Topaz Denoise AI

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DavidT

DavidT

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I bought the Topaz bundle a couple of months ago and am really impressed with it.
For anyone who is on the fence about buying it here is a pic of the moon tonight 10/31/2020 with a D850 at iso 8000.
The left side is original and right side is with denoise. Simple iPhone pic of iMac screen, you can see the difference
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Topaz did a 50% off sale last year on Black Friday, which is when I purchased their toolset. Shortly after, they informed everyone that they were no longer doing free updates for life and are now charging an annual SMS fee. However, their tools have greatly improved over this past year, especially in the core products of DeNoise, Sharpen and Gigapixel.

DxO just released the latest version of Photolab with improved noise reduction and the tests I’ve seen are impressive, equal to DeNoise AI. If DxO develops similar improvements sharpening and upscaling, it will be interesting to see how Topaz responds, especially since Topaz is now charging for updates, same as DxO.
 
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TonyB said:
Topaz did a 50% off sale last year on Black Friday, which is when I purchased their toolset. Shortly after, they informed everyone that they were no longer doing free updates for life and are now charging an annual SMS fee. However, their tools have greatly improved over this past year, especially in the core products of DeNoise, Sharpen and Gigapixel.

DxO just released the latest version of Photolab with improved noise reduction and the tests I’ve seen are impressive, equal to DeNoise AI. If DxO develops similar improvements sharpening and upscaling, it will be interesting to see how Topaz responds, especially since Topaz is now charging for updates, same as DxO.
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I just bought the Topaz suite a month or so ago and they have been doing updates which have been free. I believe updates are free for a year and then yes you pay for them however they don’t do a monthly subscription.
I’m ok with this. I don’t have to do the update but if it gives them the cash flow to continue to deliver better products that improve my final output it’s worth it.
You know back in the day we had to pay for film and processing each time we took an image. I see it as a small price to pay and it’s a lot cheaper than paying for film and processing.
When I was shooting professional back in the 90’s I’d easily spend $10k a month at a local pro lab in developing and printing for clients. I’d also spend thousands a month in film so software and memory cards are cheap in comparison.
 
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I find the $99.99 for one year of updates for two or more Topaz products on the expensive side when you consider the price compared to the annual cost of Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop combined. After all sharpening and denoise are just two features so glad Adobe don't charge per feature.
 
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I have Topaz denoise AI that I bought during a sale but seldom use it, I think about 3 times on files shot with older gear in the past that benefited greatly from denoise .... it works but produces huge tiff files. I got @Steve video series on noise reduction using LR and PS and avoiding it in the first place and on images I create with the D500 and D850 I really have not needed to do any more than use LR since their introduction of the texture slider and vastly improved noise reduction in the detail section. I should have shared this to begin with. Yes I am "pimping" a bit for Steve's video. These screen shots show the LR settings applied and the meta data. This was the first evening I had the Nikkor 500 PF and taken 9:05 PM with D850 .... trying again should have realized I needed to import to LR and export with Steves preset for the forum.
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I got Topaz Denise last month when it was on sale. They also have a one month free trial which is what I did before buying. I have to say, it is one amazing piece of software and should be in every serious photographers tool kit.
 
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Even on the lower settings, with the DeNoise's sharpness-slider all the way down (but not off in night mode), DeNoise works wonders on the image and even seems to sharpen a little (what they say when asked as that it's not sharpening per se, it is removing denoising artifacts).

Yes, it's going to be more expensive when they start charging for updates. But I'm tired of paying for DxO NIK updates that do not much more than adding new presets. And the NIK Sharpener Pro is awful with halos in some cases. One difference between the two companies: Topaz genuinely seems to be working on advancements AND bug fixes and the updates come very often. With DxO, updates only seem to come when they want to charge you more. And you can't turn off the update reminders.

Like any tool, it can be over-used. DeNoise will remove too much detail at higher settings or in deeper shadows, so I evaluate / sample a few locations at 200% before hitting the Apply button. You can then trust those settings for the most part in the rest of the image of the batch, shot / exposed similarly.

Chris
 
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I've just recently purchased Topaz DeNoise AI. For most of my images I never leave light room. However for really noisy images, DeNoise AI works wonders. Saves me from having to use PS with selections and masking layers and such.

For those truly noisy images, I start in LR but make no adjustments. Send to DeNoise AI as a Tiff, apply my noise corrections and then save. The Tiff file returns to LR and I then process as usual in LR without needing to add any noise reduction in LR. This preserves my original Nef file without corrections, so I can start over if needed
 
I have it and use it with mixed results. Curious why the moon photo has such a high ISO?
Was it on autoIso with some strange settings?
 
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Hut said:
I have it and use it with mixed results. Curious why the moon photo has such a high ISO?
Was it on autoIso with some strange settings?
Click to expand...
Good question .... moon at night typically pretty simple to shoot ... one simple formula aperture priority .... lowest aperture number/wide open ... spot meter on the moon ... sunny white balance ... ISO 400-800 (auto ISO also usually works on D500 or D850).
 
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