Which noise reduction software (DxO PL7 vs Topaz)?

[kaihp]

If I was to go out and take advantage of the Black Friday offers, which noise reduction software should I choose?

DxO PL7 costs €169
Topaz "Photo Plus Bundle" costs $199 (€182)

Camera is the R3. Main subjects are motorcycle sports and a bit of the local wildlife (mostly deer) on the side.
I use DPP4 today and have a Capture One license (but barely used it as the import flow grinds my gears), so integration with PS/LR is not relevant.

The price difference is not big enough to be a factor in my eyes.

Besides the noise reduction, I could see some use for the sharpening tools - but not the scaling stuff. Not sure if DxO's raw flow is interesting for me.

 

[neuroanatomist]

I've been very happy with DxO for high ISO NR, and overall for RAW conversions I find it much better than DPP. I have Topaz as well, but use it mainly for upscaling.

 

[kaihp]

So, DxO-Topaz 1-0 and no other responses? Or do everyone agree with the Doctor?

@AlanF do you have anything to add?

 

[AlanF]

So, DxO-Topaz 1-0 and no other responses? Or do everyone agree with the Doctor?

@AlanF do you have anything to add?

I gave a “like” to @neuroanatomist which means I agree with his comment. Noise is best removed from RAW, and DxO is the winner there. But, Topaz also is great at removing noise from jpegs whereas DxO works only on RAW.

 

[koenkooi]

If you are after noise reduction and not general editing, have a look at dxo pureraw, that does what you mention at a lower price. You do get less knobs and sliders, but that’s not necessarily a negative

Both Dxo pl and pureraw have a 30 day trial, give those a try the next few days.

 

[kaihp]

Three - nil.

That's pretty conclusive, if you're playing soccer (I don't).

@AlanF thanks, I only saw your like after I posted.

I've downloaded PL7 and will give it (and pureraw) a try.

I thought that pureraw was a plugin-only, but looking again I can see it can also be used stand-alone.

 

[kaihp]

I gave the following software a quick spin with 4 (three noisy, one with a lot of motion blur - 4753) images I had from a recent outing shooting a friend's daughter at an iceskating competition:

• Canon DPP 4.18.10 (reference SW, as it's what I use today)
• DxO PhotoLab 7 (DeepPrimeXD)
• DxO PureRAW 3.7 (DeepPRIME and DeepPRIMEXD)
• Topaz Photo AI (n/a)
• Topaz DeNoise AI (Raw)
• Topaz Sharpen AI (Motion)

Topaz Photo AI does not allow you to save any images during its' trial period, so that disqualified it immediately (it does allow you to play with a slider to see the difference from the original image, but for me & this purpose, that doesn't cut it).

Besides the two options from PureRAW, all the software was using default settings.

The DxO and Topaz sw generates huuuge DNG files - 73 to 151MB. I passed them to Capture One 22 to convert them to JPEGs.
The JPEGs exported by DPPs were in the 6.4-7.2MB range, whereas the JPEGs from the other software were in the 11.8-18.9MB range(!)

Note that Topaz places a fairly intrusive watermark, so we need to look past that. Also, the SharpenAI puts a pink colour on the entire image. Sigh. Topaz, meet footgun.

As you can only attach 10 images per post, I'm going to post the rest in seperate posts.

The quick conclusion is that DxO's de-noising software is very superior to Topaz, and that I'm not gaining much from going from PureRAW to PhotoLab 7. I've purchased PureRAW 3.7 based on this. Thanks to all three of you for sharing your experiences.

I find that Topaz loses a lot of detail in the de-noising action, and that in especially the 4737 image, the output from PureRAW looks much more natural to me than the output from PhotoLab.

All images are 100% crops at 750x750pixels.

Image 4329:

 

[kaihp]

Image 4737:

 

[kaihp]

Image 4753: (motion blur during rotation)


In this one I can actually see SharpenAI making a difference. Conclusion must be that sharpening is harder than removing (colour) noise so make sure to stop the action properly and deal with whatever extra noise you get from increasing the ISO even further.

 

[kaihp]

Image 4814: (note the detail in the dress fabric)

 

[neuroanatomist]

The DxO and Topaz sw generates huuuge DNG files - 73 to 151MB. I passed them to Capture One 22 to convert them to JPEGs.
The JPEGs exported by DPPs were in the 6.4-7.2MB range, whereas the JPEGs from the other software were in the 11.8-18.9MB range(!)

I know you went with PureRAW, but that's one reason I prefer just using DxO PhotoLab that handles the entire RAW conversion process (and very well, IMO). When you export a JPG from DxO PhotoLab, you can select the quality. I use 98%, personally. It's been a long time since I used DPP, but I doubt it's magic – Canon is using a higher compression level (= lower quality).

The quick conclusion is that DxO's de-noising software is very superior to Topaz, and that I'm not gaining much from going from PureRAW to PhotoLab 7. I've purchased PureRAW 3.7 based on this. Thanks to all three of you for sharing your experiences.

I'm not surprised. Thanks for sharing your findings!

For the different NR settings in DPP, you'll likely establish personal preferences for when you switch from HQ to Prime to DeepPrime to DeepPrime XD based on the ISO setting.

 

[AlanF]

I gave the following software a quick spin with 4 (three noisy, one with a lot of motion blur - 4753) images I had from a recent outing shooting a friend's daughter at an iceskating competition:

• Canon DPP 4.18.10 (reference SW, as it's what I use today)
• DxO PhotoLab 7 (DeepPrimeXD)
• DxO PureRAW 3.7 (DeepPRIME and DeepPRIMEXD)
• Topaz Photo AI (n/a)
• Topaz DeNoise AI (Raw)
• Topaz Sharpen AI (Motion)

Topaz Photo AI does not allow you to save any images during its' trial period, so that disqualified it immediately (it does allow you to play with a slider to see the difference from the original image, but for me & this purpose, that doesn't cut it).

Besides the two options from PureRAW, all the software was using default settings.

The DxO and Topaz sw generates huuuge DNG files - 73 to 151MB. I passed them to Capture One 22 to convert them to JPEGs.
The JPEGs exported by DPPs were in the 6.4-7.2MB range, whereas the JPEGs from the other software were in the 11.8-18.9MB range(!)

Note that Topaz places a fairly intrusive watermark, so we need to look past that. Also, the SharpenAI puts a pink colour on the entire image. Sigh. Topaz, meet footgun.

As you can only attach 10 images per post, I'm going to post the rest in seperate posts.

The quick conclusion is that DxO's de-noising software is very superior to Topaz, and that I'm not gaining much from going from PureRAW to PhotoLab 7. I've purchased PureRAW 3.7 based on this. Thanks to all three of you for sharing your experiences.

I find that Topaz loses a lot of detail in the de-noising action, and that in especially the 4737 image, the output from PureRAW looks much more natural to me than the output from PhotoLab.

All images are 100% crops at 750x750pixels.

Image 4329:

View attachment 213083View attachment 213084View attachment 213085View attachment 213086View attachment 213087View attachment 213088

I export DxO PL files straight to jpegs. Why do you
export to DNG and then jpeg?

 

[koenkooi]

[…]The DxO and Topaz sw generates huuuge DNG files - 73 to 151MB. I passed them to Capture One 22 to convert them to JPEGs[…]

They are debayered, so they store 3x the amount of data compared to the RAW.

I think the Adobe DNG converter can batch covert those DNGs to lossy compressed DNGs, which are a lot smaller in size. You get to keep the higher bit depth and better control over colour and white balance, which you’d lose with the JPEGs.

 

[kaihp]

I export DxO PL files straight to jpegs. Why do you
export to DNG and then jpeg?

Probably an oversight, considering that I was in a hurry to see the outputs.

 

[AlanF]

They are debayered, so they store 3x the amount of data compared to the RAW.

I think the Adobe DNG converter can batch covert those DNGs to lossy compressed DNGs, which are a lot smaller in size. You get to keep the higher bit depth and better control over colour and white balance, which you’d lose with the JPEGs.

But, isn't easier just to keep the original RAW files?

 

[neuroanatomist]

But, isn't easier just to keep the original RAW files?

I save RAWs (5 years’ worth on my laptop, older ones archived to SSDs stored in two locations). All jpgs are kept in the Mac Photos app.

I only use DNGs when I want to apply NR with DxO then use Photoshop for other manipulations (for example, with ultraviolet photography). But even then I don’t save the DNGs.

 

[AlanF]

I save RAWs (5 years’ worth on my laptop, older ones archived to SSDs stored in two locations). All jpgs are kept in the Mac Photos app.

I only use DNGs when I want to apply NR with DxO then use Photoshop for other manipulations (for example, with ultraviolet photography). But even then I don’t save the DNGs.

I store a terabyte in the cloud, backed up on a couple of laptops down here, and am thinking of approaching Sony to arrange with Satan to store them down below.

 

[neuroanatomist]

I store a terabyte in the cloud,

My Apple account gives me 2 TB, although about 25% of that is used for iCloud backups of family devices. I suppose I could keep a 3rd copy there, those iCloud backups are the only thing on there.

The SSDs are also 2 TB, used for archived RAW images and 4K video (local copies of videos are stored at 1080p).

Current data are more rigorously backed up (hourly Time Machine backups of all the family Macs to a local NAS (RAID with 2 x 10 TB), as well as weekly backups stored away from the house.

 

[koenkooi]

But, isn't easier just to keep the original RAW files?

Yes, I keep the original RAWs and stack them in lightroom with the processed DNGs. For viewing and sharing I export as jpeg XL and import them into Apple Photos.

Keeping the RAW is handy, I revisited some RP+EF100-400II shot from 2019 last weekend, DxO did a much better job than the DPP4+topaz combo I had used.

 

[kaihp]

My Apple account gives me 2 TB, although about 25% of that is used for iCloud backups of family devices. I suppose I could keep a 3rd copy there, those iCloud backups are the only thing on there.

The SSDs are also 2 TB, used for archived RAW images and 4K video (local copies of videos are stored at 1080p).

Current data are more rigorously backed up (hourly Time Machine backups of all the family Macs to a local NAS (RAID with 2 x 10 TB), as well as weekly backups stored away from the house.

Yep, the revered 3-2-1 backup strategy (3 copies, 2 local, 1 offsite).

I do the same, although with Jottacloud (Norway) as my online provider. They off an unlimited backup for personal use for €99/year (it' gone up over the last few years). Note that Jottacloud can throttle you if you go above 5TB.