Adobe acquires Emmy-winning Topaz Labs to boost AI enhancement tools across Creative Cloud

Adobe acquires image and video enhancement tool maker Topaz Labs

Adobe on Thursday said it is acquiring Topaz Labs, which offers AI models for video and image enhancement, and that will make it a part of its creative business. Topaz Labs, which won an Emmy last year for its production tech, has existed for more than two decades, making tools for enhancing videos and images. In recent years, the company has released its own models: Astra for AI video upscaling and Wonder for image retouching and enhancement. The startup has also worked on a technology that makes it easier to run large video models on consumer-grade GPUs. Adobe, which already offers some of Topaz's tools in its Creative Cloud suite, said it will integrate Topaz's models into its Firefly AI app as well as other parts of its image and video editing suites. Adobe said Topaz's offerings will be available as standalone services through its website. Deepa Subramaniam, VP of product marketing for Creative Cloud at Adobe, said professionals who want to combine real-life footage with AI clips can use Topaz's products for tasks like sharpening details, reducing noise, or restoring archival footage. "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 experiences for customers and make advanced AI more accessible and cost-effective for creatives. In addition, Topaz Labs is trusted by professionals of all creative crafts - from designers and video professionals to photographers and enterprise creative teams," Subramaniam said in an emailed statement. Adobe has been in fierce competition with Canva and DaVinci Resolve-owner Blackmagic Design in the image and video editing space. Adobe has been stuffing AI into all of its apps and has also created an AI-centric media editing studio with Firefly. By acquiring startups like Topaz Labs, Adobe wants to keep its users from turning to other software for video editing and enhancements, encouraging them to stick to its ecosystem. Adobe said the transaction will close in the second half of 2026.

Adobe to acquire Topaz Labs for AI enhancement

Adobe is buying Topaz Labs, the Emmy-winning maker of AI image and video enhancement tools. The deal hands Adobe upscaling, restoration and on-device AI as creators blend captured and generated footage. Adobe has agreed to buy Topaz Labs, an AI company that sharpens, upscales and restores images and video. The two firms signed a definitive agreement, though neither disclosed the price. The plan is to fold Topaz Labs' models into Adobe's creative tools. That means Firefly, Firefly Services and Creative Cloud apps such as Photoshop, Lightroom and Premiere. Adobe wants to bolt best-in-class enhancement onto products millions already use. The timing is not random. Creators increasingly mix real footage with AI-generated clips, and they need tools to hide the seams. Topaz Labs makes exactly that kind of tool, and Adobe wants it in-house. What Topaz Labs does Topaz Labs has spent more than twenty years on one problem: making images and video look their best. Its models upscale low-resolution files, sharpen soft detail, remove noise, stabilise shaky footage, interpolate frames and restore old footage. The products are well known and widely trusted among professionals. They include Topaz Photo, Topaz Video, Topaz Gigapixel, Astra and Bloom. The company says millions of customers use them, including 20 of the world's 50 largest companies. The tools show up across a wide range of work. They cover professional filmmaking, documentary restoration, social content, photography and archival projects that drag old footage into the 4K era. The work has won real recognition. Topaz Labs picked up a 2025 Emmy for its video technology, the kind of credential that matters to the filmmakers and studios Adobe is courting. Customers already include the production house Asteria Film Co and the documentary maker Robert Stone. The on-device angle One Topaz Labs asset stands out: a technology called Neurostream. It lets large, complex AI models run locally on consumer devices, rather than only in the cloud. That matters more than it sounds. Most heavy AI video work has needed high-end machines or cloud servers, which adds cost and delay. Running it on a laptop cuts both. The industry is moving the same way. Apple and Google have pushed AI models to run locally on phones and laptops, chasing lower cost, lower latency and better privacy. Adobe is buying its way into that shift. "Topaz Labs brings deep expertise in optimizing large, complex AI models to run directly on device," Adobe said. The pitch is faster, cheaper AI for creatives who do not want to wait on a server. It is also about reach. Adobe casts Neurostream as a way to democratise advanced video models once limited to high-end systems or cloud-only use. If that holds, hobbyists and small studios get tools that only big budgets could run before, which widens Adobe's potential market. Why Adobe needs this Adobe sits under real pressure. Generative AI has upended image and video creation, and the company has bet its future on Firefly, its AI studio. Demand has been strong, but rivals are circling. The company has been buying and building fast. In recent weeks it expanded its Firefly creative agent across Photoshop and Premiere, launched a new image model, and pushed deeper into agentic tools at Cannes Lions. The Topaz Labs deal fits that spree. One of those rivals is directly relevant. Freepik, now rebranded as Magnific, built a profitable business partly on AI image upscaling, the same lane Topaz Labs owns. Buying Topaz takes a strong enhancement player off the board. The wider AI video market is volatile too. OpenAI shut down its AI video app Sora after costs ballooned, a reminder that flashy generation tools can fade fast. Enhancement is steadier ground. Whatever model makes the footage, someone still has to clean it up. That makes Topaz Labs a defensive buy as much as an offensive one. Generation models come and go, and new ones arrive every month. The job of sharpening, upscaling and restoring outlasts any single one of them, which gives Adobe a layer it can keep selling. "Creators are creating more content by mixing captured and generated images and video," said David Wadhwani, who runs Adobe's Creativity and Productivity business. "With Topaz Labs we will give every creator the quality and control to easily produce that content at higher quality and resolution." The Figma shadow Adobe knows the risk of a big deal going wrong. In 2023 it walked away from a $20bn deal for Figma after European and UK regulators raised competition concerns. The collapse cost Adobe a $1bn break fee and a year of effort. This deal looks smaller and less contentious. Topaz Labs enhances content rather than competing with a flagship Adobe product, so the antitrust case is harder to make. Even so, Adobe says the deal still needs regulatory approval before it closes. The company has framed the purchase carefully. It stresses continuity, not absorption, perhaps with the Figma saga in mind. What happens next Adobe plans to keep Topaz Labs running. Its products will stay available as standalone offerings through the company's website, and existing customers can expect continued support. The leadership stays too. Topaz Labs chief executive Eric Yang will keep running the team after the deal closes. He cast the tie-up as a shared philosophy, not a sale. "We've always believed that technology should serve human creativity rather than replace it, and so has Adobe," Yang said. It is a pointed line in a year when many creators fear AI will do the replacing. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2026, subject to regulatory approval and the usual conditions. Freshfields advised Adobe, while AXOM Partners and Goodwin Procter advised Topaz Labs. The strategy is clear enough. Adobe is buying the unglamorous but essential layer of AI creativity: the part that makes everything look good. It is a quieter deal than the Figma fight, but a telling one. Whether Adobe can absorb Topaz Labs without dulling what made it sharp is the question this deal leaves open.

Adobe Acquires AI Upscaling Specialists Topaz Labs

Adobe has today announced it is acquiring Topaz Labs, known for its professional-grade photo and video enhancement software. Topaz Labs' technology, which focuses on AI tools that improve the quality of images via upscaling, denoising, and sharpening, will aid Adobe as it competes against the likes of Canva and DaVinci Resolve. Based in Dallas, Texas, Topaz has been an established software provider for over two decades and is best-known for its upscaler Gigapixel and image enhancer Topaz Photo. TechCrunch notes that Adobe already offers some of Topaz's tools in its Creative Cloud suite, but will now fully integrate Topaz's models across apps like Photoshop, Lightroom, and its AI image generator Firefly. "With Topaz Labs, Adobe will expand its video and image model offerings with state-of-the-art AI enhancement models in Adobe Firefly, Firefly Services and Creative Cloud apps, giving creators, designers, video professionals, photographers, and enterprises the tools to achieve exceptional quality across every format and workflow," Adobe says in a press release. Last year, Topaz Labs won an Emmy for AI Image/Video Enhancement for High Quality TV Catalog Restoration as a part of the 76th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards. "With millions of customers, Topaz Labs and its Emmy Award-winning AI technology will be integrated across Adobe's creative AI portfolio, giving creatives the ability to enhance footage, restore and remaster archival content, and blend AI-generated and traditionally captured content into seamless final productions," Adobe adds. Adobe says that Topaz's services will still be available as a stand-alone on the Topaz Labs website. CEO Eric Yang will continue to lead the Topaz Labs team. TechCrunch reports that the deal is expected to close in the second half of 2026. "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," says 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."

What does Adobe's Topaz Labs acquisition mean for creatives?

Adobe went quiet on the acquisition front after its aborted attempt to buy Figma. More recently, it's been focusing on integrating third-party products into its creative software through collaboration rather than acquisition, but now it seems it might be on shopping spree again. Just a month after completing the acquisition of the brand visibility and SEO platform Semrush, Adobe's announced that it's buying Topaz Labs, the company behind several popular AI-powered tools for photo and video enhancement (see our Photo AI review and our guide to the best AI photo editing software). What does that mean for Adobe and Topaz users? Here's what we know so far. What is Topaz Labs? Topaz offers AI-powered tools for photo and video enhancement: not text-to-image generation, but specialist solutions for specific tasks like restoring and upscaling images. It has a trio of desktop apps: Topaz Photo, Video and Gigapixel. The first two offer a range of enhancement tools, such as face recovery, sharpening and denoising, while Gigapixel can upscale image resolution by up to 16x. The company also has corresponding web apps: Topaz Image Web, Astra for video and Bloom for upscaling. Topaz's upscaling software is widely seen as best around, and it's far superior to Adobe's own solution in Photoshop. Many creatives rely on Topaz Gigapixel to upscale photos and digital art for large-format printing. The software's also popular with users of AI image generators, which typically produce images at low resolutions. What does the Topaz acquisition mean for creatives? For now at least, the acquisition shouldn't affect users of Topaz's products. Adobe says Topaz's tools will continue to be available as standalone products separate from its Creative Cloud suite of apps. Topaz subscribers won't be forced to get an Adobe subscription. Topaz Labs CEO Eric Yang will continue to lead the Topaz Labs team, and the products will continue to receive support and updates. What the deal means for Adobe users is where things could get interesting. Select Topaz AI models have already been built directly Adobe's Photoshop and Premiere. Adobe will now save what it had to pay on a usage and API-consumption basis. I wouldn't be surprised if the acquisition also speeds up Topaz integration in other Adobe apps - some people would like to see Topaz upscaling brought directly into Lightroom, for example. According to Adobe's press release, the companies will expand Adobe's video and image model offerings with "state-of-the-art AI enhancement models" in Adobe Firefly, Firefly Services, and Creative Cloud apps. That should mean better upscaling and denoising for AI directly inside Adobe's software. But Adobe's not only interested in Topaz's existing apps. The company's expertise in AI could allow it to be used as an internal research lab to explore the creation of more AI tools. Topaz already has a proprietary technology called Neurostream that enables large, complex AI models to run locally on consumer devices. Access to this could allow Adobe to shift some AI workloads from the cloud to users' own devices, lowering infrastructure costs while delivering faster, more responsive previews and edits. How good this will be for users will depend on how Adobe implements it. In Photoshop, there are already some local AI features like the Remove Tool that can be used offline, but tools like Generative Fill are cloud-based. They run on Adobe's servers and require an active internet connection to generate elements or expand images. If Adobe can shift the most popular AI processes in Photoshop to users' devices, there's potential for greater privacy, more flexibility to work offline, and - dare I dream? - potentially the ability to pass savings on to users through reducing the expense of buying generative credits. What creatives are saying Unsurprisingly, the news of Adobe's Topaz acquisition is dividing opinion. Optimists see it a perfect match that bodes well for the creation of new AI tools. Some find it fitting that Adobe's now "buying the tool half of us use to fix what Adobe exports". Others have concerns. While there's a promise that Topaz tools will remain standalone for now, some fear that they'll eventually require a Creative Cloud subscription. There are also fears that the deal will lead to a new spate of consolidation in the software space with Adobe and other giants snapping up more smal standalone tools. "Topaz transitioning to a subscription model was already a rough pill for those of us who bought their stuff from the beginning, I'm not optimistic about what this will mean for us moving forward," one long-time Topaz user writes on X. "I've only been using Topaz products from within Adobe Photoshop -- Denoise, Sharpen, and Gigapixel. My only concern here is that Gigapixel is my alternative to the Firefly upscaler when Adobe's egregiously bad censorship refuses to run on an image," someone else worries. For those who try to avoid Adobe completely, they're now left searching for alternatives again (start with our guide to the best Photoshop alternatives). If you use Adobe or Topaz products, how do you feel about the acquisition? Let me know in the comments section below?

Adobe to Acquire Topaz Labs, as Demand for AI Tools Increases

Adobe has agreed to acquire Topaz Labs, which develops artificial intelligence-powered photo and video enhancement tools. Topaz Labs' AI models, which have won an Emmy Award, helps sharpen detail, remove noise, restore footage and increase resolution for tools that combine real-world photos with AI-generated imagery, Adobe said. With Topaz, Adobe will implement AI enhancement models in Adobe Firefly, Firefly Services and Creative Cloud apps, Adobe said. Topaz will also bring its proprietary Neurostream technology, which allows larger AI models to run locally on consumer devices. David Wadhwani, President, Creativity & Productivity Business at Adobe, said the acquisition comes as creatives increasingly mix captured and generated images and videos. Topaz Chief Executive Eric Yang will continue to lead the Topaz Lab team. The acquisition is expected to close in the second half of 2026.