New King for Noise Reduction? DXO Pure Raw 3 vs Topaz Photo AI - Review
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- Опубліковано 15 бер 2023
- In this video, we explore high ISO noise reduction using Topaz PureRaw. High ISO noise can be a significant issue for photographers, especially in low light situations. But with Topaz PureRaw, you can easily reduce noise and retain detail in your photos. In this video I will demostrate you how it works and compare the results with Topaz Photo AI (which essentially combines Topaz Denoise, Sharpen AI and Gigapixel AI).
You can try both software for free for 30 days:
Dxo Pure Raw 3: tidd.ly/42l1Lwi
Topaz Photo AI: www.topazlabs.com/topaz-photo...
You can download the comparison in good quality here: www.dropbox.com/sh/p8u6p7ysy7...
Some of my other equipment (Affiliate Links):
Canon EOS R5: amzn.to/3RIMcI6
Canon EF 16-35: ttps://amzn.to/3DfXjTw
Canon RF 100-500mm: amzn.to/3vglP3E
Gitzo GT3543 LS Tripod: amzn.to/3CeoBuB
Flex Shooter Pro Tripod Head: amzn.to/3JajXQ4
You can try both software for free for 30 days (Affiliate Links):
Dxo Pure Raw 3: tidd.ly/42l1Lwi
Topaz Photo AI: www.topazlabs.com/topaz-photo-ai/ref/901/?campaign=en
A very fair and objective review, I have been using DXO Pure Raw Prime XD (Photolab 6 Elite) for a while now and really like the results I get with my Z9, all that I miss is the batch process option so I might just go ahead and purchase PureRaw 3 purely out of convenance, many thanks.
Thanks! Yes, too bad that’s not included in Photolab
Thanks for the comparison, well done. I have both DXO pureraw 3 and AI v 1.2. I usually batch process the raw files in DXO first and then import to Lightroom. Then after crop and basic adjustments if needed I send the file to AI by the 'edit in' feature, I also notice it is easy to get over sharpening in AI. I am liking pureraw 3 better than 2 the output looks slightly better and 3 is more stable on my PC. I am waiting for a couple more versions to buy the upgrade for AI. I plan to continue to use both. Cheers
I also had the feeling that PureRaw 3 is giving me better results than v2
Thanks for the detailed comparison. Great video. I'm going to try Photo AI. The free trial is a huge help.
Thanks! Yes, free trial versions are awesome to test things before buying
I'm trying the software and very impressed. At least it supports the S5 ii RAW files. Topaz not yet.
Now I have to go back and redo all of my noisy photos! A hummingbird photo was improved significantly.
Great informative video.
Thanks and enjoy
Thanks so much for sharing another wonderful video like always, I really enjoy the birds photography show, keep up with the awesome content 🐦👌👍🤗
Thanks for your words 😊
Good video and very timely for me, I own DeNoise and just downloaded the trial of Pure raw 3. First impressions for me are similar to your conclusions, much less artefacts with Pure Raw 3. Im also going to buy the sub.
Thanks 😊
Finally an honest assessment. So many of the other content creators are on the Topaz band wagon. I have been a long time user of both The original Topaz suite and PhotoAI and DxO. I have always found DxO to produce much more consistent results overall. PAI has the benefit of Face recovery, but it can be problematic. I always found PAI lacking in its noise reduction performance where parts of the image were left unprocessed. Additionally PAI was prone to destroying fine detail thru overzealous NR and creating more sharpening artifacts or false detail. PAI was released into the wild as a “finished” product that is still in beta test at user expense. Thanks for an honest assessment.
Thanks! Yeah, I really didn’t like Photo AI when I tried it last autumn for the first time and continued using Denoise. Now it’s better but at the moment I would really say DXO has the edge
Your review matches my own experience quite well. Each tool has occasional advantages over the other, and in critical situations, I find it valuable to own both. Note that Photo AI is updated at least weekly, if not more, and usually with slight improvements. I don’t think either will remain “the best” in every situation.
Thanks! I agree, it really depends on the pictures
Wonderful video. Thank you for that. My opinion is that both programs giving very close results but the ability to denoise or Sharpen or even maximize some photo resolution for printing (after cropping) is so much more from Photo Ai so I will go with Topaz Photo Ai.
Again thank you for this video, love it.
Thanks for the nice comment 😊
Nice review. Thanks!
Glad that it helped
Thanks so much for sharing another wonderful video like always 👍👌
Glad to hear that you liked it 😊
Jusst did a trial with OM-1 files. Wow. did a great job and setting the lens correction to standard did not seem to over sharpen but had great detail.
Nice to hear! I guess it really depends on the picture
Great video thanks! ON-1 works the same, but for the price it also includes the option for sharpening as well. You don't need to pay separately for sharpening. Just a different priced option. :)
Thanks! I never really looked into ON-1
Not being able to see the output prior to final processing for me was a deal breaker. Topaz Photo AI has been a real gamechanger in my workflow, being able to see the changes applied in advance.
Glad to hear that you found a good solution that suits your workflow
Thank You. Very instructive.
Glad to hear that it was helpful 😊
A well thought through video.
Thanks!
Great review, thank you. I still find the results from DenoiseAI more pleasing than PhotoAI. I also use DXO2 when necesssary and need to try a demo of DXO3.
Thanks! For me it really depends on the picture
For my use case, a lot of indoor sports on my M50 mkii with not the best lens for the job, have to shoot a ton at high iso. 12,800 is normal and sometimes even higher depending on the gym.
I've found nothing helps with the noise as much as pureraw, both 2 and 3. But photo ai works really well for everything else.
My work flow that's treated me well so far is kull down to the keepers. Run those through pureraw, import into Lightroom and edit, export tiffs and run through photo ai. Works a treat.
Yes yes better lenses would negate much of this, but when you're doing it for free less than $300 in software, catch those holiday sales, is a lot more digestible than the price of a f2.8 or f4 zoom lens.
Thanks for your comment! Yes, some people also complain about the prize of pureraw. But as you state, faster lenses or better cameras cost much more
Nice comparison, Photo Ai will give more control and will be better with weekly updates , Dxo only works with Raw. whereas photo ai will work on everything .
Thanks! Good point about the raw-only. I never considered a jpeg workflow
@@FabianFoppNaturephotography me either. To me, a photo that is not raw is not worth such processing
Photo ai has limited options. Youre better of buying the Sharpen ai/Denoise/gigapixel individualy
@@RTReview. except they are no longer selling them individually, well, outside of Gigapixel can be bought individually, but both Sharpen & Denoise AI are no longer sold individually. I have the old versions of both software, but they've not been updated since they moved over to the bundle. [i realize now that this was over a year ago for comment]
I recently bought Topaz AI and noticed that in some images, especially on faces, artifacts are introduced a fair bit. I noticed on baby faces that Topaz has no idea how to treat fuzzy baby hair and you end up with some weird looks. I will try DXO now and see how it compares.
I never tried it on anything else than wildlife. Let me know about your experiences
Thanks for the video. I use both software and I agree with you. Pure raw 3 is impressive. I’d love a in depth video of the use of the software. One question, I don’t know why but after processing with DXO my files always appear darker at least one step at Lightroom Classique. Any suggestions?
Do you happen to have the highlight tone priority in your camera activated?
@@FabianFoppNaturephotography yes. I’ll deactivate it and check! Thanks for the hint 😉
Hello Fabian. Great video thanks for this comparison. As a Nikon shooter I am curious about the Nikon Z9 high efficiency compression format. Does Dxo pureraw 3 support this file format now?? I couldn't find any information about this "long-awaited" compatibility on the internet. Greetings from Heidelberg, Germany 🙂
Just found this in a comment of the Hudson Henry Photography video: Quote "Good evening, I had the same issue to with Z9 and HE and HE* in DXO Photolab, i just literally opened it up, and they've released 6.4 and the notes says it includes compatibility with HE and HE* now! I think it literally released today (15MAR23). I just did a quick test import and seems to be working fine. Haven't tried any heavy denoising yet though. Hope that helps!" End of Quote
It seems to work fine 🥰🤩😁
It worked fine for me (the high efficiency * format of the Z9)
Vielen Dank!
Gerne
The current versions of DeepPrimeXD use the GPU on macos, which is a lot slower than the neural engine. DxO has said they are working on a fix, that would make it more than twice as fast. The bug is a purple colour cast over the whole picture.
This is affecting M1/M2 macs, right?
@@FabianFoppNaturephotography Yes, Intel macs lack the neural engine.
REALLY GOOD INVESTIGATION HERE... ;)
Thanks
Thanks for the video. Can you tell us, is DXO3 better then DXO2? I would like to know it before I upgrade.
I had the impression it was better, but I actually didn’t do a 1:1 comparison. Might be a good idea for another video 😊
But as an additional note: you can try dxo3 for free for 30 days - no risk involved. tidd.ly/42l1Lwi
@@FabianFoppNaturephotography OK, thanks. Maybe I will download it myself and do the comparison.
Notice you also have Affinity. How does the noise reduction on a "normal" editor compare with DXO / Topaz.
Lightroom and capture one are years behind topaz&dxo. It’s really no comparison. But I didn’t really work with affinity lately
Those “artifacts” in the background is called posterization, and is a real problem when we upload images to social media like FB and IG, as they apply a compression filter which makes it much worse.
Question: I don’t use LR, I use the good ol’ PS CS6, and I’m able to use Topaz Denoise & Sharpen as plug-ins. Will DXO work in the same way?
I think it should work. But just download the free 30-days trial 😊tidd.ly/42l1Lwi
DxO works great but sometimes the sharpness is too much and you have no control to reduce it. I like Photo AI because you have control of everything and if you play with the settings you might and up with better results. Also DxO is not working with tiff files 😢.
I think they both have their advantages and disadvantages. Did you try to turn off the sharpening (lens corrections) completely in DXO?
@@FabianFoppNaturephotography No, I didn't. Thanks for the tip. I've downloaded both tools and I'm playing with them for a few days now. There is no clear winner for me yet but I really like the control option in Photo AI.
Great but if you have DxO photolab 6 there's no reason to have pureraw 3?
Maybe for a slightly faster workflow, but pureraw3 and pl6.4 use the same code internally
If you habe the Elite version, than you have access to the same algorithms
@@FabianFoppNaturephotography ya I have the elite version
In my personal experience, Topaz's Sharpen module requires user to try multiple configurations (Strength & Clarity) to fine tune the final result. It is not magic and you have to be patient. The result may not be that pleasant (e.g., some unwanted artifacts) during the try-and-error process, if you pushed Strength or Clarity value too high. I would start with (Strength=25, Clarity=20), and check the final image for artifacts. If no artifacts, then slowly increase the Strength/Clarity value from there, until I find the best setting for noise reduction, sharpness AND detail detention. If you are able to find that best setting, Topaz's Sharpen module could work wonders for certain images, especially if the subject is slightly blurry/out of focus.
I recently did a similar comparison for Lightroom Denoise AI v.s. Topaz v.s. DXO PhotoLab 6, with a noisy bird image (ISO 10000, bird slightly out of focus). The Topaz's result is vastly superior of the three. Its capability to selectively sharpen the subject (bird in this case) while denoise the background is second to none.
Thanks! I also have the feeling that Sharpen AI does a better job than the competition, but as you say, you really need to try different algorithms to get the best result
Yes I'm on trial to test it, while the result is pretty good, I often get only a black photo instead as the picture process in just a few seconds instead of like a whole minute or so.. I wrote to the support but they just said update the drivers etc (they're all up to date)
So yeah good potential but I'm not paying for a software I can't rely on (also it's really super slow honestly)
Ou, too bad
Well…thank you 🙏🏻 Now…..I have converted all my raw files in my life to adobe DNG - and therefore can´t use “dxo pure raw 3” on those files. Only original raw files going forward 😢 But still. An advantage if the dxo dng files are the same as adobe´s. Regards Lars , Denmark
Ou, I didn’t know that dxo PureRaw doesn’t support dng files
It's interesting to me that in your PhotoAI editing, like for your first image that was at 12,800 ISO, you had the noise removal strength at 28. I have found that on mine, I typically reduce the strength of noise reduction down to 1 and it gives me cleaner results than what yours is at 26, even with a photo with 52,000 ISO (R6). Not sure why that would be. And if your image is already fairly sharp (i.e, you nailed focus but it's high ISO), you can turn off the sharpening altogether and the result are usually better. I haven't tried DXO 3 yet, but I like being able to adjust settings before applying so I'll probably stick with PhotoAI.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. On that particular image it was indeed a bit soft, mainly due to the 1/1600 shutter speed which was a bit slow. But with a bit of sharpening in Photo AI (I activated/deactivated the sharpening for the other pictures on a case by case basis) it turned out quite nice. I still feel pureraw was doing a bit a better job, but the difference was also not crazy
I think the best way processing is to use Topaz sharpen and Topaz Denoise after and not Topaz Photo AI, you have so much more control in both programs.
I have the feeling that Photo AI is catching up. But I agree that especially for sharpening I would still go with Sharpen AI
How far are we until Ai noise reduction is imbedded into cameras???
Good point! I guess we will see it in jpeg first
Maybe someone already pointed it out, but you are comparing the first version of Topaz Ai vs the latest of Pure Raw.
Your version of Topaz Denoise is 1.x something, if I saw it correctly, now we are at the 3.7, major upgrade were done.
I would encourage you to at least download/try the latest Topaz Denoise and re-do the comparison at the point, otherwise it is not that fair.
Anyway, thanks for the video.
Hi!
I think you are mistaken. The newest version of Photo AI as of today is 1.2.9, I had 1.2.6 (which was the newest 2 weeks ago when I shot the video). I remember precisely that I checked for updated the same days as shooting the video 😊
@@FabianFoppNaturephotography Oh maybe my bad. YOu probably have the entire Topaz Suite, that may show its own version, that's why.
Because I have Topaz DeNoize and it show version 3.7.0.
DXO PureRaw 4 BLOWS Topaz Away! I used to use Topaz, but when I tries DXO, I haven't used Topaz since!
I‘ also using DXO 99% of the time
@@FabianFoppNaturephotography I have compared it many times beside Topaz and Lightroom denoise, and DXO beats them every time
DxO is great. Maybe they will give us more options in the future. So that we can choose between the one button for batches and more finetuning on individual images. That being said I can always import both original and denoised images into photoshop and blend them together if I find the denoise to extreme.
I already found DxO v.2 to be magic so seeing several people say v.3 is even better makes me want to upgrade.
Thanks! Yes, that would be a nice option
In version 3 the downside is that you cant turn off the sharpening. for some nature/animal-photos it is perhaps ok, but for all other normal photos even the softest setting is too sharp especially with good sharp lenses, it looks sooo unnatural, not usable! And persons/faces look ugly with this high sharpening. What would be very very cool if you could just edit all photos in LR and at the very end (without the use of extra .dngs) exporting all photos in full batch using the Dxo PureRaw with seamless setting/ammount of sharpness AND noise reduction, or depending on the ISO-value, automatically low noise reduction for low ISO and high reduction for high ISO. So you can just optimise little bit a whole bunch of 1000 photos of a session/wedding with few clicks fully automatically. If someone knows of a software which can do this then let me know!
Did you turn off all lens corrections in dxo?
Topaz have already used months to correct their own errors without any real improvement of the noise reduction. DxO PureRAW 2 and 3 are way ahead. One annoying detail with Topaz Photos AI is the constant updating necessary each time the preview of the output is moved - and of course, the larger DNG files. The only negative issue with DxO is the extremely slow support, which is a paradox considering the high technical level of DxO PureRAW 2 and 3. It would surprise me if Topaz Labs within the next two months managed to get rid of the high contrast artifacts, the bad rendering of digits and letters and the synthetic presentation of smooth surfaces, even of low level textured surfaces like textiles! Those are major problems and actually no improvement has been visible for the AI part of the software since it was released months ago.
Thanks for your detailed comment! We would need the best of both programs!
@@FabianFoppNaturephotography Come on, the best of both programs is what DxO delivers. Topaz is way behind on all accounts.
For some things (sharpening) I prefer Topaz
@@FabianFoppNaturephotography Ok, then we have a different view on white halos. That's an individual choice of course.
I completely agree. I've got the same experience.
Pure raw applies too much sharpness. The Deep Prime XD from DXO Lab6 does not have this problem.
So I recomand DXO Lab 6 instead of Pure Raw.
That might be a good solution for some cases
DXO Pure Raw 3 IS THE HOLY GRAIL ... no NEED MOORE , LrC ... and DoX LAP 7 ... ETC. ... ;) ONLY THE PRICE 89 TAX DOLLAR IS TO HEAVY 4 MEE... ;)
Well, after spending several thousands on camera equipment it seems like a bargain to me 😅
Pixel peeping on zoomed I images is for the OCD crowd. Subject, composition and creative interpretation is for photographers.
I agree that composition and light is more important. But good image quality is a nice bonus and not excluding a good composition
A little bit misleading. I have all this software and even though the very latest Topaz Photo Ai is better than it used to be it still does not compete with DXO deep Prime XD at higher ISO if used correctly and if I have a noisy image that is giving me a problem I will try them all but still believe I get the most detail from DXO deep prime XD in DXO Photolab 7 elite. In fact I prefer using Topaz denoise in preference to Topaz Photo AI in low noise images like the one shown as it is less aggressive. Topaz Photo AI is vastly improved from when it started but still has a little way to go.
I don’t really see why it’s misleading
@@FabianFoppNaturephotography Because you are implying Topaz Photo AI is superior to DXO photolab 7 deep prime XD (pure raw uses the same denoise) when my experience is that it is not. I am using the latest software for both products but have issues with Topaz photo AI and sometimes dont even save it back to lightroom. Incidentaly sometimes it softens in the export and I will use topaz denoise to fix it.
With the newest versions I totally agree that, DXO delivers better results. But the video is more than a year old - some things have changed since then. But I was hoping that the images I showed demonstrate the results of each software
No thanks.I think upgrade price from Vs2 to Vs3 is to expensive ... may be unfair. 😞🤬
It’s not cheap for sure. But at least it’s bot a subscription, so the v2 will still continue to work 😊
TODAY TECH. .. I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY WE CAN'T DO ::: 100 ISO IN / 1/2000 SHUTTERSPEED OF A SECOND, IS P**** ME OF ... WONDER AND WONDER ... WE CAN FLY TOO MARS BUT NO MANUAL IN HIGH SHUTTER SPEED - MY CHOOSE ... .... ????!!!
I don’t understand your comment. You can set iso and shutter speed as you want in manual mode
Photo was definitely not a keeper.
The goshawk?