Topaz Labs DeNoise AI

Joules

doom
CR Pro
Jul 16, 2017
1,801
2,247
Hamburg, Germany
I still don't know what Topaz is doing. The image is blocky due to being increased in size by a huge amount. How did it gain resolution to show the dots on the spider's body as round like they should be?
If that was easy to know, there would probably be some competitor offering identical results, or even a free open source version :LOL:

Doesn't look like regular deconvolution, as your input image is already a digital mess which should have lead to much worse artifacts.

I guess chances are good there's some neural networks involved.

Completely unrelated, but I also find it very interesting how much detail Nvidia can restore (or rather, guess) with their Deep Learning Super Sampling. It runs 3D computer applications at a low resolution and produces a much higher resolution image in real time so that the user/player can enjoy high framerate and visual fidelity.

It's pretty crazy how well it works. In this video the upper corner shows if you're looking at the low resolution version or the upscaled version or the one with DLSS. You usually can tell by the blurry image though

 
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Mar 25, 2011
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If that was easy to know, there would probably be some competitor offering identical results, or even a free open source version :LOL:

Doesn't look like regular deconvolution, as your input image is already a digital mess which should have lead to much worse artifacts.

I guess chances are good there's some neural networks involved.

Completely unrelated, but I also find it very interesting how much detail Nvidia can restore (or rather, guess) with their Deep Learning Super Sampling. It runs 3D computer applications at a low resolution and produces a much higher resolution image in real time so that the user/player can enjoy high framerate and visual fidelity.

It's pretty crazy how well it works. In this video the upper corner shows if you're looking at the low resolution version or the upscaled version or the one with DLSS. You usually can tell by the blurry image though

I'm also thinking that the AI part of it is more than just noise reduction but is attempting to identify and correct for lost information. That tiny cell phone image that someone took did not have the information, there were not enough pixels. Before running Topaz, I used the Adobe Enhance feature to increase the resolution. I'm going to try that with some other images to see if the combination works miracles.
 
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Mar 25, 2011
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As another extreme test, I took a R5 image that was ISO 51200. It actually looks very good as a small image, but at 1:1, the detail is very bad. The 24-240 lens did not help the issue, it isn't sharp enough to get full detail, but this is a extreme case.

Since its a very large file, I am showing crops that are the same size . I first created the cropped image as a CR3, then used it to run enhance. Then, I exported a 1024 X 1024 jpeg and used that for topaz. I also exported the DNG file created by enhance to jpg and ran topaz on that. That was the only way I saw to get 1024 X 1024 comparisons. Pretty convoluted.



First is the original jpg made from the original CR3 . No lighting adjustments or NR.

Second is a jpeg created using Adobe Enhance. BTW, Enhance really hosed the image with CA's. I guess they were always there, but not so noticeable.

Third is the original image treated with Topaz.

Forth is the enhanced image treated with Topaz.

I did not include the image using LR noise reduction. I probably should have, but I ran out of steam.

For what its worth, the Topaz version of the original jpg image looks best to me, the purple added by the enhance process ruins those versions.

The Topaz versions are trials, that's a watermark on them that looks weird..



257 orig1.jpg257 enhanced1.jpg257 topaz1.jpg257 enhanced topaz1.jpg
 
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Mar 25, 2011
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Topaz continues to work after a year and you are out of free upodates whereas PS disappears if you stop paying. I bought Topaz products over a year ago and am past free updates. I tried the latest versions on a free trial and there was no discernible improvement so no need to upgrade. As Topaz works on jpegs, there is no need to upgrade when you get a new camera with new RAW output. DxO PL does its noise reduction magic on RAW files and so you have to upgrade to a new version when Canon brings out a new model.
I see that I can run Topaz on my CR3 raw files, but it outputs tiff. Apparently it is converting the RAW files to tiff and then working on them. In any event, there is a lot more for me to understand.
 
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I decided to pay the $51 and get the software. Noise is always a issue for me. Hopefully, I'll get enough use out of it to justify the purchase.
Topaz has really been a game-changer for me. Previously, I would not consider taking photos above ISO 3200, because I never liked the results. Below is a photo of a male Pine Grosbeak, a species that eluded my camera for years. Unfortunately, it was almost as dark as a cave when I took this photo: 5d iv, 100-400L + 1.4x @ 560 mm, ISO 5000, F8, 1/60 handheld, standing with nothing to rest camera on. Until Topaz, I would have tossed this image, but Topaz gave me a decent image (not great, but decent since it is my only image of the species). By the way, in my testing Topaz Gigapixel works better than Photoshop for upsizing. However, I usually have better luck with the sharpening in Topaz DeNoise than in Topaz Sharpen. The first image is straight through LR, with no sharpening or noise reduction; second is after Topaz DeNoise and some other adjustments in LR. Third is the final image cropped looser.

215D9615_unedited_LR.jpg215D9615_LR.jpg215D9615-Edit_2048.jpg
 
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snappy604

CR Pro
Jan 25, 2017
681
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I see that I can run Topaz on my CR3 raw files, but it outputs tiff. Apparently it is converting the RAW files to tiff and then working on them. In any event, there is a lot more for me to understand.
I have Topaz as well and while it can handle CR3 files, like you.. disliked having to convert and sometimes the converted TIFF or DNG would introduce artifacts which were not visible until I adjusted the resultant file with other software. its a decent product, but not great for my work flow.

as posted in a few other threads, On1 has upped their game for denoise and matches topaz or is slightly better and you have their entire RAW processing engine. My only beef now is the default color profiles for Canon lack... but have figured out how to work around it some. The DN file is with denoise (however about 8 months ago), the other is with On1.. ISO 6400 F. 6.3 1/320 on an R5 with sigma 150-600C8U4A8374 copy-DN-low-light (1).jpg8U4A8374.jpg
 
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AlanF

Desperately seeking birds
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Aug 16, 2012
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I have Topaz as well and while it can handle CR3 files, like you.. disliked having to convert and sometimes the converted TIFF or DNG would introduce artifacts which were not visible until I adjusted the resultant file with other software. its a decent product, but not great for my work flow.

as posted in a few other threads, On1 has upped their game for denoise and matches topaz or is slightly better and you have their entire RAW processing engine. My only beef now is the default color profiles for Canon lack... but have figured out how to work around it some. The DN file is with denoise (however about 8 months ago), the other is with On1.. ISO 6400 F. 6.3 1/320 on an R5 with sigma 150-600CView attachment 200624View attachment 200625
Is it possible to get the RAW file so I can process it with DxO PL4 for comparison? A link to Dropbox that you can later remove is one possibility.
 
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HenryL

EOS R3
CR Pro
Apr 1, 2020
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I have Topaz as well and while it can handle CR3 files, like you.. disliked having to convert and sometimes the converted TIFF or DNG would introduce artifacts which were not visible until I adjusted the resultant file with other software. its a decent product, but not great for my work flow.

as posted in a few other threads, On1 has upped their game for denoise and matches topaz or is slightly better and you have their entire RAW processing engine. My only beef now is the default color profiles for Canon lack... but have figured out how to work around it some. The DN file is with denoise (however about 8 months ago), the other is with On1.. ISO 6400 F. 6.3 1/320 on an R5 with sigma 150-600C
Don't know if you have Photoshop, if you do there is a way to DeNoise without losing raw editing capabilities. You can open your CR3 as a smart object in PS and use Topaz as a smart filter. You will have to save this file as TIFF or PSD, but if you reopen this file you can make additional adjustments to the Topaz filter, or open the original layer in ACR to adjust RAW parameters. I don't do this often, but I find it a better option than opening the raw in DeNoise and being left with raw changes baked in.
 
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snappy604

CR Pro
Jan 25, 2017
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Thanks. Here's the crop. It's has just standard lens sharpening and DeepPRIME noise reduction on DxO PL4, with no attempts to enhance contrast, colours etc.
its the attempts to sharpen/color that tend to make the noise more noticeable.

most of the modern denoise engines are quite good, esp if its exposed correctly in first place (looking at it, it's a damn clean ISO 6400 to start with).. what I was more or less getting to is that I could adjust things and denoise without first exporting and then adjusting which creates a lot of the noise.
 
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snappy604

CR Pro
Jan 25, 2017
681
640
Don't know if you have Photoshop, if you do there is a way to DeNoise without losing raw editing capabilities. You can open your CR3 as a smart object in PS and use Topaz as a smart filter. You will have to save this file as TIFF or PSD, but if you reopen this file you can make additional adjustments to the Topaz filter, or open the original layer in ACR to adjust RAW parameters. I don't do this often, but I find it a better option than opening the raw in DeNoise and being left with raw changes baked in.
sorry don't have photoshop
 
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