DxO PureRaw 3 vs Topoz Photo AI - ONE example

[RichF]

I was out shooting last night had got this little fellow, far away. Only had a 100-400 w/ 1.4 TC on my Z 9. Heavy crop and then then shrunk around 10-15% to make it small enough to load onto this forum. Obviously original, processed by DxoPure Raw 3, and then the original processed by Topaz PHoto AI. No other adjustments were made other than cropping and shrinking slightly. I used the automatic mode in DxoPure Raw and in Topaz Photo AI, I turned on denoise and sharpen and let the program pick the parameters. To my eye, for this one image w/o any further optimization, The DXoPureRaw 3 looks better by a bit. Both look much better than the image w/o noise reduction/sharpening.

Again, 1 image, default parameters - not a hard scientific test.

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[DavidT]

I haven't used DXO but a friend of mine swears by it. I don't like not having control over what it does. I have tried Topaz Photo AI and I don't like it. I still prefer to use sharpen and denoise selectively and to my adjustments. I will say of your 3 examples DXO by far did the best job. Makes me go hmmmmm.

 

[John Navitsky]

if you’re a lr user, you can now ad lr’s denoise to the comparison

 

[RichF]

if you’re a lr user, you can now ad lr’s denoise to the comparison

Good idea. I’ll try it when I get homq

 

[DavidT]

if you’re a lr user, you can now ad lr’s denoise to the comparison

I have tried it a few times and so far I still like topaz and being able to mask and adjust what I am doing.

 

[Rjdane2]

I now like Lightroom’s AI denoise the best compared to the others and now you don’t need another software in your workflow. I hope they can speed it up some next.

 

[RichF]

Here is the default LR denoise. I used the parameters as suggested by LR. I don't like this image as well as the Pure Raw or Photo AI but with some work it may be compariable.

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[AlexY]

To my eyes, the DxO result is the best. The branch is much better, for example. I find it difficult to compare a series of images when I have to scroll up or down - it's best to have them presented side by side such that they can all be seen without scrolling. The lightroom example seems to me the worst of the bunch, but as you say, some more time spent on it could lead to improvement. Of course, the same could be said for each of the other treatments, which is why I find these comparisons difficult.
Cheers,
Alex

 

[RichF]

To my eyes, the DxO result is the best. The branch is much better, for example. I find it difficult to compare a series of images when I have to scroll up or down - it's best to have them presented side by side such that they can all be seen without scrolling. The lightroom example seems to me the worst of the bunch, but as you say, some more time spent on it could lead to improvement. Of course, the same could be said for each of the other treatments, which is why I find these comparisons difficult.
Cheers,
Alex

I agree

 

[MartyD]

For those that didn’t like Photo AI make sure you have looked at the most recent version. There have been plenty of enhancements since the early version.

 

[M R Opp]

I see the utility of using a "denoise" utility. I have just started playing with LR Denoise, and ha.ven't compared with anything else. BTW, I think the bird may be a willow flycatcher.

 

[sh1209]

Dxo pure raw 3 is amazing in my opinion. its fast, reasonably cheap and gives great results.

 

[thelordofthelight]

I haven't used DXO but a friend of mine swears by it. I don't like not having control over what it does. I have tried Topaz Photo AI and I don't like it. I still prefer to use sharpen and denoise selectively and to my adjustments. I will say of your 3 examples DXO by far did the best job. Makes me go hmmmmm.

You must definitely try their free trial and am sure you'll be blown away. Im seeing consistently better results with DxO compared to Topaz. With Topaz, there are these nasty artifacts at times. Of course DXO appears to be all automatic but the results are stellar IMO.

 

[ElenaH]

IMO both of them , DXO PureRAW and Topaz Denoise AI (last versions) are good. I think, the most difference is in Workflow. Whereas you can do a batch-processing od native RAW files in DXO and speed your workflow, you can finetune the almost ready images in Topaz. Sometimes stacked images are exported as Dng or Tiff-files and you cannot let hem run in DXO so, here Topaz can be helpful. Or you denoised your Raw files, processed them and then you think: perhaps a bit more noise reduction.. just a little bit. And you don't want to repeat the whole processing again then you will use Topaz. I think, the stong side of Topaz to be able to edit any image file. And the strong side of DXO - to edit hundreds of (only) Raw files and speed up your workflow.
I see LRC ather of the Topaz side - after denoising in DXO, for finetuning.

 

[sh1209]

I think one of the best features of pure raw is batch editing. Once I do a rough cull of a days images I then send all the images thru dxo and go do something else while it completes. Not only is the detail far better than topaz, the colors to my eye seem much better once dxo runs its magic. I do occasionally still use topaz denoise but from my experience photo ai is a train wreck.

 

[bleirer]

I think it's worthwhile to trial dxo photolab. Same NR as pure raw, but sliders to control amounts. Worth the $100 more compared to pure raw.

 

[TonyB]

Here is the default LR denoise. I used the parameters as suggested by LR. I don't like this image as well as the Pure Raw or Photo AI but with some work it may be compariable.

One issue with the above Lightroom test - Lightroom does not analyze the photo and suggest a setting. The setting that appears is held from the last use of the Denoise feature. It is up to the user to adjust the slider to their own taste.

 

[foxysport]

I use Topaz extensively, both individually and the current AI version. All of them have quite a few customization sliders. I _never_ trust the defaults the AI version sets--among other things, it is bumping up the denoising massively, which compromises the sharpening. If there is a raw NEF available somewhere, I could have a go with my usual processing workflow, would be interesting to compare.

 

[jpawlan]

I have continued to use Topaz Denoise and Topaz Sharpen. They have far more flexibility and adjustments than their Photo AI. I do this in layers in PS. Personally I do not like the results of Photo AI.
I also own the DXO PhotoLab 6 (now 6.6.1) elite edition which includes the Deep Prime XD super noise reduction. It does work better than LR or Topaz but it sometimes makes the overall color and contrast a bit much. I probably am not adjusting the many other controls correctly. However it has "saved" otherwise horrible exposed images such as a bird deep in a tree in a dark shadow that is is around 100 yards away. I suggest you try it as they offer a temporary complete edition for free trial.
Regardles of whether I use DXO or Topaz, I always touch up the processing with LR before passing the image to PS.

 

[agrumpyoldsod]

Thanks Rich

For me Topaz AI plugins and DxO Raw 3 (PR3) perform entirely separate roles.

I apply PR3 towards the start of my process and the Topaz AI tools as needed at the end.

I do not use any Topaz AI tool for RAW conversion.

I take all the Z9 Lossless RAW files I want to use through the Deep Prime or DeepPrime XD -- I am yet to see the real difference but XD runs almost as fast on my Mac Studio as Deep Prime - so I have been using XD recently. One issue I have with PR3

WHY --- since day one to today while Adobe ACR/LRC was the first software to "permit" processing of Z9 Lossless RAW files -- the results have looked "lousy" to me -- I much prefer what Capture One and then Pure Raw did to these files. So I use PR3 to process my select raw files and generate a Linear PNG file. ACR/LRC treats these files very similarly to RAW files but the work PR3 has done is in them (not the same with other types of PNG file)

LRC and PS (with ACR) has great tools and very time saving masking and local adjustment tools -- PS is now crazy deep. So I still import all files from the cards/cameras then apply the PR3 plugin to process the RAW conversion AND then finish my edits in LRC with PS and other tools as needed. BUT -- I do not use LRC's sharpening or noise reduction -- I find on most occasions that Topaz DeNoise AI give me what I want (noise reduction and basically simple sharpening).
I find Photo AI an overly blunt instrument -- but it has improved a lot since the original free release .
Sometimes I will use Sharpen AI as an alternative when I want to be very precise in the sharpening and where it is applied
Othetimes I use GigaPixel AI
-- but take care to avoid the Enhancement tools -- particularly face enhancement -- unless you are into cartoons.

For very special stuff - I use layers in PS to paint in and localise various copies of the same image -- but as a rule when processing large numbers of images -- NOPE it is too much work.

Yes my process sounds nuts - uses lots of storage and processing power -- but it works for me.

 

[Shlomo Neuman]

Whereas DxO PhotoLab 6 Elite has worked ok for me, I found exporting tiff format photos back to LRC to be an excruciatingly slow process. This holds true on both my PC and my Mac Studio, the latter being a very fast machine. Does anyone know how to speed up the DxO export process? Till then, I will continue relying on the much faster Topaz products.

 

[bleirer]

Whereas DxO PhotoLab 6 Elite has worked ok for me, I found exporting tiff format photos back to LRC to be an excruciatingly slow process. This holds true on both my PC and my Mac Studio, the latter being a very fast machine. Does anyone know how to speed up the DxO export process? Till then, I will continue relying on the much faster Topaz products.

It is slow. They say it relies heavily on having a compatible graphics card, and the website says something about trying enabling a graphics card even if it doesn't come on the auto detect and seeing if it glitches. It's only for keepers though, takes a good minute or so on my basic Windows setup to run XD.

 

[AlexY]

It is slow. They say it relies heavily on having a compatible graphics card, and the website says something about trying enabling a graphics card even if it doesn't come on the auto detect and seeing if it glitches. It's only for keepers though, takes a good minute or so on my basic Windows setup to run XD.

I just checked on my 3 year old HP PC with an i5 8400 cpu and an nVidia GTX 1050Ti and 24 GB RAM...not the fastest computer, but still pretty good for what I need it to do.
Using Deep Prime in PL6, I sent a dng (77MB) with all corrections to LrC and it took 18s, The same file sent as a Tiff (117MB - I don't think this includes corrections) took 21s.
When I treated the same files in PL6 using Deep Prime XD, the 77MB dng file took 37s and the 117MB tiff file took 39s.

 

[bleirer]

I just checked on my 3 year old HP PC with an i5 8400 cpu and an nVidia GTX 1050Ti and 24 GB RAM...not the fastest computer, but still pretty good for what I need it to do.
Using Deep Prime in PL6, I sent a dng (77MB) with all corrections to LrC and it took 18s, The same file sent as a Tiff (117MB - I don't think this includes corrections) took 21s.
When I treated the same files in PL6 using Deep Prime XD, the 77MB dng file took 37s and the 117MB tiff file took 39s.

I'd say you are doing pretty good time wise then. PL6 does batch process so we can get coffee while it churns away, but I feel lucky I don't have that many I want to take to the next level. Which in my case is switching over to Photoshop.

 

[AlexY]

I'd say you are doing pretty good time wise then. PL6 does batch process so we can get coffee while it churns away, but I feel lucky I don't have that many I want to take to the next level. Which in my case is switching over to Photoshop.

Unfortunately, I probably drink too much coffee before batch processing files!
I have had some files take about 45s using a dng file and Deep Prime XD - presumably noisier.....
A small price to pay for the advantages gained using PL6.
Cheers