Topaz Denoise vs Lightroom NR

timo wrote:

Is Topaz DeNoise AI really much better than the standard noise reduction slider in Lightroom? I've been playing with the trial version, and it seems to me that with careful manipulation of the settings with both programmes you end up with pretty much the same result - certainly close enough that the difference would not be obvious on a screen or in a pretty large print. Have people generally found the cost of the Topaz plugin worthwhile?

I have tried to like these AI functions - but for me noise isn't the issue others make it out to be. For one I the printing services and my own prints come out nicer if I don't remove noise in the first place, I just need to make sure I don't sharpen the noise (which the mask in LR does perfectly nice, assisted by pressing the option/ALT key while configuring the mask you can see where the sharpening will be applied, limit it to the subject and you often don't need additional noise reduction.

The other problem is one of consistency across the subject. My subjects are often hairy (butterflies, spiders, bees, other insects, animals) and there I have seen failure after failure through those AI driven noise reduction because they often fail to provide a decent translation from background to subject (so whiskers, hairs, leg protrusions are often either obliterated or surrounded by remnants of the noise - both equally destructive). Worse still, some areas like the eyes are often treated to high noise reduction and thus lose a lot of detail that was originally captured. So for me these tools are not worth the hassle.