Lightroom Classic Update - introduces Denoise-AI powered noise reduction.

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LRC is slow yo start up and run denoise on my three year old XPS 15 with i7 processor, 32 gig of ram, 2 terabyte ssd and Nvidia 1050 gpu. Topaz denoise takes less than a minute and LRC takes several minutes.
 
LRC is slow yo start up and run denoise on my three year old XPS 15 with i7 processor, 32 gig of ram, 2 terabyte ssd and Nvidia 1050 gpu. Topaz denoise takes less than a minute and LRC takes several minutes.

For modern software, the CPU should have a speed over 3.0 GHz for speedy processing. Some of the i7 procs put in laptops in ~2020 are only sub-2.5 GHz.

The GTX1050 is not a super heavy GPU and has only 2GB of memory.

Topaz runs well on this, but the core NR engine is a few years old now. It's a sad state of affairs, but developers tend to code new software for leading edge CPU/GPU capabilities. They will probably refine / optimize LR NR to be faster, and it's also possible that the next major revision of Topaz Denoise will be slower on the same platform.

Chris
 
For modern software, the CPU should have a speed over 3.0 GHz for speedy processing. Some of the i7 procs put in laptops in ~2020 are only sub-2.5 GHz.

The GTX1050 is not a super heavy GPU and has only 2GB of memory.

Topaz runs well on this, but the core NR engine is a few years old now. It's a sad state of affairs, but developers tend to code new software for leading edge CPU/GPU capabilities. They will probably refine / optimize LR NR to be faster, and it's also possible that the next major revision of Topaz Denoise will be slower on the same platform.

Chris
Actually, the GTX1050 in the XPS15 has 4GB of VRAM, but the biggest issue for running LRC Denoise is that the older 10 series GPUs do not have any of the Tensor Cores that are used by LRC Denoise for processing, if available. Only the later 20 series and above include these and there are also substantial generational differences in play up to the current 40 series nVidia GPUs. There are some links to these differences provided in the other thread I started.

Cheers!
 
I just updated LRC and ran the new Denoise feature on a very high ISO image that I shot of one of my cats back in March and processed with DXO Prime XD at the time...with quite amazing results. Illumination for that image was a single house mounted LED floodlight about 40' away and a wall mounted sconce near the door out to my deck where I took the shot from. Shot with Z9 and 100-400mm zoom as indicated by EXIF display in comparison image.

Both images processed with default settings for NR...comparison image screen capture at UHD resolution, but resized to fit forum image limits. Will post to my Flickr account in full 4K resolution if you wish to view on 4K display. https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAacYA

View attachment 59430

Original SOOC...

View attachment 59431

Cheers!
How long did the image take to render? I have only briefly looked, and the first image I selected as a "test" had a rendering time of 29 minutes. I didn't change any of the default settings, and had to run so didn't actually click the button.
 
How long did the image take to render? I have only briefly looked, and the first image I selected as a "test" had a rendering time of 29 minutes. I didn't change any of the default settings, and had to run so didn't actually click the button.
On my M1 Max Studio with 24 GPUs it took about 20-25 seconds for a Z9 file and there was a slightly longer time as the ISO increased IIRC but I wasn't really looking at the details that finely.
 
How long did the image take to render? I have only briefly looked, and the first image I selected as a "test" had a rendering time of 29 minutes. I didn't change any of the default settings, and had to run so didn't actually click the button.
See my other posting here. Adobe's AI Denoise is very much dependent on the GPU in your system and without one processing times are going to be in 10's of minutes not seconds. Even with a GPU, you really need something in the RTX20 series or newer, with 8GB of VRAM. This is covered in one of the links in the other thread.

Images from my Z9 or previous D850 or D500 images typically take 10 seconds or less, but that's with a very high-end GPU doing the processing. This on a Win10 PC...I don't own any Macs.

Cheers!
 
Chris...I did link to it in that last thread..."See my other posting here." The word "here" in the my last post (and the sentence before this one) is a link to the other thread and should be highlighted in your browser indicating that it's a link. Blue in my browser, though could be different in yours...it's a user configurable option. Also, there are three occurrences in the other thread where I used the word here to link to other sites of interest.

And by the way I know that sometimes the highlight colors can be easy to miss on sites with a white background...one of the reasons I have a strong dislike for fora, apps and sites that don't allow a black background...one of my major peeves with DPRevived and some wannabee DPReview sites right now. Thankfully @Steve chose to provide the option on this site!

Cheers!
 
Chris...I did link to it in that last thread..."See my other posting here." The word "here" in the my last post (and the sentence before this one) is a link to the other thread and should be highlighted in your browser indicating that it's a link. Blue in my browser, though could be different in yours...it's a user configurable option. Also, there are three occurrences in the other thread where I used the word here to link to other sites of interest.

And by the way I know that sometimes the highlight colors can be easy to miss on sites with a white background...one of the reasons I have a strong dislike for fora, apps and sites that don't allow a black background...one of my major peeves with DPRevived and some wannabee DPReview sites right now. Thankfully @Steve chose to provide the option on this site!

Cheers!

The links come out blue as expected on my white background. I have the opposite view, I despise black backgrounds. Nice he offers choices.
 
I'm finding in my early testing that it's clearly better than Topaz, and equal to DxO PureRAW 2 (I haven't tried v3 yet).
Upsides: Slightly more convenient, doesn't need to make a round trip to another resource-using app, can possibly replace 3rd-party apps which saves upgrade fees
Downsides: Roughly 25% larger DNG file size compared to DxO, MUCH slower processing time than DxO and Topaz, only one adjustment "amount" slider

So Adobe's new Denoise won't replace DxO PureRAW for me just yet, but I REALLY like what I'm seeing. Definitely exceeded my expectations! :)(y)
 
I'm finding in my early testing that it's clearly better than Topaz, and equal to DxO PureRAW 2 (I haven't tried v3 yet).
Upsides: Slightly more convenient, doesn't need to make a round trip to another resource-using app, can possibly replace 3rd-party apps which saves upgrade fees
Downsides: Roughly 25% larger DNG file size compared to DxO, MUCH slower processing time than DxO and Topaz, only one adjustment "amount" slider

So Adobe's new Denoise won't replace DxO PureRAW for me just yet, but I REALLY like what I'm seeing. Definitely exceeded my expectations! :)(y)
Thanks for sharing your findings. If you don’t mind sharing, what sort of system are you editing on?
 
I'm finding in my early testing that it's clearly better than Topaz, and equal to DxO PureRAW 2 (I haven't tried v3 yet).
Upsides: Slightly more convenient, doesn't need to make a round trip to another resource-using app, can possibly replace 3rd-party apps which saves upgrade fees
Downsides: Roughly 25% larger DNG file size compared to DxO, MUCH slower processing time than DxO and Topaz, only one adjustment "amount" slider

So Adobe's new Denoise won't replace DxO PureRAW for me just yet, but I REALLY like what I'm seeing. Definitely exceeded my expectations! :)(y)

Note: PureRaw 3 has no adjustment slider at all. It's also slower (much slower) than LR AI on my machine (so possibly slower than PR 2).

Chris
 
Photolab is still the winner for me, after some more tries with Lightroom. Mostly due to better lens correction and ability to use sliders and preview results before commiting to a wait for processing.
 
Unless I'm missing something in the Lightroom settings and after playing with both for almost a week now I think I still prefer Topaz DeNoise. Mostly for the ability to instantly dial in all the parameters (I don't even see a way to adjust things like sharpness and detail retention in the Lightroom version... or of there is a way it's not intuitive or clear to me).
 
I think Topaz DeNoise, On1 NoNoise, and DxO PureRAW 3, all add some sharpening as well as noise reduction when processing. I think Lightroom only performs the denoise process and doesn't introduce any sharpening in the process. I have been able to pretty closely match results form the other denoise programs by processing LrC and then adding a little sharpening after the denoise process.
 
I think Topaz DeNoise, On1 NoNoise, and DxO PureRAW 3, all add some sharpening as well as noise reduction when processing. I think Lightroom only performs the denoise process and doesn't introduce any sharpening in the process. I have been able to pretty closely match results form the other denoise programs by processing LrC and then adding a little sharpening after the denoise process.
Marty have you tried Smart Sharpening after the Denoise. That's my next step.
 
I think Topaz DeNoise, On1 NoNoise, and DxO PureRAW 3, all add some sharpening as well as noise reduction when processing. I think Lightroom only performs the denoise process and doesn't introduce any sharpening in the process. I have been able to pretty closely match results form the other denoise programs by processing LrC and then adding a little sharpening after the denoise process.

I think we can't really separate noise reduction and sharpening with this kind of algorithm, because the new algorithm "creates" details.

We're now increasing SNR not by simply reducing noise, but also by increasing "signal". We're creating synthetic details "over the top" of noise, so while we might not exactly be sharpening the image, the new details we're creating respond to sharpening (even LR's default sharpening) far better than the noise grain they replaced.

In the old LR regime, I would apply sharpening and NR simultaneously, attempting to create the sharpest image I could that didn't over-sharpen the noise in the image (for the intended output size). It was generally a balancing act where I tried to use as little masking as possible, and as much "Detail" setting as I could get away with, without creating a very noisy file.

In the new LR regime, if I see noise I apply "AI" noise reduction. Afterwards, I sharpen the image as if it were a fresh photo. And because there's very little noise remaining, I can sharpen the heck out of it.

The end result of this new noise reduction feature is sharper images. It's just our workflow is different than before.

Here's an example of an ISO6400 shot pushed two stops. (So, effectively ISO25600 in the shadows.) I used the new NR on the left, taking advantage of the less-noisy file to apply much more sharpening than I could on the old file. Noise is reduced, but I also gained detail!

68a7wxe.jpg
 
In the new LR regime, if I see noise I apply "AI" noise reduction. Afterwards, I sharpen the image as if it were a fresh photo. And because there's very little noise remaining, I can sharpen the heck out of it.
Heck yeah. And if the other NR suppression algorithms (DxO, Topaz) are sharpening, then it's valid to compare them to LR AI NR with said sharpening.

Still, I found PureRaw3 to be pretty soft in the shadows (as if no sharpening) and no way to change that (no way to turn down the NR to reduce detail smudging, nor any 'recover detail' abilities), since there are NO settings/controls.

Chris
 
Heck yeah. And if the other NR suppression algorithms (DxO, Topaz) are sharpening, then it's valid to compare them to LR AI NR with said sharpening.

Still, I found PureRaw3 to be pretty soft in the shadows (as if no sharpening) and no way to change that (no way to turn down the NR to reduce detail smudging, nor any 'recover detail' abilities), since there are NO settings/controls.

Chris

Yes, I think if we're going to compare the effectiveness of these tools, we have to compare NR and sharpening holistically for each tool. In other words, which tool creates the overall best file, in terms of noise, detail, and color.

Personally, I wasn't unhappy before these tools, and I think they all do well enough at giving me 2-3 "extra stops" that I'll choose based on workflow rather than image quality. But different strokes for different folks, of course!
 
Pure raw does offer the choices for NR and the choices for lens sharpening. Not a slider, but levels. Of course Photolab offers the same plus sliders for amount. Plus if needed either could be sent along to Photoshop for masking.
 
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