Denoise AI or Sharpen or both?

[Calson]

I sharpen last and first adjust Levels and then adjust contrast before any other manipulation of the image. Many times the lack of sharpness is largely due to a lack of contrast. I have found the Topaz NR to be the best in terms of automatically making adjustments and so a timesaver. Photoshop, before Adobe cancelled my companies perpetual enterprise license, would do as good a job but it needed to be done manually and this was very time consuming.

 

[Andrea]

I found Denoise and Sharper very effective the first to reduce noise and the second for images having a small motion.
I tried also the 30 day's free trial of JPEG-to-RAW and Gigapixel but for all images tested ( 15 years old jpeg taken with a 3-5giga sensor cameras ) I did not find any improvements. I really can not understand why since the other topaz products were very powerful.

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

I found Denoise and Sharper very effective the first to reduce noise and the second for images having a small motion.
I tried also the 30 day's free trial of JPEG-to-RAW and Gigapixel but for all images tested ( 15 years old jpeg taken with a 3-5giga sensor cameras ) I did not find any improvements. I really can not understand why since the other topaz products were very powerful.

Andrea, I'm still new to Gigapixel, but my expectations are not that the tool would improve the image at all, but that it would make it large (twice the size or more, if needed) without loss. If it looks the same after making it twice the size, then it's done a good job. In fact, I turn off most of the other improvements in the UI (suppress noise, reduce blur, etc.) and the result looks great, not having lost details.

However, I have not tried it on images so small. I've been using it on images that are 12 year old 10-12 megapixel. Also, I've used it on images that are "merely" 4K (kind of small compared to today's 45MP-sensor images) thinking that some clients might want very large poster sized prints, and the results are very good (compared to the same image zoomed in, as in the left pane of the Gigapixel UI, or zoomed-in using a different viewer).

Chris

 

[will139]

What do you guys use from Topaz: DeNoise AI, Sharpen AI or both?

Best,

Mike

I have both Denoise AI and Sharpen AI. At first I thought I liked them then Denoise AI came out with an update, which I did. That was it for me. In my eye not good results at all. I switched back to Topaz Denoise 6 and my sharpening is done the way I always did: hi-pass or smart sharpen. I think I get much better results this way. When using Denoise 6 I only use the Denoise slider and nothing else.

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

I have both Denoise AI and Sharpen AI. At first I thought I liked them then Denoise AI came out with an update, which I did. That was it for me. In my eye not good results at all.

Thanks Will. What was it about DeNoise AI that turned you off?

I find that I have to use it very lightly if I want to preserve shadow detail (which will turn to a mush of color at any setting above 8-10), but have otherwise been fairly happy with it.

 

[jhallettbc]

I just downloaded DeNoise the other day because of the excellent reviews. This is one of the photos I experimented on. I didn't have a long telephoto with me so this is a big crop from the original. Not only was the noise removed it was also sharpened in a way I didn't think was possible. I am totally sold on DenNoise.

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[SNEDDERS6666]

I just downloaded DeNoise the other day because of the excellent reviews. This is one of the photos I experimented on. I didn't have a long telephoto with me so this is a big crop from the original. Not only was the noise removed it was also sharpened in a way I didn't think was possible. I am totally sold on DenNoise. View attachment 13897View attachment 13898

Super image well done. Denoise is excellent most of the time, like 90% just always be aware when using that something you are doing doesn't affect something else in the photo. Just check all over before applying. Happy snapping.

 

[BorderBirder]

DeNoise is of great value for bird photography with D500 in Scotland. Very good for almost any image and transformative at ISO 2000 and above. Similar results to the example posted #6 above. I have used Sharpen AI for precious photos eg whizzing Kingfisher (!!) but I generally prefer the more tailored options of the sharpening related sliders in LR. I prefer the greater control in the amount and type of sharpening being applied there. Anthony Morganti has an excellent You Tube tutorial on that last aspect.

 

[Gail L]

The sharpen slider in DeNoise AI is not "AI" and does not work the same as Sharpen AI. Conversely the DeNoise slider in Sharpen AI is not "AI" and does not work like DeNoise AI. I have both and use both quite a bit.

 

[will139]

Thanks Will. What was it about DeNoise AI that turned you off?

I find that I have to use it very lightly if I want to preserve shadow detail (which will turn to a mush of color at any setting above 8-10), but have otherwise been fairly happy with it.

I can't really put my finger on it for sure. I am going to go back and experiment some more and use it with out using AI Sharpen. I have just felt that using the regular Denoise works best.

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

Another tip on Sharpen AI: (I may have mentioned this before): it will introduce color in your black and white image. If you process an image to B&W, then run it through Sharpen AI, pixel peeping very closely will reveal that the tool has added colorized pixels in it's sharpening process.

It's subtle, so do your Sharpen AI on a duplicate layer, then A/B the two.

Topaz knows about this (I've bugged it and discussed it with them, but it's still there last I checked).

The work-around: add a saturation adjustment layer above your sharpened layer and reduce the saturation to zero. It's okay, if you've already done your black and white work in a better method (better than a simple de-saturation). All you're doing with the adjustment layer is removing the color introduced by Topaz.

Chris

 

[SandyW]

it will introduce color in your black and white image

Very interesting! I did not know this. To me this is unacceptable regardless how easy it is to "fix" it. It kind of sounds like Topaz is using some kind of algorithm that alters color among other things with its sharpening. I wonder if it has to do with contrast changes. In any case it should not do that on B&W.

I know there are many people who love this program, but it has been rare that I prefer the results. I'm always amazed at how many different ways there are to end up in the same place. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

Very interesting! I did not know this. To me this is unacceptable regardless how easy it is to "fix" it.

Actually, I used the term "work-around", which is not a 'fix'. I still hold Topaz responsible for eventually fixing the issue.

It kind of sounds like Topaz is using some kind of algorithm that alters color among other things with its sharpening. I wonder if it has to do with contrast changes.

Yes, they say that it has to do with their AI learning, that they did not feed it B&W images during the AI learning process of building the base of knowledge used when the tool sharpens.

It still is the best sharpening tool I have. Of course, one needs to use any of these tools with care and proper previewing to analyze the results before committing to the final sharpen. And sometimes none is appropriate.

Chris

 

[Richard Stern]

I have the older Topaz Studio 2 (I'm not sure if it's still available) and it includes AI Clear, with some extra 1 click options compared to the version in De-noise. For most images, including those with heavy crops, 1 click of AI Clear does a better job of both noise reduction and sharpening than I can get with fiddling with LR sliders. I use both Studio 2 and De-noise as LR plug ins. I optimise color, white balance etc. before putting the image through Topaz, and save it back to LR as a .tiff file before adding finishing touches for export as a. jpeg if necessary.

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

I have the older Topaz Studio 2 (I'm not sure if it's still available) and it includes AI Clear, with some extra 1 click options compared to the version in De-noise. For most images, including those with heavy crops, 1 click of AI Clear does a better job of both noise reduction and sharpening than I can get with fiddling with LR sliders. I use both Studio 2 and De-noise as LR plug ins. I optimise color, white balance etc. before putting the image through Topaz, and save it back to LR as a .tiff file before adding finishing touches for export as a. jpeg if necessary.

FYI: AI Clear is one of the options in the DeNoise AI tool. I'm not sure that's it's always been there, but it's there now.

Chris