Help for talk on AI Noise Reduction

[jrp50635]

I would suggest starting from what points you want to get across. As others have said, the different noise reduction programs are, to a first order, much of a muchnesses (pretty good) and, in any case changing (getting better all the time). Their performance will differ on Mac v Intel PC, etc.

The points I would try to get across instead are:

• The trade offs between noise and sharpness have changed: it is now better to go for higher ISO and a higher shutter speed than it was.
• Workflow simplicity is important: much as I like the Lightroom / ACR enhancement / noise reduction, having to transform the RAW into a linear DNG and then editing it means that I use it less than I might. DXO Photolab has the advantage of doing things in one go. Adobe may well be able to do this in future.
• some noise processors can only operate on raw files
• Noise reduction can be useful for pics taken at low ISOs, particularly if you edit them heavily. But you may need to do that if you underexpose to preserve highlights, eg
• …

 

[Zeee]

I would suggest starting from what points you want to get across. As others have said, the different noise reduction programs are, to a first order, much of a muchnesses (pretty good) and, in any case changing (getting better all the time). Their performance will differ on Mac v Intel PC, etc.

The points I would try to get across instead are:

• The trade offs between noise and sharpness have changed: it is now better to go for higher ISO and a higher shutter speed than it was.
• Workflow simplicity is important: much as I like the Lightroom / ACR enhancement / noise reduction, having to transform the RAW into a linear DNG and then editing it means that I use it less than I might. DXO Photolab has the advantage of doing things in one go. Adobe may well be able to do this in future.

Yes I'd prefer not creating a DNG but both Topaz and DXO do if you use Lightroom as well. It takes time to export files from PR or PL but that is at the end. LrC exports files in seconds. To me the time trade off was the same but it is preferable at the end. I only apply Adobe Denoise to select files, similar to DXO and Topaz.

One thing I do like is being able to see the complete de-noised file using LrC when I continue to edit it.

• some noise processors can only operate on raw files
• Noise reduction can be useful for pics taken at low ISOs, particularly if you edit them heavily. But you may need to do that if you underexpose to preserve highlights, eg
• …

 

[jrp50635]

Yes, these all sound like points worth considering, when choosing among the different apps.

 

[Zeee]

Yes, these all sound like points worth considering, when choosing among the different apps.

Yes it is. It is different for everyone.

 

[Ephemeris]

I would suggest starting from what points you want to get across. As others have said, the different noise reduction programs are, to a first order, much of a muchnesses (pretty good) and, in any case changing (getting better all the time). Their performance will differ on Mac v Intel PC, etc.

The points I would try to get across instead are:

• The trade offs between noise and sharpness have changed: it is now better to go for higher ISO and a higher shutter speed than it was.
• Workflow simplicity is important: much as I like the Lightroom / ACR enhancement / noise reduction, having to transform the RAW into a linear DNG and then editing it means that I use it less than I might. DXO Photolab has the advantage of doing things in one go. Adobe may well be able to do this in future.

Yes I'd prefer not creating a DNG but both Topaz and DXO do if you use Lightroom as well. It takes time to export files from PR or PL but that is at the end. LrC exports files in seconds. To me the time trade off was the same but it is preferable at the end. I only apply Adobe Denoise to select files, similar to DXO and Topaz.

Zeee. If you use through LR and create a layered file does that still create a DNG? I'm tired and just can't remember. I seem to recall you can hatch process through AI and LR without the new DNG beinf created.

One thing I do like is being able to see the complete de-noised file using LrC when I continue to edit it.

• some noise processors can only operate on raw files
• Noise reduction can be useful for pics taken at low ISOs, particularly if you edit them heavily. But you may need to do that if you underexpose to preserve highlights, eg
• …

--
Don't Look Up.

 

[Zeee]

I would suggest starting from what points you want to get across. As others have said, the different noise reduction programs are, to a first order, much of a muchnesses (pretty good) and, in any case changing (getting better all the time). Their performance will differ on Mac v Intel PC, etc.

The points I would try to get across instead are:

• The trade offs between noise and sharpness have changed: it is now better to go for higher ISO and a higher shutter speed than it was.
• Workflow simplicity is important: much as I like the Lightroom / ACR enhancement / noise reduction, having to transform the RAW into a linear DNG and then editing it means that I use it less than I might. DXO Photolab has the advantage of doing things in one go. Adobe may well be able to do this in future.

Yes I'd prefer not creating a DNG but both Topaz and DXO do if you use Lightroom as well. It takes time to export files from PR or PL but that is at the end. LrC exports files in seconds. To me the time trade off was the same but it is preferable at the end. I only apply Adobe Denoise to select files, similar to DXO and Topaz.

Zeee. If you use through LR and create a layered file does that still create a DNG? I'm tired and just can't remember. I seem to recall you can hatch process through AI and LR without the new DNG beinf created.

You can’t create layers using LrC. Just in PS. But I remember reading something about it

One thing I do like is being able to see the complete de-noised file using LrC when I continue to edit it.

• some noise processors can only operate on raw files
• Noise reduction can be useful for pics taken at low ISOs, particularly if you edit them heavily. But you may need to do that if you underexpose to preserve highlights, eg
• …

 

[Chris R-UK]

Thanks to everybody who has replied. I now have enough examples for my talk.

We have been feeding badgers (European, not American) in our garden for about 15 years. They mostly come from a sett about 50 yards away in the woods behind our house. They are nocturnal animals, but in summer with short nights they have to come out in daylight as well. For about 5 years I photographed them before dusk, especially when there was late afternoon sun on the grass. Some of these shots are in my gallery. In recent years we have just fed them from our backdoor, most of the year after dark with just a little light from two outside lights.

Last week I tried shooting in this light just to see what results I got. I was looking for shots to convey just what it is like when you have 5 or more badgers waiting outside your door to be fed. They are very timid creatures, but become very accustomed to humans very quickly if there is food around. Some people hand feed them.

Shooting groups of badgers close to you when they are feeding is not easy. You need a reasonable depth of field to get all the badgers in focus, and you need quite a high shutter speed because their heads are in constant motion when they are feeding. My preferred settings (on M4/3) in good light would be 1/500 at f/5.6. In the dark I used 1/100 at f/2.8 which meant that I had quite a low success rate. With this exposure, the ISO maxed out at 25,600 with the EV meter showing -1.3. I raised the exposure by 1 stop in PP. Here are two pairs of examples, one with just the standard LR 25 luminance noise reduction setting in LR, the other using LR Denoise'


Standard LR NR settings


LR Denoise


Cropped slightly - LR standard NR


LR Denoise

The denoised images aren't great compared with my daylight shots, but they are usable for my purposes.

I was also interested by how much LR Luminance NR changed/removed colours. Here are 3 100% crops of an area of grass in another image:






No LR NR. dead leaves are brown




LR Luminance NR set at 25. The dead leaves have gone green




Denoise - browns retained.



--
Chris R

 

[grsnovi]

I just purchased Neat Image the other day. Here is what it does with the top jpg image above (the LR one w/no NR).



Not as good as what it would do with the raw but not terrible either.

 

[Ephemeris]

Thanks to everybody who has replied. I now have enough examples for my talk.

We have been feeding badgers (European, not American) in our garden for about 15 years. They mostly come from a sett about 50 yards away in the woods behind our house. They are nocturnal animals, but in summer with short nights they have to come out in daylight as well. For about 5 years I photographed them before dusk, especially when there was late afternoon sun on the grass. Some of these shots are in my gallery. In recent years we have just fed them from our backdoor, most of the year after dark with just a little light from two outside lights.

Last week I tried shooting in this light just to see what results I got. I was looking for shots to convey just what it is like when you have 5 or more badgers waiting outside your door to be fed. They are very timid creatures, but become very accustomed to humans very quickly if there is food around. Some people hand feed them.

Shooting groups of badgers close to you when they are feeding is not easy. You need a reasonable depth of field to get all the badgers in focus, and you need quite a high shutter speed because their heads are in constant motion when they are feeding. My preferred settings (on M4/3) in good light would be 1/500 at f/5.6. In the dark I used 1/100 at f/2.8 which meant that I had quite a low success rate. With this exposure, the ISO maxed out at 25,600 with the EV meter showing -1.3. I raised the exposure by 1 stop in PP. Here are two pairs of examples, one with just the standard LR 25 luminance noise reduction setting in LR, the other using LR Denoise'


Standard LR NR settings


LR Denoise


Cropped slightly - LR standard NR


LR Denoise

The denoised images aren't great compared with my daylight shots, but they are usable for my purposes.

I was also interested by how much LR Luminance NR changed/removed colours. Here are 3 100% crops of an area of grass in another image:


No LR NR. dead leaves are brown


LR Luminance NR set at 25. The dead leaves have gone green


Denoise - browns retained.

--
Chris R

Very helpful.

Those colour changes are rather interesting.

 

[Ephemeris]

I probably would not dwell on processing times, as that is so hardware dependent. In my case, Lightroom AI Denoise is actually faster than Topaz Photo AI. In other extreme cases seen on this forum, members with different hardware report LR as an order of magnitude slower than Topaz.

My hardware is not high end: $1200 Dell G15 with i7-12700H and RTX3060L

 

[Ephemeris]

I probably would not dwell on processing times, as that is so hardware dependent. In my case, Lightroom AI Denoise is actually faster than Topaz Photo AI. In other extreme cases seen on this forum, members with different hardware report LR as an order of magnitude slower than Topaz.

My hardware is not high end: $1200 Dell G15 with i7-12700H and RTX3060L

I was just going to quote times with my 20MP Olympus files on my desktop, and warn them they will get long processing times with old computers and high resolution files.

I find using DXO that batch processing 40 files is very much faster per file than processing single files because DXO works on 5-6 files simultaneously.

That doesn't sound the most sensible route they could have taken.

--
Chris R

 

[Ephemeris]

Thanks George!

FWIW, I didn't spend $200 and I'm not certain my hardware will handle Topaz AI.

It will run without any graphics accelerations or additions.

I hadn't spotted you need Linux.

 

[grsnovi]

Triggered by Dale's recent saw-whet owl shot here , I thought I'd see how much I could improve my one and only owl shot. 16mb gx85 w/pl 100-400 from July 2021. Note also 20% reduction in size. Side-by-side in Fast Stone.



- Gary