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Rediculous test 25,600 ISO - Topaz Denoise April 2021

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
After seeing some really nice results using Topaz Denoise on some of my images, that Lightroom Noise Reduction didn’t do well on...

... I decided to try something that I would never do - that is shoot at the max 25,600 ISO with my crop sensor Olympus E-M10 —- and first of all see if anything recognizable would even be recorded on the image file - and if so, see what the result of running the file through Denoise would be. I shot both the ORF raw format as well as JPG SuperFine.

The results were actually quite revealing to me.

1. There were images that I could recognize, and if I was in a pinch with no other options might use
2. Olympus does a remarkable job handling noise with their JPG processing in camera - maybe even better than the extra effort of shooting RAW (ORF) and running it through noise reduction software
3. There are 3 noise reduction settings (algorithms) in Denoise, and each one is different and has benefits depending on the image
4. Not all images react the same way in Denoise.
5. I realized there is batch processing in Denoise - for a group of similar images, they can all be brought in and one setting applied to all at the same time
6 My basic 8GB memory MacMini M1 (without GPU) flies through the noise reduction process. Research informed me that people with fast computers were taking a minute or more per image, and one fellow with a 32GB RAM windows machine appreciated having rendering times in the 18-23sec area —— this test only took 11 seconds and a couple images I processed yesterday were done in 9sec.


2A80AD3D-83B2-46BD-B5FC-9A327A1AA093.jpeg


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A7F4B31B-B9BE-4856-8633-CE9D62D0EAF3.jpeg




6165FF17-373E-40D7-A717-E799B42C3D75.jpeg






This video will be rather boring because it’s just a screen capture showing my process and there is no audio. In doing this test, I had no interest in spending time with settings or extra image processing in X6 - trying to achieve the best result. I didn’t care about that. It’s all just basic straight from the camera and into Denoise with whatever Auto settings it provided, then resize with Export for uploading here.




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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
ISO 25,600 seems Damn good! I think you could prepare a case of flowers for an exhibition and no one would know!

Amazed at in camera processing of jpg. RAW now seems something that we will process better in 2-10 years time perhaps. Right now, with these flowers, and we don’t know about portraits with black hair? How this would measure up!

Ashef
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator

View attachment 7385

Olympus ORF - 25,600 ISO —- Processed in Topaz Denoise.

Hi Roberts,
Thank you for sharing your findings :)
I use Topaz Denoise and Sharpness, it is true that all images need different settings, batching works but only if photos are very similar.
On this sample (Olympus ORF - 25,600 ISO —- Processed in Topaz Denoise.) did you denoise directly the raw file with Topaz or did you 1st export a tif and then process it with Topaz ?
This is always what I do as I find Topaz not to be a good derawtizer…
 

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
Hi Roberts,
Thank you for sharing your findings :)
I use Topaz Denoise and Sharpness, it is true that all images need different settings, batching works but only if photos are very similar.
On this sample (Olympus ORF - 25,600 ISO —- Processed in Topaz Denoise.) did you denoise directly the raw file with Topaz or did you 1st export a tif and then process it with Topaz ?
This is always what I do as I find Topaz not to be a good derawtizer…

I stated that wrong. That is a TIFF file created from the ORF file. Thank you Nicolas

I had heard a couple of guys online talking about the need to use RAW files in Denoise, that they didnt get the results when converted to DNG or TIFF. Earlier I did experiment and open an ORF (RAW) file directly in Topaz as well as a converted DNG. I’m not much of an expert at working with RAW, so didn’t really notice anything that would make me want to go that route.

This quick play that I have posted here, is sending files to Denoise that are converted to 16bit ProPhoto RGB TIFF files,in Exposure X6 when I use Edit a copy in. When I click Apply, the TIFF is saved with noise reduction ready for me to do anything more in X6


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Robert Watcher

Well-known member
Hi Roberts,
Thank you for sharing your findings :)
I use Topaz Denoise and Sharpness, it is true that all images need different settings, batching works but only if photos are very similar.
On this sample (Olympus ORF - 25,600 ISO —- Processed in Topaz Denoise.) did you denoise directly the raw file with Topaz or did you 1st export a tif and then process it with Topaz ?
This is always what I do as I find Topaz not to be a good derawtizer…

A question for you Nicolas.

you mention that you use Topaz Sharpen as well. I noticed that it is on sale for the next few days. Where do you find the sharpen in that app, to be of benefit over the sharpening that is in Denoise? Thanks
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
A question for you Nicolas.

you mention that you use Topaz Sharpen as well. I noticed that it is on sale for the next few days. Where do you find the sharpen in that app, to be of benefit over the sharpening that is in Denoise? Thanks
Hi Robert,
Topaz Sharpen AI is really efficient with images blurred by movement (motion bur).
It works also well in its 2 other way (Out of focus and Too soft).
The AI makes sometimes very weird results on fabrics or wood panels, it has a masking tools but I don't use it as I always use Sharpen on a layer so I easily erase the faulty parts.
It has also a strong denoise action, sometimes better than denoise because it combines denoting and sharpening…
I think that on already sharp images, denoise does a better job, especially on color noise…
I think there's a 30 days demo, try it!
 
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