’t change those fundamentals. It may make certain tasks faster, or improve image quality and workflow. But it won’t replace the creative decisions that actually make an image compelling.
Wrapping Up
Overall, I think this acquisition has the potential to be positive for photographers. Adobe gains some great AI technology. Topaz gains the resources of one of the largest creative software companies in the world. And hopefully, all of that means we end up with better tools inside Lightroom and Photoshop while Topaz continues to innovate.
That said, I also think it’s important to remember that both Adobe and Topaz serve markets much larger than photography (Enterprise customers, video creators, AI services, cloud infrastructure, and commercial creative teams).
As I wrote earlier, photography is an important part, but not the only one by far.
Why This News Doesn’t Interest Me Much As a Photographer
For me, I guess I’d say that overall this is interesting news, but that’s about it.
First, I started using Topaz apps for noise reduction in my wildlife photography. Eventually Adobe added this feature that does nearly as good as Topaz does in most cases.
But I was always honest in saying Adobe’s noise reduction didn’t work as well for me for very high ISO photos that needed a lot of cropping – I felt the results looked a little painterly. So for those photos (maybe 10-20% of what I ever edit) I used Topaz – until they raised their pricing to crazy levels last year. That said, they did do right by their existing users and grandfathered them in to a good yearly price, so I can’t be too salty about it. Also, I’d suggest you don’t give up that pricing if you have it because you’ll never get it back.
But for new users, I started recommending DxO PureRaw for noise reduction. It was cheaper and no subscription, and didn’t have a bunch of other features that I didn’t want that Lightroom already did better.
As for sharpening, I used Topaz a little but sharpening was never a big deal in my workflow. If the photo isn’t sharp, you can’t make it sharp. Now, Topaz did have some pretty crazy AI sharpening tools but a lot it was generative ai based. So the detail you added back wasn’t the real detail in your photo, and that doesn’t interest me (as a hobbyist photographer) very much.
Upsizing has never been high on my list of priorities as Adobe always did fine for that in my opinion. And I don’t do video, or work with AI art, or Premier – nor am I an enterprise business – so nothing else Topaz has really interests me.
As a user that sometimes uses Topaz as a plug-in, I do hope this technology makes its way (NATIVELY) in to Photoshop and Lightroom to the point where I don’t have to worry about the very poor credit implementation system that they have now.
But that’s about it. I don’t want to sound negative but I’m just indifferent with very few expectations from this. I just believe whatever results come from it, I would have been able to get before pretty easily. So while this may be a great thing for Adobe and Topaz, it’s just not something I think affects our world that much.
And I’ll close by saying I could be 100% wrong. Everything you’ve read here is my opinion and I have absolutely zero information on this other than reading the same press release you did 🙂
Thanks and have a good one!
I love teaching and photography... In that order. I feel that enjoying photography, and photo editing can get WAY too complicated. So my personal mission (and favorite thing to do), is to create education that simplifies the process of taking great photos, and how to edit them to get the results you’ve always wanted.
An informative and well thought response. I expect many looked at the headline and jumped for joy at the prospect of Topaz becoming part of Lightroom and Photoshop add-ons at no extra charge. This has brought them down to reality with a resounding bump.
Thank you for your comments on this subject. You helped to put a reality check on the possible expectations for this change. I have taken many of your online courses and appreciate your insight.
Thanks for your honest feedback Matt. I have taken a bunch of your online courses on birding and lightroom workflow so i listen when you review photo trends and products,
Hi
I have been using Topaz for a few years now but I am thinking of packing it in as a 94 year old it’s getting
Way to expensive for me I may try Dxo pure Raw
When Topaz was new I got very good support help from them. Haven’t needed to use it since. Adobe’s support is extremely poor. Can’t understand the accent, and they can’t fix anything. I tried for years to get Bridge fixed and still have to use a workaround which was their only solution. Apple has improved their help a lot. Why can’t Adobe?
I use Topaz Denoise, sharpen and Gigapixel by far the most and they are the BEST. I do not use Topaz complete editing software as I want to do each of those jobs my way and not in the auto type edit. I hope Adobe keeps these Topaz filters available to use as separate filters
Thank you for all your advice and comments as new software comes out.
The one Topaz feature I use almost daily is Topaz Studio2. This hasn’t been supported for a few years, but it still works. It is the best way to give different artistic looks to my photos. Textures, watercolor or oil painting effects, and so forth. I’m sad to say that I haven’t found a good substitute “out there.” I have Boris Optics, and have paid for a few “watercolor” Chat GPT descriptors that are okay. Also have “photographyBB” autoplays, which are pretty good, but not as convenient. I have been trying to find a better option, but so far, not so good. Comments?
Hi Nancy. I don’t know of any alternatives that you didn’t already mention. But you’re using software that has been discontinued and will likely not get updated again. So I’d continue to use it as long as you can. Thanks.
The quality of Topaz products has gone downhill rapidly over recent years as aggressive private equity exit plans have put the emphasis on marketing hyperbole over quality software development. The acquisition by Adobe will simply provide Adobe another opportunity to pilfer resources from creatives with needless AI slop.
Don’t they call that enshitification? 🙂
Matt,
Thanks for bringing clarity and perspective to the whole merger thing. Probably no hard news until 2027.
Tony
I make photobooks and these are often from photos I took many years ago. Some are family history with scanned B & W of poor quality in old albums over 100 years old. Others taken on color film & scanned in locations I am no longer able to revisit.
In these photos I use Topaz a lot and the results are excellent. A big improvement from the results I can get only using Lightroom Classic.
I purchased Topaz when it was first released so the cost is acceptable. I would not renew if the current cost was charged.
Matt, thanks once again for your inciteful comments.
I just wish Adobe would provide a scaled down version of PS (and LrC?) for hobbyists and enthusiasts – those who don’t need all the bells and whistles, and who aren’t making money from their photography – that didn’t cost so much. I wish they would better support those on their creative and learning journey. Much as I detest subscription models, I’d be happy paying it if I was paying only for what I was using, and not paying for everything I wasn’t. A pay per tool option, perhaps?
As far as the Topaz acquisition, I’ve never used it. Prices only ever go up, and I expect the same will happen for Topaz users, though I’m sure Adobe will add functionality to it so that customers feel like they’re getting an improved product.
Hi Veronica – just curious. What is the cost you’d like to pay each month? They have a more basic version of Lightroom Classic called Lightroom. It runs around $10-11 per month. How much would you expect to pay? $11 a month seems like the cheapest thing in the photography world compared to what we spend on everything else 🙂
You are so good!!!!!!
Matt,
I really appreciate your candor as much as your expertise when reviewing Adobe software upgrades and modifications. Without you I couldn’t keep up. My hope going forward is that Adobe acknowledges that LR has become singularly important to those of us who are digital photographers. I think that’s a huge market segment,
I cut my digital image teeth on Photoshop, but haven’t used it in almost a decade, and there’s absolutely no reason to think that will change. And, I’m hopeful the Topaz acquisition will result in editing options that exceed all of our expectations. All I ask is that my Adobe subscription options do not require me purchase apps that I do not need. Photoshop is now one of those apps.
Richard
I’ve been a LRC and PS user and grandfathered in on the $9.99/mo forever. I’m sure they would love for me to “forget” to update but they’ll have to pry it out of my cold dead hands first. Similarly an early Topaz PhotoAI user. I find their upscaling and sharpening tools to be excellent. I’ve had wildlife photos with extreme thermal noise (hot day, ground thermals) that made an otherwise perfect photo look like it was shot through a coke bottle for a lens. These were put in my “junk” folder for a future look – then along came Topaz’s tools. They have absolutely salvaged these and other “oopsies” and upscales and turned them into razor sharp, upscaled, no painterly look to them. As a result, many of the images in “junk” folder turned out beautiful and a couple have become money makers for large size prints on metal.
I subscribe to Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop and also to Topaz Photo and Topaz Gigapixel. I have used the latter for some older pictures and some that I wanted to heavily crop. I hope they figure out an equitable pricing model for these. I love editing pictures and hope they don’t make it too complicated to use or too expensive.
Thank you for sharing your analysis.
Great thoughts, thanks for your insight, and thank you for the videos!
My workflow starts in LRC. With the latest updates in LRC, their denoising feature has improved by leaps and bounds, especially with high-ISO images. In my Nikon Z6III, I have one setting specifically for birding: shutter speed at 1/2,500 sec, f/11, 400mm lens, and Auto ISO. Then in post, I usually have to crop the image to get the desired result. Because of this, I usually take the photo into Topaz Photo (as a plug-in), which does an excellent job sharpening it, and then back into LRC. I occasionally take a photo from LRC to PS, where I use Topaz as a plug-in, make the changes, export back to PS, and then back to LRC. I do this primarily to cut down the number of edited files in LRC.
After the last Topaz update, I suddenly could not use this workflow. I went to the Topaz website help screen and read that it no longer supported the plug-in (LRC>PS>Topaz). And then, as mysteriously as it disappeared, it returned. A real head-scratcher!
If Adobe were to add Topaz Photo as an additional app and my supcription increased from $14.99 to $19.00 each month, that would be ok. Then I wouldn’t have to pay the $84/year for Topaz.
I recently purchased Topaz Photo and use it regularly, especially for improving old printed photos and scans of very old 35mm negatives. They gave me a full year of unlimited AI credits so that is not an additional expense for me. I find Topaz generally does a better job than OnOne Photo Raw Max for some AI operations. The AI Repair function in all versions can generally do an amazingly good job and depending upon the photo do an amazingly poor job. AI for photos is an ongoing process for improvement. I have the full complement of Adobe applications, and use Photoshop and LightRoom Classic.
I totally agree with everything you said, Matt. Lightroom Classic’s NR tool has improved so much that I rarely use Topaz anymore – and I only used it originally for NR. This acquisition news did not trip my trigger unless it means seamless integration to LRc. When I click on “noise reduction” in LRc, I just want it to work!
Hi Matt – interesting post. Just wanted to add that I did beta testing for Topaz for years back when they were creating all the interesting plug in filters that creatives liked to use in Photoshop. Eric Yang and his father were really great to work with and I am sure their expertise will really help Adobe. It was a real disappointment to me and many others when Topaz decided to quit upgrading their Topaz Studio 2 and concentrate on just the AI aspects. It would be such a great improvement if Photoshop would incorporate some of these effects into the Filter Gallery, Parametric Filters (in Beta), or Neural Filters for the creative aspect that Photoshop affords. Just one of the options I see as a possibility. Thanks for writing about this really big concern for most of us.
thanks very much Matt. Your analysis makes perfect sense.
Matt,
Thanks for the informative analysis. I really appreciate you sharing your insight.
Keep up the great work. You ROCK!
Thank you Matt, I am one of your fan club and follow you for a long time. I appreciate your comments about Topaz and Adobe. I use Topaz since you advertised it a few years ago and my subscription stays decent. I use Topaz for almost all my pictures, I don’t always trust their Auto AI diagnostics and modify it, most of the time reduce their Auto findings. I will continue to use them until LR and PS improve their own noise reduction and sharpening. Thank you for your info and feeling.
I’m just hoping that Adobe doesn’t raise the rates again, I’m not sure I would’nt jump the ship.
Matt, thank you for this email and your intuitive thoughts. My Photography interests and workflow seemed to be very similar to yours. I have always appreciated your input. You have clarified a few more thoughts for me about interchange between Adobe Lightroom and Topaz.
Thanks again.
Matt,
Thanks for your valuable insight. I agree with your analysis of the situation. As you, I only occasionally use Topaz for the (few) things it does better than LightRoom Classic — but it DOES do a great job. Hopefully, Adobe will seamlessly integrate the best features of Topaz so we can all enjoy the best of all worlds.
Agreed. I m a 70 year old guy who loves wildlife and landscapes. I needed something to do after retiring so I bought my first real camera R6II.I crop so I just bought the R5II.
For most of us, (hobbyist) EVERYTHING IS FAR TOO EXPENSIVE AND HARD TO USE…
Lr is what I started with, after 3 years I m finally getting around but using just the basics.
The price has increased 3 times.
I m now wanting to learn LrC as it appears to have more options.
That’s why I signed up for your email.
Does your LrC course include the 2026 changes??
Topaz and Ai is a poor replacement for great skills needed to produce great images.
I m not willing to pay for a photo a software app produces.
I like the challenge of seeing the results of the efforts I invest in this exciting hobby.
Hi. I’m curious… I still pay the same $9.99 a month that started back in 2013. What plan do you have and what’s the price?
As for Topaz, I kind of disagree. High ISO is high ISO and will affect the photo as well as tight crops that may lose resolution (upsizing and sharpening will be needed). That doesn’t mean I did anything wrong though, and was any less skillful than I needed to be does it? Put simply, you can do everything the right way, take a great photo… and still need noise reduction, sharpening and/or upsizing. Great photography and needing those tools are not mutually exclusive. Thanks.
I’m not pleased because I have used plug-ins in the past when the software program was purchased – and then the user interface was ruined. It became harder to use, and more expensive. I have a subscription for Topaz; as of now my plan is grandfathered in. I use only a few of the Topaz options and I would prefer that they remain as plug-ins so that I have a simple choice about whether I want to use them or not.
I use LRC so the new interface in LR doesn’t affect me (yet) but I hope if it is incorporated into LRC it won’t be as clunky and costly as the interface with LR. I hope, also, that Adobe isn’t moving away from continuing to support both LR and LRC.
Thanks for your insights, Matt. Your perspective is very helpful because, more often than not, every analysis is a virtual sales pitch.
Great article Matt, I choose to grandfather in Topaz with only Gigapixel as I was only using PhotoAi and still do for sharpening my mistakes, it will be interesting to see future changes in LrC, however my main denoise/sharpen pre-edit tool is dxo pureraw