Topaz

avondale87 wrote in post #19273056
Made quite a difference
Did you just leave to the program or fiddle with the sliders?
I turn auto preview off and pan about to where I want to focus on, or would expect to improve, chose the setting then preview.
It saves time in not updating every time you fiddle with something.
I don't or seldom use the keep detail option, can't recall exact terminology.
I've found for my work I can get the amount of noise reduction etc set and generally leave it.
Each time I fire it up it retains the setting until changed

My settings in Topaz were Clear, with Remove Noise and Enhance Sharpness both set to Low.

I tried increasing the Remove Noise and ended up with significantly more noise. Lol.

There is lots more to play with. I need to find a way to suppress the color fringing that appeared. It's not present in the original.

I'm no expert but play with settings. Have found that in some cases masking the bird and applying sharpening to just the bird produces a more natural overall picture with the bird having more detail.

Archibald wrote in post #19273051
Old thread, but I had a photo that wasn't going to make it with just Lightroom tools. I asked for advice here in the Post your Bird Portraits (2) forum and Topaz was recommended. I downloaded the Topaz trial and here is my comparison of what I could do in LR (left) and with Topaz (right). This was done on the raw file with Topaz's Clear setting.

The bird was far away and the pic is a heavy crop. There was a lot to improve.

Topaz really cranks the contrast and saturation, so I had to tone that down to get a good comparison with the LR product. Topaz amplified some color artifacts. Overall Topaz reduces noise a lot and helps the sharpness a bit IMO. I think Topaz helped. Not sure it saved the photo, though!

Hosted photo: posted by Archibald in
./showthread.php?p=192​73051&i=i42621987
forum: RAW, Post Processing & Printing

Here is the full photo (with Topaz watermark).

Hosted photo: posted by Archibald in
./showthread.php?p=192​73051&i=i174222463
forum: RAW, Post Processing & Printing

Ed, You definitely improved the original image considerably, however, I honestly don't believe the original was savable.

Thanks for the comments. I will have to apply Topaz to some better pics, ones that are almost but not quite sharp. I have lots of those! And play with the settings.

I was pleased with how Lightroom handled a high ISO pic of a chickadee. I used 62 sharpening and 11 noise reduction for this pic (posted in the Bird Portrait (2) thread), plus a bit of clarity and vibrance.

I wanted to see what Topaz could do with this picture. Can it do better than LR? I gave it a shot using the Topaz Clear settings.

I am on the trial version, so Topaz leaves a watermark, and the watermark happens to land right on the bird's head. So that area can't be used for evaluation. Instead we can get some idea of what Topaz does by looking at the breast feathers on the left which are not affected by the watermark.

Topaz brightened the photo quite a bit and boosted saturation significantly. I didn't want these effects, so I imported the results into LR and did my best to match the brightness, color and saturation to the LR version.

The comparison below shows LR classic on the left and Topaz Clear with Medium noise reduction and Low sharpening. They are 100% views. Look at the slightly darker area in the Topaz pic. The light portion is the watermark.

Archibald wrote in post #19275259
I was pleased with how Lightroom handled a high ISO pic of a chickadee. I used 62 sharpening and 11 noise reduction for this pic (posted in the Bird Portrait (2) thread), plus a bit of clarity and vibrance.

I wanted to see what Topaz could do with this picture. Can it do better than LR? I gave it a shot using the Topaz Clear settings.

I am on the trial version, so Topaz leaves a watermark, and the watermark happens to land right on the bird's head. So that area can't be used for evaluation. Instead we can get some idea of what Topaz does by looking at the breast feathers on the left which are not affected by the watermark.

Topaz brightened the photo quite a bit and boosted saturation significantly. I didn't want these effects, so I imported the results into LR and did my best to match the brightness, color and saturation to the LR version.

The comparison below shows LR classic on the left and Topaz Clear with Medium noise reduction and Low sharpening. They are 100% views. Look at the slightly darker area in the Topaz pic. The light portion is the watermark.

Hosted photo: posted by Archibald in
./showthread.php?p=192​75259&i=i20214605
forum: RAW, Post Processing & Printing

Topaz suppressed the noise very effectively, but I was disappointed in the detail and sharpness. It is not as good as the LR version. I'm also noticing quite a bit of color fringing that has appeared in the feathers. Color artefacts appeared with the loon pic too.

Was Medium NR too aggressive? I tried again with different settings, first with Low noise/Low sharp and then with Low noise/High sharp. The results are below.

Hosted photo: posted by Archibald in
./showthread.php?p=192​75259&i=i43211422
forum: RAW, Post Processing & Printing

I don't think either of these has satisfactory noise control. The effect on sharpness is slight if not the reverse of what is expected, and isn't of interest anyway with this level of noise.

So I'm concluding that Topaz is not very effective compared to LR, or is much harder to use than at first appears.

I'm late seeing this thread, but in using DeNoise for about 1 1/2 years, AI Clear is the least effective option in DeNoise. The regular is usually the better, and sometimes the newish low light is best. I usually preview the standard tab 1st, and if is not good, then try low light and/or severe noise(severe rarely works for me). YMMV

Dave63401 wrote in post #19280718
I'm late seeing this thread, but in using DeNoise for about 1 1/2 years, AI Clear is the least effective option in DeNoise. The regular is usually the better, and sometimes the newish low light is best. I usually preview the standard tab 1st, and if is not good, then try low light and/or severe noise(severe rarely works for me). YMMV

Thanks for the comment, Dave. I'm thinking that Topaz might be pretty good in experienced hands - you need to know what you are doing, and try different settings. It's possible that the best result in Topaz is better than the best result in Lightroom, but it is not an easy comparison to make.

Archibald wrote in post #19280738
Thanks for the comment, Dave. I'm thinking that Topaz might be pretty good in experienced hands - you need to know what you are doing, and try different settings. It's possible that the best result in Topaz is better than the best result in Lightroom, but it is not an easy comparison to make.

I have been happy with DxO PureRAW. There are no options. (Well there are 3 options but they are just 2 faster process options, or the 'full' option).
I thought I might find the lack of options or parameters that can be set by user to be frustrating but I like it.
It has profiles for supported cameras and lenses. You do get a choice to use the lens profiles or not.

As you are obviously trialling Topaz, good opportunity to give DxO a trial. No watermarks on the results during trial period.
I don't think it's as powerful as Topaz, ie Topaz may be better to try to recover more severely soft or out of focus images.

Choderboy wrote in post #19280813
I have been happy with DxO PureRAW. There are no options. (Well there are 3 options but they are just 2 faster process options, or the 'full' option).
I thought I might find the lack of options or parameters that can be set by user to be frustrating but I like it.
It has profiles for supported cameras and lenses. You do get a choice to use the lens profiles or not.

As you are obviously trialling Topaz, good opportunity to give DxO a trial. No watermarks on the results during trial period.
I don't think it's as powerful as Topaz, ie Topaz may be better to try to recover more severely soft or out of focus images.

Thanks for the suggestion. I might give DxO PureRAW a try.

The problem is that these trials are time-consuming if you want to do a good assessment. In previous posts, I was told no worries with Topaz, the defaults work great most of the time. I found that to be incorrect. Topaz cranks up contrast and saturation when it shouldn't do that IMO. Those adjustments make for a brighter, sharper-looking image, but I don't need Topaz to boost contrast and saturation. Making those adjustments obfuscates what it is doing to noise and sharpness, and makes fair comparisons very difficult unless one spends time tuning those other variables to match. And getting an exact match is impossible because Topaz does not apply those contrast/sat adjustments uniformly over the image.

Therefore when doing comparisons, interpretation is necessary and interpretations tend to be subjective.

At this point I would have no idea what to expect with DxO. It might be quite different. If I have time in the next little while, I should give it a try.

I ran about 20 images through DxO PureRAW before deciding to go ahead and purchase. I don't think there is a limit regards how many files you can process with the trial, just 30 day limit.
The advantage with it is: download, give it a bunch of files to process, keep the results long term if you don't buy for later asessment.

The good:
No adjustments available so assessing it's results easier.
I have seen that Topaz can have some artifacts which need cleaning up, I have not seen any results that need tidying up with DxO.
I think it's maybe more gentle than Topaz. I don't have expectations to work magic, only make the best of good images that are maybe not perfect in focus or lacking motion blur, but not far from perfect.
I have not noticed it altering colour, saturation, levels etc. Noise and sharpening only.
You download profiles for lenses and have the option whether or not to use them. If a lens has distortion, pixel dimensions may change, but I usually don't use lens profiles.
I often use Sigma 500 f4 S which has a profile but neither Sigma teleconverters TC1401 or TC2001 have profiles available. It's relatively new software so expect they will come later.

Something I need to test: if I do find a result over sharpened and I use no lens profile, I think I can use original file and the output file as two layers in Photoshop and blend to reduce the DxO outputs effect.

The bad:
No adjustments!
Some say it can over sharpen but I have not experienced that.
It won't open files from unsupported cameras. I bought it and soon after got a Sony A7RIVa. The 'a' model only has a larger rear LCD, as far as I know and as far as Sony states.
But files can't be opened. So I edit Exif data from A7RIVa to A7RIV and then it will open files. IMHO they should allow you to open unsupported cameras with a warning that results cannot be guaranteed.

It also only opens RAW files. While I understand why, I still think user should have the choice to try the software on a JPG or a Tiff if that's all the user has, for whatever reason.

Choderboy wrote in post #19281066
I ran about 20 images through DxO PureRAW before deciding to go ahead and purchase.

It also only opens RAW files. While I understand why, I still think user should have the choice to try the software on a JPG or a Tiff if that's all the user has, for whatever reason.

What does it put out after processing your RAW file? TIFF / JPG or ? Also, Can it be used as a plug-in to LR/PS? Glad you found something you like and works for you.

Dave63401 wrote in post #19281118
What does it put out after processing your RAW file? TIFF / JPG or ? Also, Can it be used as a plug-in to LR/PS? Glad you found something you like and works for you.

It outputs a .dng file.

60MB .ARW file (Sony 61mp compressed RAW) results in 229MB .dng file.
(Uncompressed .ARW would be 120MB)

It's standalone, cannot be used as plugin but can export to Photoshop Creative Cloud versions, Lightroom Classic Creative Cloud versions.
I did not mention that it can also output JPG, basically forgot about that, not something I imagine using.

I don't use Lightroom, but just found this:

https://www.deepgreenp​hotography.com …1/dxo-pureraw-full-review

By the way, for those of us who make adjustments in Lightroom or Camera RAW, there’s great news. Our previous edits will still be handled as tags in the new DNG file. This means that we don’t have to start over if we want to run older files through DxO. Further, we can always revisit our Lightroom/Camera Raw edits to tweak them to taste for our DNG file.

I posted about this after I picked up the DeNoise and Sharpen AI tools... I think they work great. I wish I have had time to process the several thousand pics that are waiting...

https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1520727

Moonshiner wrote in post #19281342
I posted about this after I picked up the DeNoise and Sharpen AI tools... I think they work great. I wish I have had time to process the several thousand pics that are waiting...

https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1520727

Thanks for the link!