Adobe Denoise AI - sharpen first?

[Zeee]

I came across this video. Something I have tested a few times. Since Denoise AI came out I took all sharpening off, Denoised and then added it back. The last few months I have been leaving sharpening at the default of 40 but added Masking. Then I Denoised and tweaked sharpening, etc after.

Author said there was no difference. One thing I did notice. With the sharpened file he set Denoise to 63. Non sharpened to 50. 13 points difference. Just like manual Denoising the more you add the more detail is lost. I'm not sure how much difference 13 points really makes.

So this post is not so much about the video. What process/workflow do you use and why? What have you seen or found?

--
The Golden Grift

 

[Ab S]

..not a Adobe user but DxO and Topaz, i would say in general first denoise and sharpen. This sequence in order to avoid that you sharpen norse which can cause artefacts.

 

[Zeee]

..not a Adobe user but DxO and Topaz, i would say in general first denoise and sharpen. This sequence in order to avoid that you sharpen norse which can cause artefacts.

That makes sense in a global approach.

 

[Glen Barrington]

Denoise is a sort of blurring of the pixel edges. a decontrast of those edges, if you will.

Sharpening is ADDING contrast to edges, in general.

Now the new AI algorithms of each process, might (MIGHT) be smart enough to ignore the work of the other, particularly so when using processes from the same software publisher.

So, I suspect it might not matter all that much overall, but in certain situations, it might. I doubt there is a significant 'rule of thumb' that would work for everyone.

 

[Barleyman]

Unless it is obvious, I usually end up Denoising after I raise shadows.

With the generation of a DNG in this version of LR, I think it is best to Denoise First, then apply the edits, sharpening, etc after. Otherwise, any edits you do before Denoise can't be adjusted later.

 

[Zeee]

Unless it is obvious, I usually end up Denoising after I raise shadows.

With the generation of a DNG in this version of LR, I think it is best to Denoise First, then apply the edits, sharpening, etc after. Otherwise, any edits you do before Denoise can't be adjusted later.

I watched quite a few videos about the Basic and Detail panels. Making any adjustments in the Basic panel before Denoising does not cause any issues that anyone is/was aware of. So like you I have been making my adjustment there first.

For the Detail panel you can see what the effects will be if you apply any sharpening, etc. During the Denoising process it strips all your settings and applies them back when complete, except for any Manual Luminance or Color settings you may have applied.

Doing this both ways - Detail panel settings zeroed out or not I still seem a tad unsettled about which is the best approach. The reason I decided to start applying Detail panel settings before Denoising was the Masking slider. Applying masking to about 50 you can see how much difference that makes to the background. However I suppose the most important thing is the subject. You can tweak background noise later which I have done many times.

Thanks for your response. When viewing the Enhance dialogue box I'm going to try something different. I usually look at both the subject and background to find a good balance. I'm going to try both Sharpening and not Sharpening before Denoising and concentrate on the subject only.

 

[Jim B (MSP)]

Denoise is a sort of blurring of the pixel edges. a decontrast of those edges, if you will.

Sharpening is ADDING contrast to edges, in general.

This is certainly true before AI methods existed. You could just define a level of noise mathematically that a pixel intensity showed above a local average, then reduce it to the local average. Basically simple math.

Now the new AI algorithms of each process, might (MIGHT) be smart enough to ignore the work of the other, particularly so when using processes from the same software publisher.

And I have never read a good definition of what those AI algorithms do, and in what order they do them if there is sharpening involved. So if I really want to find out, I'd have to run a photo through the process multiple times varying the "sliders" in a consistent way. Then find an area or a detail to make comparisons on. That is a lot of work to do it right.

So, I suspect it might not matter all that much overall, but in certain situations, it might. I doubt there is a significant 'rule of thumb' that would work for everyone.

That is probably the best conclusion.

That said, I tend to denoise first in LR before I sharpen. Then if I "polish" in Topaz Photo, I let it decide what order things happen in.

--
Jim
"It's all about the light"

 

[Jacques Cornell]

I came across this video. Something I have tested a few times. Since Denoise AI came out I took all sharpening off, Denoised and then added it back. The last few months I have been leaving sharpening at the default of 40 but added Masking. Then I Denoised and tweaked sharpening, etc after.

Author said there was no difference. One thing I did notice. With the sharpened file he set Denoise to 63. Non sharpened to 50. 13 points difference. Just like manual Denoising the more you add the more detail is lost. I'm not sure how much difference 13 points really makes.

So this post is not so much about the video. What process/workflow do you use and why? What have you seen or found?

Basic long-time rule: Denoise and/or interpolate first, then sharpen, so as to avoid exaggerating noise or creating artifacts.

In Lightroom, we still face the decision whether to apply adjustments to RAW before Denoising or to DNG after Denoising. ACR already eliminates the need for an intermediate DNG, and this will eventually make its way to Lightroom, so this conundrum will go away some day.

In the meantime, yet another nice thing about DxO is that it works directly on the original RAW data and applies the various adjustments and processes in the appropriate order on export, so I never have to think about things like this.

I rely on the Lens Sharpness Optimization tool to handle global sharpening (think of it as Stage 1 "capture sharpening" in a 3-stage sharpening workflow), then export to Lightroom Classic, where I resize to target output size and apply Stage 3 "output sharpening" (auto-optimized for output size and media, nice!) when exporting a finished file for printing or on-screen display. If I wanted to apply Stage 2 "creative/selective sharpening", I'd do it after exporting the noise-reduced baseline master file from PhotoLab, probably using Nik Sharpener, but 99.9% of my sharpening is global, so I haven't bought Nik Sharpener yet.

 

[knickerhawk]

I came across this video. Something I have tested a few times. Since Denoise AI came out I took all sharpening off, Denoised and then added it back. The last few months I have been leaving sharpening at the default of 40 but added Masking. Then I Denoised and tweaked sharpening, etc after.

Author said there was no difference. One thing I did notice. With the sharpened file he set Denoise to 63. Non sharpened to 50. 13 points difference. Just like manual Denoising the more you add the more detail is lost. I'm not sure how much difference 13 points really makes.

So this post is not so much about the video. What process/workflow do you use and why? What have you seen or found?

Adobe's internal processing appears to always apply the denoise before applying whatever sharpening level is set. This can be confirmed by doing a difference blend in Photoshop, There is absolutely no difference showing up regardless of whether sharpening and related sliders are zero'd before denoising or first pumped up to desired post-denoising sharpening levels.

The foregoing implies that the better workflow is to use whichever approach makes it easier for you to hit the optimal denoising level (ideally) on the first denoising attempt. Re-running denoise multiple times and generating multiple DNGs wastes time and effort. Go with whatever pre--set sharpening level helps you with the denoise preview would be my suggestion. Of course, with ACR/Photoshop, the new workflow somewhat obviates this workflow issue. However, I've generally reverted to the old DNG-generation workflow for much of my work because I want the separate DNG anyway (sometimes multiple DNGs) for reasons of subsequent layering, masking and blending in Photoshop.

 

[knickerhawk]

I came across this video. Something I have tested a few times. Since Denoise AI came out I took all sharpening off, Denoised and then added it back. The last few months I have been leaving sharpening at the default of 40 but added Masking. Then I Denoised and tweaked sharpening, etc after.

Author said there was no difference. One thing I did notice. With the sharpened file he set Denoise to 63. Non sharpened to 50. 13 points difference. Just like manual Denoising the more you add the more detail is lost. I'm not sure how much difference 13 points really makes.

So this post is not so much about the video. What process/workflow do you use and why? What have you seen or found?

Basic long-time rule: Denoise and/or interpolate first, then sharpen, so as to avoid exaggerating noise or creating artifacts.

Yes, but this rule doesn't apply to the AI Denoise enhancement tool since Adobe's engine always applies the denoise step before applying whatever sharpening settings are pre-set. As I noted in my reply to Zee, this can be confirmed with a difference blend in Photoshop.

In Lightroom, we still face the decision whether to apply adjustments to RAW before Denoising or to DNG after Denoising. ACR already eliminates the need for an intermediate DNG, and this will eventually make its way to Lightroom, so this conundrum will go away some day.

Yes, but some of us actually want to generate and maintain DNGs, in which case the old ACR (and still current LR) method is actually desirable. It's good to know that the sharpening setting is always non-destructive, even in the old method.

In the meantime, yet another nice thing about DxO is that it works directly on the original RAW data and applies the various adjustments and processes in the appropriate order on export, so I never have to think about things like this.

You don't have to think about it in the Adobe products either.

I rely on the Lens Sharpness Optimization tool to handle global sharpening (think of it as Stage 1 "capture sharpening" in a 3-stage sharpening workflow), then export to Lightroom Classic, where I resize to target output size and apply Stage 3 "output sharpening" (auto-optimized for output size and media, nice!) when exporting a finished file for printing or on-screen display. If I wanted to apply Stage 2 "creative/selective sharpening", I'd do it after exporting the noise-reduced baseline master file from PhotoLab, probably using Nik Sharpener, but 99.9% of my sharpening is global, so I haven't bought Nik Sharpener yet.

 

[Jacques Cornell]

I came across this video. Something I have tested a few times. Since Denoise AI came out I took all sharpening off, Denoised and then added it back. The last few months I have been leaving sharpening at the default of 40 but added Masking. Then I Denoised and tweaked sharpening, etc after.

Author said there was no difference. One thing I did notice. With the sharpened file he set Denoise to 63. Non sharpened to 50. 13 points difference. Just like manual Denoising the more you add the more detail is lost. I'm not sure how much difference 13 points really makes.

So this post is not so much about the video. What process/workflow do you use and why? What have you seen or found?

Adobe's internal processing appears to always apply the denoise before applying whatever sharpening level is set.

Ooh, interesting. I guess that makes sense, since "adjustments" are simply commands whose effects are only temporary until export, and those commands could be ignored by the AI Denoise engine. Still, once you make the DNG, you're stuck with any adjustments you made before. For this reason, I'd be inclined to Denoise first, then adjust and sharpen.

Thankfully, DxO doesn't require this kind of strategery, and eventually Lightroom won't, either.

This can be confirmed by doing a difference blend in Photoshop, There is absolutely no difference showing up regardless of whether sharpening and related sliders are zero'd before denoising or first pumped up to desired post-denoising sharpening levels.

The foregoing implies that the better workflow is to use whichever approach makes it easier for you to hit the optimal denoising level (ideally) on the first denoising attempt. Re-running denoise multiple times and generating multiple DNGs wastes time and effort. Go with whatever pre--set sharpening level helps you with the denoise preview would be my suggestion. Of course, with ACR/Photoshop, the new workflow somewhat obviates this workflow issue. However, I've generally reverted to the old DNG-generation workflow for much of my work because I want the separate DNG anyway (sometimes multiple DNGs) for reasons of subsequent layering, masking and blending in Photoshop.

--
Event professional for 20+ years, travel & landscape enthusiast for 30+, stills-only.
http://jacquescornell.photography
http://happening.photos

 

[Jacques Cornell]

I came across this video. Something I have tested a few times. Since Denoise AI came out I took all sharpening off, Denoised and then added it back. The last few months I have been leaving sharpening at the default of 40 but added Masking. Then I Denoised and tweaked sharpening, etc after.

Author said there was no difference. One thing I did notice. With the sharpened file he set Denoise to 63. Non sharpened to 50. 13 points difference. Just like manual Denoising the more you add the more detail is lost. I'm not sure how much difference 13 points really makes.

So this post is not so much about the video. What process/workflow do you use and why? What have you seen or found?

Basic long-time rule: Denoise and/or interpolate first, then sharpen, so as to avoid exaggerating noise or creating artifacts.

Yes, but this rule doesn't apply to the AI Denoise enhancement tool since Adobe's engine always applies the denoise step before applying whatever sharpening settings are pre-set. As I noted in my reply to Zee, this can be confirmed with a difference blend in Photoshop.

Yeah, I just grokked this and replied accordingly. Thanks for the explanation.

In Lightroom, we still face the decision whether to apply adjustments to RAW before Denoising or to DNG after Denoising. ACR already eliminates the need for an intermediate DNG, and this will eventually make its way to Lightroom, so this conundrum will go away some day.

Yes, but some of us actually want to generate and maintain DNGs

Oh, God, that would add 10TB to my archive. Unless converting them all to lossy as finished masters kept alongside RAWs, which is an interesting prospect I've been pursuing in another thread.

Lossy compressed DNG for archiving

, in which case the old ACR (and still current LR) method is actually desirable. It's good to know that the sharpening setting is always non-destructive, even in the old method.

Well, if you sharpen or adjust before Denoising, the sharpening and adjustments are baked into the resulting DNG. And, if you Denoise first then adjust, and then you want to change the noise reduction, how do you re-apply those post-Denoise adjustments to the new DNG? Doesn't seem non-destructive to me. In working from RAW in DxO, I can go back to change anything at any time and simply re-export.

In the meantime, yet another nice thing about DxO is that it works directly on the original RAW data and applies the various adjustments and processes in the appropriate order on export, so I never have to think about things like this.

You don't have to think about it in the Adobe products either.

Really? Lightroom and ACR work differently. What about the question above?

I rely on the Lens Sharpness Optimization tool to handle global sharpening (think of it as Stage 1 "capture sharpening" in a 3-stage sharpening workflow), then export to Lightroom Classic, where I resize to target output size and apply Stage 3 "output sharpening" (auto-optimized for output size and media, nice!) when exporting a finished file for printing or on-screen display. If I wanted to apply Stage 2 "creative/selective sharpening", I'd do it after exporting the noise-reduced baseline master file from PhotoLab, probably using Nik Sharpener, but 99.9% of my sharpening is global, so I haven't bought Nik Sharpener yet.

 

[Zeee]

I came across this video. Something I have tested a few times. Since Denoise AI came out I took all sharpening off, Denoised and then added it back. The last few months I have been leaving sharpening at the default of 40 but added Masking. Then I Denoised and tweaked sharpening, etc after.

Author said there was no difference. One thing I did notice. With the sharpened file he set Denoise to 63. Non sharpened to 50. 13 points difference. Just like manual Denoising the more you add the more detail is lost. I'm not sure how much difference 13 points really makes.

So this post is not so much about the video. What process/workflow do you use and why? What have you seen or found?

Basic long-time rule: Denoise and/or interpolate first, then sharpen, so as to avoid exaggerating noise or creating artifacts.

Yes, but this rule doesn't apply to the AI Denoise enhancement tool since Adobe's engine always applies the denoise step before applying whatever sharpening settings are pre-set. As I noted in my reply to Zee, this can be confirmed with a difference blend in Photoshop.

Yeah, I just grokked this and replied accordingly. Thanks for the explanation.

In Lightroom, we still face the decision whether to apply adjustments to RAW before Denoising or to DNG after Denoising. ACR already eliminates the need for an intermediate DNG, and this will eventually make its way to Lightroom, so this conundrum will go away some day.

Yes, but some of us actually want to generate and maintain DNGs

Oh, God, that would add 10TB to my archive. Unless converting them all to lossy as finished masters kept alongside RAWs, which is an interesting prospect I've been pursuing in another thread.

About a year after Denoise AI was released Adobe changed the format to a compressed Jpeg XL. The resulting DNG now ⅓ the size of an actual DNG. No one has been able to spot any quality loss. Even at ⅓ size it may affect pros or hobbyists that process a lot of files. Since I'm happy with a handful off files it does not effect me. It didn't affect me either when it was a native DNG file size.

Lossy compressed DNG for archiving

, in which case the old ACR (and still current LR) method is actually desirable. It's good to know that the sharpening setting is always non-destructive, even in the old method.

Well, if you sharpen or adjust before Denoising, the sharpening and adjustments are baked into the resulting DNG. And, if you Denoise first then adjust, and then you want to change the noise reduction, how do you re-apply those post-Denoise adjustments to the new DNG? Doesn't seem non-destructive to me. In working from RAW in DxO, I can go back to change anything at any time and simply re-export.

If you open a RAW as a Smart Object you can go back into ACR add tweak the Denoise results as many times as you like. It still remains a RAW file. When you initially apply Denoise there are no settings to choose. It just applies it and you tweak later. There were some complaints about an approximate file size of 340% in the Enhance dialogue box. Now with ACR you can go to 100% or whatever size you like when tweaking so that solved that issue. LrC will get that as well.

In the meantime, yet another nice thing about DxO is that it works directly on the original RAW data and applies the various adjustments and processes in the appropriate order on export, so I never have to think about things like this.

You don't have to think about it in the Adobe products either.

Really? Lightroom and ACR work differently. What about the question above?

I rely on the Lens Sharpness Optimization tool to handle global sharpening (think of it as Stage 1 "capture sharpening" in a 3-stage sharpening workflow), then export to Lightroom Classic, where I resize to target output size and apply Stage 3 "output sharpening" (auto-optimized for output size and media, nice!) when exporting a finished file for printing or on-screen display. If I wanted to apply Stage 2 "creative/selective sharpening", I'd do it after exporting the noise-reduced baseline master file from PhotoLab, probably using Nik Sharpener, but 99.9% of my sharpening is global, so I haven't bought Nik Sharpener yet.

--
The Golden Grift

 

[knickerhawk]

I came across this video. Something I have tested a few times. Since Denoise AI came out I took all sharpening off, Denoised and then added it back. The last few months I have been leaving sharpening at the default of 40 but added Masking. Then I Denoised and tweaked sharpening, etc after.

Author said there was no difference. One thing I did notice. With the sharpened file he set Denoise to 63. Non sharpened to 50. 13 points difference. Just like manual Denoising the more you add the more detail is lost. I'm not sure how much difference 13 points really makes.

So this post is not so much about the video. What process/workflow do you use and why? What have you seen or found?

Basic long-time rule: Denoise and/or interpolate first, then sharpen, so as to avoid exaggerating noise or creating artifacts.

Yes, but this rule doesn't apply to the AI Denoise enhancement tool since Adobe's engine always applies the denoise step before applying whatever sharpening settings are pre-set. As I noted in my reply to Zee, this can be confirmed with a difference blend in Photoshop.

Yeah, I just grokked this and replied accordingly. Thanks for the explanation.

In Lightroom, we still face the decision whether to apply adjustments to RAW before Denoising or to DNG after Denoising. ACR already eliminates the need for an intermediate DNG, and this will eventually make its way to Lightroom, so this conundrum will go away some day.

Yes, but some of us actually want to generate and maintain DNGs

Oh, God, that would add 10TB to my archive. Unless converting them all to lossy as finished masters kept alongside RAWs, which is an interesting prospect I've been pursuing in another thread.

I don't do high volume client work. I do low volume highly edited/retouched work. In my workflow the DNGs are temporary working files. If used, they end up as layers in a (usually very large!) PSD file. The working DNGs usually are discarded at the end of the process since their substantive content is preserved as layers in the PSD file. The original raws are maintained, of course, and very rarely I opt to also maintain the working DNGs as well, which are usually already automatically and consistently named by ACR so that they appear in order with the raw original. This works for me, but my use cases are pretty different from most photographers.

Lossy compressed DNG for archiving

, in which case the old ACR (and still current LR) method is actually desirable. It's good to know that the sharpening setting is always non-destructive, even in the old method.

Well, if you sharpen or adjust before Denoising, the sharpening and adjustments are baked into the resulting DNG.

The effect of the denoising is baked in, of course, but sharpening (and most other ACR) settings are maintained as parametric settings that are applied to the denoised (pseudo-raw) data. If the DNG is saved, when re-opened you can adjust the sharpening settings, etc. Thus, they are non-destructive.

And, if you Denoise first then adjust, and then you want to change the noise reduction, how do you re-apply those post-Denoise adjustments to the new DNG? Doesn't seem non-destructive to me.

As explained, the denoising is destructive but most of the other ACR-applied settings aren't. Even if you have to re-run the denoise operation on the raw, there are several ways to apply the parametric settings that were applied to the previous DNG without manually reapplying every setting individually. In my workflow, however, it's often the case that I generate several denoised DNGs at differing denoise levels. Some of the edited settings for both DNGs may be the same, but others may be tweaked differently. It's really not difficult to manage the differences.

In working from RAW in DxO, I can go back to change anything at any time and simply re-export.

Same with DNGs (or raws) in ACR (with the "destructive" exception of the enhancement step for DNGs). I also have DxO. I'm not aware of any fundamental workflow/edit advantages it has over ACR if you ultimately need to edit in PS anyway. DxO to PS is definitely a more one-way "destructive" workflow than a raw or DNG ACR to PS workflow.

In the meantime, yet another nice thing about DxO is that it works directly on the original RAW data and applies the various adjustments and processes in the appropriate order on export, so I never have to think about things like this.

You don't have to think about it in the Adobe products either.

Really?

Yes, really.

Lightroom and ACR work differently.

I almost never bother with LR, but I'm not aware of any difference that applies to how LR and ACR both handle the (non-destructive) parametric settings applied to denoise-generated DNGs. What is it you're referring to about LR that's relevant here?

What about the question above?

See my responses above

I rely on the Lens Sharpness Optimization tool to handle global sharpening (think of it as Stage 1 "capture sharpening" in a 3-stage sharpening workflow), then export to Lightroom Classic, where I resize to target output size and apply Stage 3 "output sharpening" (auto-optimized for output size and media, nice!) when exporting a finished file for printing or on-screen display. If I wanted to apply Stage 2 "creative/selective sharpening", I'd do it after exporting the noise-reduced baseline master file from PhotoLab, probably using Nik Sharpener, but 99.9% of my sharpening is global, so I haven't bought Nik Sharpener yet.

 

[Zeee]

I came across this video. Something I have tested a few times. Since Denoise AI came out I took all sharpening off, Denoised and then added it back. The last few months I have been leaving sharpening at the default of 40 but added Masking. Then I Denoised and tweaked sharpening, etc after.

Author said there was no difference. One thing I did notice. With the sharpened file he set Denoise to 63. Non sharpened to 50. 13 points difference. Just like manual Denoising the more you add the more detail is lost. I'm not sure how much difference 13 points really makes.

So this post is not so much about the video. What process/workflow do you use and why? What have you seen or found?

Adobe's internal processing appears to always apply the denoise before applying whatever sharpening level is set. This can be confirmed by doing a difference blend in Photoshop, There is absolutely no difference showing up regardless of whether sharpening and related sliders are zero'd before denoising or first pumped up to desired post-denoising sharpening levels.

That part I get. When you open the Enhance dialogue box it does show what it will look like when the denoise process is completed which includes your sharpening settings. If you click on the file it shows without enhanced settings.

I'm just trying to determine which gives me the best advantage for best results. Viewing the Enhance window with sharpening applied or not applied. A big factor for me is Masking well.

I've been messing around a little this morning. I created a duplicate 20000 ISO file. The 1st file had Sharpening @40, Radius 1, Detail 25 and Masking 50. The 2nd had zero everything. After running the 2nd file through Denoise I applied all the same settings that the 1st file had. I did not see any difference.

Since I like to see what the results will be with sharpening settings I'll continue to do that and set masking to 50 which is mid point. Eliminates a good portion of background areas that will not be sharpened and enough of the subject for the detail. That would include flat areas of bird beaks, etc that have no detail. I can always tweak later.

The foregoing implies that the better workflow is to use whichever approach makes it easier for you to hit the optimal denoising level (ideally) on the first denoising attempt. Re-running denoise multiple times and generating multiple DNGs wastes time and effort. Go with whatever pre--set sharpening level helps you with the denoise preview would be my suggestion. Of course, with ACR/Photoshop, the new workflow somewhat obviates this workflow issue. However, I've generally reverted to the old DNG-generation workflow for much of my work because I want the separate DNG anyway (sometimes multiple DNGs) for reasons of subsequent layering, masking and blending in Photoshop.

I'm not creating multiples. Once a choose the amount once and then move on.

 

[Zeee]

I came across this video. Something I have tested a few times. Since Denoise AI came out I took all sharpening off, Denoised and then added it back. The last few months I have been leaving sharpening at the default of 40 but added Masking. Then I Denoised and tweaked sharpening, etc after.

Author said there was no difference. One thing I did notice. With the sharpened file he set Denoise to 63. Non sharpened to 50. 13 points difference. Just like manual Denoising the more you add the more detail is lost. I'm not sure how much difference 13 points really makes.

So this post is not so much about the video. What process/workflow do you use and why? What have you seen or found?

Adobe's internal processing appears to always apply the denoise before applying whatever sharpening level is set.

Ooh, interesting. I guess that makes sense, since "adjustments" are simply commands whose effects are only temporary until export, and those commands could be ignored by the AI Denoise engine. Still, once you make the DNG, you're stuck with any adjustments you made before. For this reason, I'd be inclined to Denoise first, then adjust and sharpen.

Thankfully, DxO doesn't require this kind of strategery, and eventually Lightroom won't, either.

And the final result will show the entire file and not just an area. I see DXO made it bigger but I still prefer to see the entire file. That is a bonus to me.

This can be confirmed by doing a difference blend in Photoshop, There is absolutely no difference showing up regardless of whether sharpening and related sliders are zero'd before denoising or first pumped up to desired post-denoising sharpening levels.

The foregoing implies that the better workflow is to use whichever approach makes it easier for you to hit the optimal denoising level (ideally) on the first denoising attempt. Re-running denoise multiple times and generating multiple DNGs wastes time and effort. Go with whatever pre--set sharpening level helps you with the denoise preview would be my suggestion. Of course, with ACR/Photoshop, the new workflow somewhat obviates this workflow issue. However, I've generally reverted to the old DNG-generation workflow for much of my work because I want the separate DNG anyway (sometimes multiple DNGs) for reasons of subsequent layering, masking and blending in Photoshop.

 

[Zeee]

I came across this video. Something I have tested a few times. Since Denoise AI came out I took all sharpening off, Denoised and then added it back. The last few months I have been leaving sharpening at the default of 40 but added Masking. Then I Denoised and tweaked sharpening, etc after.

Author said there was no difference. One thing I did notice. With the sharpened file he set Denoise to 63. Non sharpened to 50. 13 points difference. Just like manual Denoising the more you add the more detail is lost. I'm not sure how much difference 13 points really makes.

So this post is not so much about the video. What process/workflow do you use and why? What have you seen or found?

Basic long-time rule: Denoise and/or interpolate first, then sharpen, so as to avoid exaggerating noise or creating artifacts.

Yes, but this rule doesn't apply to the AI Denoise enhancement tool since Adobe's engine always applies the denoise step before applying whatever sharpening settings are pre-set. As I noted in my reply to Zee, this can be confirmed with a difference blend in Photoshop.

Yeah, I just grokked this and replied accordingly. Thanks for the explanation.

In Lightroom, we still face the decision whether to apply adjustments to RAW before Denoising or to DNG after Denoising. ACR already eliminates the need for an intermediate DNG, and this will eventually make its way to Lightroom, so this conundrum will go away some day.

Yes, but some of us actually want to generate and maintain DNGs

Oh, God, that would add 10TB to my archive. Unless converting them all to lossy as finished masters kept alongside RAWs, which is an interesting prospect I've been pursuing in another thread.

I don't do high volume client work. I do low volume highly edited/retouched work. In my workflow the DNGs are temporary working files. If used, they end up as layers in a (usually very large!) PSD file. The working DNGs usually are discarded at the end of the process since their substantive content is preserved as layers in the PSD file. The original raws are maintained, of course, and very rarely I opt to also maintain the working DNGs as well, which are usually already automatically and consistently named by ACR so that they appear in order with the raw original. This works for me, but my use cases are pretty different from most photographers.

As there aren't that many I keep my final DNG. If I know I'll never use it again I will delete it. An examples. I develop 3 or 4 files from a burst set, but only like one that I will post on a forum, etc. I'll get rid of the other DNG's. Not the original RAW files. The ones I import have already gone through tight pre-cull. One I'll need something to go back to between diaper changes when I'm in a seniors centre. :-D

Lossy compressed DNG for archiving

, in which case the old ACR (and still current LR) method is actually desirable. It's good to know that the sharpening setting is always non-destructive, even in the old method.

Well, if you sharpen or adjust before Denoising, the sharpening and adjustments are baked into the resulting DNG.

The effect of the denoising is baked in, of course, but sharpening (and most other ACR) settings are maintained as parametric settings that are applied to the denoised (pseudo-raw) data. If the DNG is saved, when re-opened you can adjust the sharpening settings, etc. Thus, they are non-destructive.

And, if you Denoise first then adjust, and then you want to change the noise reduction, how do you re-apply those post-Denoise adjustments to the new DNG? Doesn't seem non-destructive to me.

As explained, the denoising is destructive but most of the other ACR-applied settings aren't. Even if you have to re-run the denoise operation on the raw, there are several ways to apply the parametric settings that were applied to the previous DNG without manually reapplying every setting individually. In my workflow, however, it's often the case that I generate several denoised DNGs at differing denoise levels. Some of the edited settings for both DNGs may be the same, but others may be tweaked differently. It's really not difficult to manage the differences.

In working from RAW in DxO, I can go back to change anything at any time and simply re-export.

Same with DNGs (or raws) in ACR (with the "destructive" exception of the enhancement step for DNGs). I also have DxO. I'm not aware of any fundamental workflow/edit advantages it has over ACR if you ultimately need to edit in PS anyway. DxO to PS is definitely a more one-way "destructive" workflow than a raw or DNG ACR to PS workflow.

In the meantime, yet another nice thing about DxO is that it works directly on the original RAW data and applies the various adjustments and processes in the appropriate order on export, so I never have to think about things like this.

You don't have to think about it in the Adobe products either.

Really?

Yes, really.

Lightroom and ACR work differently.

I almost never bother with LR, but I'm not aware of any difference that applies to how LR and ACR both handle the (non-destructive) parametric settings applied to denoise-generated DNGs. What is it you're referring to about LR that's relevant here?

What about the question above?

See my responses above

I rely on the Lens Sharpness Optimization tool to handle global sharpening (think of it as Stage 1 "capture sharpening" in a 3-stage sharpening workflow), then export to Lightroom Classic, where I resize to target output size and apply Stage 3 "output sharpening" (auto-optimized for output size and media, nice!) when exporting a finished file for printing or on-screen display. If I wanted to apply Stage 2 "creative/selective sharpening", I'd do it after exporting the noise-reduced baseline master file from PhotoLab, probably using Nik Sharpener, but 99.9% of my sharpening is global, so I haven't bought Nik Sharpener yet.

 

[knickerhawk]

I came across this video. Something I have tested a few times. Since Denoise AI came out I took all sharpening off, Denoised and then added it back. The last few months I have been leaving sharpening at the default of 40 but added Masking. Then I Denoised and tweaked sharpening, etc after.

Author said there was no difference. One thing I did notice. With the sharpened file he set Denoise to 63. Non sharpened to 50. 13 points difference. Just like manual Denoising the more you add the more detail is lost. I'm not sure how much difference 13 points really makes.

So this post is not so much about the video. What process/workflow do you use and why? What have you seen or found?

Adobe's internal processing appears to always apply the denoise before applying whatever sharpening level is set.

Ooh, interesting. I guess that makes sense, since "adjustments" are simply commands whose effects are only temporary until export, and those commands could be ignored by the AI Denoise engine. Still, once you make the DNG, you're stuck with any adjustments you made before. For this reason, I'd be inclined to Denoise first, then adjust and sharpen.

Thankfully, DxO doesn't require this kind of strategery, and eventually Lightroom won't, either.

And the final result will show the entire file and not just an area. I see DXO made it bigger but I still prefer to see the entire file. That is a bonus to me.

Yep. I hate the constraints of the update preview windows in both DxO and ACR's Enhance feature. You invariably end up scrolling around (waiting for the window to refresh). Then you get frustrated and mutter under your breath, "To hell with it!" and hit the apply button. Then you see the whole image and discover some artifacts or other problems that require a re-run. This where Adobe's new approach is at least nominally better. However, I've found it's rather nice to use the old method in ACR which allows me to generate several denoised DNGs at differing levels. Then I can zoom in/out, scroll around and toggle back and forth to inspect the entirety of the image. Maybe I apply similar amounts of sharpening to see the effects. Eventually, I pick one or the other and just set the rejected one to deletion status. Since I work with a lot of pixel-shift HiRes files that are prone to having artifacts scattered around and often hidden from initial visibility, this approach is FAR more effective for me than relying on the preview window approach.

This can be confirmed by doing a difference blend in Photoshop, There is absolutely no difference showing up regardless of whether sharpening and related sliders are zero'd before denoising or first pumped up to desired post-denoising sharpening levels.

The foregoing implies that the better workflow is to use whichever approach makes it easier for you to hit the optimal denoising level (ideally) on the first denoising attempt. Re-running denoise multiple times and generating multiple DNGs wastes time and effort. Go with whatever pre--set sharpening level helps you with the denoise preview would be my suggestion. Of course, with ACR/Photoshop, the new workflow somewhat obviates this workflow issue. However, I've generally reverted to the old DNG-generation workflow for much of my work because I want the separate DNG anyway (sometimes multiple DNGs) for reasons of subsequent layering, masking and blending in Photoshop.

 

[Glen Barrington]

That's pretty much how I work