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

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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.

Not PR3 (used as a filter in PS). No preview either. If I've missed it, please let me know. There are options for lens corrections (not sharpening), and a big PROCESS button for NR (just triple-checked).
 
Not PR3 (used as a filter in PS). No preview either. If I've missed it, please let me know. There are options for lens corrections (not sharpening), and a big PROCESS button for NR (just triple-checked).

Pure Raw 3 has the drop-down for the strength of lens corrections that includes the same lens sharpening as photolab. Photolab has a separate module for the lens sharpness. If pureraw had no lens sharpness, that is a major reason to spend the $100 more for Photolab 6.
 
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
I agree with this. Sharpening followed by denoise looks awful. Zero sharpen>denoise>sharpen gives very nice results IMO.
 
Tim Grey puts out an "almost" daily Question and Answer eNewletter. I have known him for about 30 years and taken classes from him. He is one of the top educators on Adobe products, in my opinion.

I found his comments on Adobe's new DeNoise AI quite interesting.

"

Today's Question​

I see that Adobe has added an AI noise reduction feature to Lightroom Classic [and Camera Raw in Photoshop]. Do you recommend using this new option over the manual approach to noise reduction?

Tim's Quick Answer:​

While I find that the new AI-based noise reduction available in Lightroom Classic as well as Camera Raw in Photoshop is very good, I do find that I'm able to get slightly better results with the manual noise reduction controls.

More Detail:​

The new AI-based Denoise feature from Adobe is impressive, to be sure. With a careful adjustment of the strength of the effect you can get a very good result with minimal effort. However, there are some drawbacks based on my testing.

First, when you use the Denoise feature you will be creating a new Adobe DNG file rather than applying noise reduction to the existing raw capture. This can be a minor disadvantage in terms of having an "extra" file to manage, but I don't consider this to be a major barrier.

I've also found that the default value of 50 for the Amount slider is far too aggressive, resulting in considerable loss of detail and texture in the image. I recommend starting at a value of around 20 for Amount, fine-tuning based on the specific image you're working on, and the results you're seeing in the preview. But in my testing a value of around 20 for Amount was far superior to the results I achieved with the default value of 50.

The results with the new Denoise feature compared to the manual noise reduction controls were rather mixed. I was consistently able to retain better texture and detail in images with manual noise reduction, but I was able to retain more of the natural colors, especially in small areas, using the new AI-based Denoise feature.

Based on my experience, I would say that the manual approach is best when your priority is to minimize the appearance of noise while retaining texture and detail in the image. If the priority is to retain even the finest color details and you're willing to slightly degrade texture and detail, then the AI-based Denoise feature may work better. I've also found that the best solution varies depending on the image, so it isn't a bad idea to test both options for images that exhibit considerable noise.

I think it is worth keeping in mind that the new Denoise feature is new and will certainly be improved over time. In addition, because the image is based on artificial intelligence, as more images are processed the quality of the results will surely improve over time as well.

The Denoise feature is found in the Detail section where the existing noise reduction controls are found. You simply click the Denoise button, adjust the Amount setting in the Enhance dialog, and click the Enhance button to process the image and create the new DNG file. The process is simple, but I do find that I've been able to achieve better results in general using the existing manual controls for noise reduction. "
 
I agree with this. Sharpening followed by denoise looks awful. Zero sharpen>denoise>sharpen gives very nice results IMO.

I'm thinking the order shouldn't matter in lightroom. In other applications totally agree because why would we want to sharpen baked in noise. But Lightroom does the denoise from the raw, then applies whatever slider settings we've done. We can still dial back any sharpening though, and Lightroom has its own built in order for applying things when it exports, so the noise and sharpening doesn't get baked in until the export.

 
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I'm thinking the order shouldn't matter in lightroom. In other applications totally agree because why would we want to sharpen baked in noise. But Lightroom does the denoise from the raw, then applies whatever slider settings we've done. We can still dial back any sharpening though, and Lightroom has its own built in order for applying things when it exports, so the noise and sharpening doesn't get baked in until the export.

It will still be NR first for me, because:
  • What you say is true of you use the ACR / LR-Develop panel Sharpen slider, which I mostly never do for fine art work
  • If it needs sharpening, I do it with these (post ACR / LR-Develop):
    • PS: Smart Sharpen filter
    • PS/LR: Topaz Sharpen-AI (which for LR creates a TIF/DNG, which I would create first and then use the Develop panel)
  • I prefer to do NR before any processing (not just before sharpening), so that includes any filters post ACR in PS and LR Edit-in (any Topaz, DxO processing). (This doesn't apply to those of you doing RAW processing outside of the Adobe ACR engine.)
Chris
 
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It will still be NR first for me, because:
  • What you say is true of you use the ACR / LR-Develop panel Sharpen slider, which I mostly never do for fine art work
  • If I needs sharpening, I do it with these (post ACR / LR-Develop):
    • PS: Smart Sharpen filter
    • PS/LR: Topaz Sharpen-AI (which for LR creates a TIF/DNG, which I would create first and then use the Develop panel)
  • I prefer to do NR before any processing (not just before sharpening), so that includes any filters post ACR in PS and LR Edit-in (any Topaz, DxO processing). (This doesn't apply to those of you doing RAW processing outside of the Adobe ACR engine.)
Chris
I can confirm that doing healing steps in LR before doing LR based Denoise can occasionally cause the content aware healing to be wonky after NR. I didn't think I was going to do NR on a particular image and just made some quick edits in LR. I also did some content-aware healing and then changed my mind about noise reduction. Being lazy, I just clicked the denoise button and when it came back one of the areas that I did some healing had changed (not the location of the healing, but the result of the healing). So I just deleted the healing and re-did it.

This hasn't happened every time, but it did happen once.
 
I'm thinking the order shouldn't matter in lightroom. In other applications totally agree because why would we want to sharpen baked in noise. But Lightroom does the denoise from the raw, then applies whatever slider settings we've done. We can still dial back any sharpening though, and Lightroom has its own built in order for applying things when it exports, so the noise and sharpening doesn't get baked in until the export.

Hmm, that is certainly not my experience. Will try it again and see if I can reconcile the different conclusions.
 
JKost says:

Denoise carries over any enhancements made to the source image. However I would suggest that you apply Denoise early in your workflow so that you’re making adjustments on the cleanest file possible. Otherwise, enhancements that you’ve made (Sharpening and Texture for example), may need to be revisited after running Denoise.

  • Content Aware Healing spots don’t preview in the Enhance dialog. However Camera Raw will automatically update any healed areas after applying Denoise. Note: if you have a lot of healing spots, it might take a bit longer to render the new document and you’ll want to be sure that you review the results.
  • Masking will also be automatically updated after applying Denoise.
 
JKost says:

Denoise carries over any enhancements made to the source image. However I would suggest that you apply Denoise early in your workflow so that you’re making adjustments on the cleanest file possible. Otherwise, enhancements that you’ve made (Sharpening and Texture for example), may need to be revisited after running Denoise.

  • Content Aware Healing spots don’t preview in the Enhance dialog. However Camera Raw will automatically update any healed areas after applying Denoise. Note: if you have a lot of healing spots, it might take a bit longer to render the new document and you’ll want to be sure that you review the results.
  • Masking will also be automatically updated after applying Denoise.

Sounds like good advice. My takeaway there is that in Lightroom the other settings CAN be revisited without any impact baked in. So it agrees with the video posted above.

On the other hand If it were something like sending a tiff out to Topaz for denoising then I would for sure slide the sharpen to zero before exporting to Topaz because the tiff bakes in whatever lightroom settings are active at that moment, so in that case if you sharpen first you end up sharpening the noise then asking Topaz to denoise it.

DXO works on the raw only, and it is converting the raw and denoising and lens sharpening simultaneously, so you have to do the DXO first.
 
Apologies if this has been answered previously. But with brand new Z9, laptop, and fresh 12.3 firmware update, I cannot figure out why the new noise reduction feature will not accept my DNG files. Any suggestions?
 
Apologies if this has been answered previously. But with brand new Z9, laptop, and fresh 12.3 firmware update, I cannot figure out why the new noise reduction feature will not accept my DNG files. Any suggestions?
If you have DNG files that have already been demosaiced, in PL or some other raw converter, LRC AI denoise will not process them...they have to be non-demosaiced DNG's
 
Question
As the denoise programs have improved so much with AI, do people now have a higher "acceptable" ISO when shooting? Are you now ok with 25600 where before 3200 ISO was the highest?
This question goes to how high to set Auto ISO in camera.
Thanks
 
Question
As the denoise programs have improved so much with AI, do people now have a higher "acceptable" ISO when shooting? Are you now ok with 25600 where before 3200 ISO was the highest?
This question goes to how high to set Auto ISO in camera.
Thanks
It depends a lot on the camera, but since I started using Topaz DeNoise and more recently this new LR feature I am often willing to try shooting at higher ISO settings than I would have before these tools were available.

I shoot either full Manual or Manual with Auto ISO and in the latter I initially set my high ISO cap to what I thought would be my limit for any kind of marginally acceptable photos but was pretty impressed with how modern noise reduction software could handle ISO levels that seemed crazy high. So I went through a phase with my various cameras where I set my high ISO caps all the way up to the highest non-extended range (IOW, I still avoid things like Hi-1) and shot a lot of easy to capture images like backyard birds in really dim light to see what I could get away with.

I found it really does vary by camera even for cameras that on paper have similar high ISO characteristics. For instance I'm amazed at what the D5/D6 sensors can handle for high ISO and even though the Z6 II on paper should be very close, the higher levels of chroma noise from that camera has me dial back my ISO cap a bit. It also matters to some extent whether I consider the images part of more serious work or just for fun photos where I'll push things harder and then use noise reduction in post to clean things up. IOW, if I'll just post here or email web sized images to friends I'm usually willing to push ISO higher but if I'm shooting for print uses I'll keep a closer eye on ISO and not go quite so crazy.

So you might try an exercise where you lift up any ISO caps you use to the top of the camera's normal ISO range (I'd avoid the extended modes which to my eyes never look good) and shoot in an Auto ISO mode in really challenging light conditions on readily available common subjects and then see what you find acceptable after noise reduction in post for your cameras and your shooting style. If you figure out what's marginally tolerable then set your ISO caps accordingly.

That said, if I've got a really nice subject in the viewfinder in a great setting I'll always keep an eye on ISO and after an insurance shot or two will try to walk down the ISO by lowering shutter speed to see if I can capture some better images where the ISO is as low as feasible for the situation regardless of how high I've pushed the ISO cap.
 
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