Adobe has completed the acquisition of the AI company Topaz Labs as of September 23, 2026, just over three months after the initial announcement in June. The software company is integrating Topaz’s award-winning image and video sharpening directly into Photoshop and Firefly. Topaz will remain as its own brand with independent apps.
Photoshop and Firefly first adopt the sharpening technology
Topaz Labs has specialized in AI models for image and video editing for more than twenty years. They upscale low-resolution photos, remove image noise, stabilize shaky videos, and generate additional frames for slow-motion shots. The underlying technology is called Neurostream and runs either on the user’s own computer or via a cloud service from Topaz, as Adobe states in the announcement blog post. A part of it is already integrated into Photoshop and Firefly. Users can upscale photos and generated images directly there without installing an additional app. As long as an existing Creative Cloud subscription is active, there are no additional costs for this built-in sharpening. The tools will next be more deeply integrated into Premiere and Lightroom, for example, for restoring archival material and brightening underexposed shots. Adobe has not yet provided a fixed timeline for this, only mentioning the coming months. For creatives in Germany and the rest of the EU, there is no change in availability: Photoshop and Firefly run there under the same Creative Cloud subscription as in the USA.
Topaz remains its own brand, founder moves to Adobe
Unlike complete product shutdowns, the independent Topaz apps will remain available for the time being. Photo AI, Video AI, Gigapixel, Astra, and Bloom will continue to run unchanged for desktop, web, and mobile devices. Existing customers are said to retain the same support level as before the acquisition, according to company statements. The prices of the standalone apps also remain unchanged as of now. Topaz founder and CEO Eric Yang is moving to Adobe’s digital video and audio team. His company was awarded an Emmy for video technology in 2025 because the upscaling technology maintains a natural image impression even at high magnification. “Technology should serve human creativity, not replace it,” Yang commented to PetaPixel regarding the acquisition. Already in June, at the first announcement of the deal, Adobe manager David Wadhwani emphasized that creatives are increasingly mixing recorded and generated material. They need more quality and control over the outcome. Adobe and Topaz Labs did not disclose a purchase price at either point in time. Even before generative AI became a mass phenomenon, Gigapixel and Photo AI were already considered standard tools for professional photographers and filmmakers. Adobe apparently wants to secure this reputation by maintaining the independent brand instead of quickly dissolving Topaz like smaller acquisitions.
Creative community reacts with skepticism to the acquisition
On the photography portal Fstoppers, users express skepticism in the comments. Adobe has often only continued acquired technologies independently until they were fully integrated into its own subscription system. It remains unclear, for example, whether the independent Topaz apps will require a Creative Cloud license in the long term. It is also uncertain how local processing via Neurostream will fit into Adobe’s otherwise heavily cloud-based strategy, which usually shifts the computing load to its own servers. The acquisition is also part of a series of AI acquisitions by the software company. Just in September, Adobe expanded its offering for automated marketing agents with the purchase of the AI startup Rilo, also without a published purchase price. At Rilo, Adobe shut down the independent platform as soon as the six-person team was integrated into its own marketing offering. In contrast, Adobe has publicly committed to the continued existence of the Topaz apps. Whether this promise will hold over the years cannot be assessed based solely on previous announcements.
It will be crucial whether the independent Topaz apps retain their current prices and local processing permanently or whether Adobe gradually integrates them into the Creative Cloud subscription. The next concrete test will be the announced integration into Premiere and Lightroom, for which Adobe has not yet provided a date.
