I think this thread is startng to get a bit out of hand. I can’t speak for others, but if Topaz is able to improve the reduction of visible and distracting noise while still retaining fine detail, that is terrific. More and better tools gives us greater flexibility when and if we decide to use them
Owning, but no longer using, a recent version of Denoise AI, I understand its strengths and weaknesses. Presumably the latest version will be a marked improvement over previous versions which is a good thing. And, if the latest upgrade is superior to DeepPRIME in normal use on raw files then it raises the bar for excellence.
My only objection to Dave Kelly’s video was the simplistic comparison he made against PureRAW where he was focused entirely on the reduction of noise and ignored the obvious and more important loss of fine detail which resulted from it. Some may suggest that I am guilty of being a fanboy due to my obvious preference for DxO’s products, but my comments were based purely on my visual inspection of the results he presented. If Topaz Denoise AI reaches a point where it renders better results then DeepPRIME, I will be the first in line to purchase a license.
Mark
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Stenis
(Sten-Åke Sändh (Sony, Win 11, PL 6, CO 16, PM Plus 6, XnView))
62
I agree with JoJu that noise isn’t really a problem today with either of Topaz or Photolab but there is always a problem comparing software that are not a black box with one that is if the settings are not known.
Is there for exampel any point of comparing Topaz and Photolab or for that matter Capture One or Lightroom at some sort of default value? I don’t think so. Still that is what some people do. Another way is trying to achive the best result one can get but the problem with that is that we are far more different minds than this “one” I am talking about that even differs from day to day of different reasons. There is no really way to normalise a test like that really so this task of comparisions is far from easy and tends to get pretty useless in most cases.
No one has even mentioned that the RAW-material itself can affect our possibilities to postprocess some images. As an example I can tell you I have processed many thousands of my old analog positive colorslides from the seventies and eighties when I was travelling a lot. All taken with repro photo in RAW.
That material of mostly Agfa CT 18 AND 21 images (ISO 50 and 100) and especially blue skies in these images often get terribly corse, ugly and grainy like these “rocks” JoJu talked about. Fix that with Deep Prime? No way - just doesn’t work at all! Sharpen with “Unsharp mask” or “Lens correction”? Just impossible since that material is totally indifferent to these tools. Must be something in the pattern of the grain that tricks these tools.
So what to do? There are a few things that worked wonders and has been the main reason I ended up using Optical Limits/Photolab. The first is the fantastic tool of Fine Contrast and second is Microcontrast that I always with these images pull as far at it gets to the left to get rid of absolutely all impact of that variable. It is absolutely remarkable how that clears the skies from that grain. After that I add 30-35 of Fine Contrast which is the only way almost to get some sort of “sharpening” effect. I also use to emulate a much finer grain to help crusching the original grain. To get more punch I can finish exporting with “Bicubic sharpen”.
I also think different RAW from various digital cameras produce RAW that can differ slightly in the process ever if the differences are far from as extreme as my old Agfa images are.
Noise reduction is not an exact science and it often comes down to expectations and preferences. However, there are some metrics that can be easily seen such as the retention or loss of fine detail. It is the extreme loss of fine detail that historically gave noise reduction a bad name because when over applied images often had an artificial smooth plastic look.
This is no solid knowledge @Stenis but I think noise reduction of RAW converters, especially Photolab 5 with it’s many camera specific features first check the ISO and put this together with a sensor profile. In a way, you got a high quality, fine detailed picture of film grain. The grains are the fine details many posters in this thread were talking about, and these grains come in a chaotic, non-Bayer pattern.
You could try to use a photo editor like PS or AP to add some Gaussian blurr after selecting the sky colour, but as soon as a small cloud is in the sky with it’s own grain structure, the manipulation will become obvious.
Or you could learn to live with it because that’s what we got from film back in the day. But I also must say, some films I already avoided back in the day due to strong grain and the Agfa slide films were amongst them. Kodachrome 25 or 64, even 200, or later Fuji Velvia or Provia also show grain, but less than Agfachrome did.
To use an acoustic comparison: You can record a vynil LP with modern DAT equipment and the recording during the time no diamond needle touches the LP groove will be close to noise-free. Diamond needle in the groove – different story.
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Stenis
(Sten-Åke Sändh (Sony, Win 11, PL 6, CO 16, PM Plus 6, XnView))
65
Sure agree.
Stenis
(Sten-Åke Sändh (Sony, Win 11, PL 6, CO 16, PM Plus 6, XnView))
66
I think the possibility to postprocess repro images in Photolab from my Agfa in RAW has made a huge difference to increase the number of keepers. Without that possibility I might just have trown a way all of it in the closest garbage bin.
The quality of these images were really depressing. Not just the terrible grain but even the fact that a lot of these frames had lost almost all of their green channel. I have never put in any effort at all to restore that color balance. I have never thought it was worth the effort. That’s why I landed in converting them to black and white and added a slight brownish cast to these historical images. I have Photolab a lot to thank for giving me a chance to rescue a lot of my personal historical heritage. Without a possibility to play with Photolabs three different flavours of contrast and the possibility to apply a much finer artificial grain to the images I would have had a lot more problems to correct these images to something usable.
As a hobbyist who can’t afford/justify the fastest lenses ,I find the most common use for noise reduction is to economize on expensive (fast) glass.
DP is also helpful, though not ideal, for heavy the crops (ie low res) I need with some wildlife shots on my less than optimal telephotos.
So even with my R6 I still have need for noise reduction.
Except for the odd art shot - I do agree that this thing about adding grain seems a bit counter productive.
I changed the Title of this thread to something more suitable.
Topaz has released Beta 0.6.
Dave Kelly has made a new video. This time focus is more about sharpening/revealing more detail , and I think it actually does.
I finally had some time to examine this and compare it with PL. First of all, photoai looks to be an attempt to merge 3 programs into one (Noise, Sharpening and Enlarging). So it’s not clear it’s working with different algorithms at all. What it does do is remove many of the confusion options in the individual programs and tries to offer a simplified, or more automatic, application. And that’s where things go wrong. I have never used the automatic settings on these products, they are too strong. In both denoise and sharpen, auto settings lead to loss of detail and artifacts. You have to dial it back dramatically. I actually found that in photoai, i set the raw denoise to zero, and just like the standalone products, at zero it’s still doing noise reduction. If you set the slider to zero and then toggle the feature on and off you can clearly see that it is removing most of the noise even at zero. In the standalone denoise I am usually below 10 on the zero to 100 scale.
Looks like Topaz is adjusting to to changing software market and will focus on reducing their number of products and increase the value of their remaining offerings. A sensible strategy. I would expect them, as some have already suggested, to introduce AI masking, basically Topaz Mask AI which I don’t think you can currently buy. Sophisticated masking will greatly enhance the product.
In my opinion DXO need to move in this direction. FilmPack and Viewpoint should be fully integrated into PL Elite and they should begin a program of incorporating functionality from the NIK plugins into PL Elite. A program of adding 5 effect filters from Color Efex Pro to each new release of PL Elite should be doable from a development resource perspective, and would be well received by customers.
I wonder if IanS meant that one should not have to pay extra to get the functionality of Viewpoint and Filmpack. I for one expected perspective correction and creative vignetting to be part of Photolab Elite without needing these two extra purchases.
Masking AI is currently a big thing it would seem, with LR having very effective automatic masking selection tools, On1RAW is developing an auto masking solution, and Exposure X7 having a semi-automatic masking feature (draw a basic shape around an object and the system then refines it).
I have to admit, I’d appreciate more automatic masking features in PL, but I’m not sure how they would be best implemented and in what form.
Prior to that though I think I’d prefer HSL control from within control points (but this is all going off topic for this thread!).
Yes. If you look at On1 they developed the NoNoise plugin and then integrated it into On1 Photo Raw for free.
Interestingly, DXO have gone in the other direction by developing DeepPrime and then turning it into a plugin.
because that’s what we got from film back in the day. But I also must say, some films I already avoided back in the day due to strong grain and the Agfa slide films were amongst them. Kodachrome 25 or 64, even 200, or later Fuji Velvia or Provia also show grain, but less than Agfachrome did.
