You can try or buy the programs for free here (affiliate links): DXO PureRAW 4 tidd.ly/3VmJyNR Topaz Photo AI www.topazlabs.com/topaz-photo-ai/ref/901/
I have been using Photo AI for a long time and rescued several photos using it. I like the various options such as the ability to include (or not) noise reduction and sharpening in processing and in recent upgrades has now introduced the ability to create your own presets. Upgrades are being introduced very frequently so it is (usually!) being continuously improved.
There is a reality that we often overlook and that I think is very important. RAW development programs do not work the same for all manufacturers. In short, we have to look for the one that works best with our brand. The most compatible. For example, Camera RAW has never correctly interpreted Olympus raw files...
From my experience with Topaz products I think you are correct. Results from different camera brands do appear to differ. The new version of Topaz Ai 3.2 has been improved for both Nikon users and in my case Sony users in that Topaz AI now handles Sony RAW files much better that it did in the past. I had to abandon Photo AI due to unacceptable colour shit and artefact problems with Sony RAW files that now appears to have been rectified in this new release.
Great video, many thanks. I'm using Topaz Denoise Ai and Sharpen Ai as appropriate, LRC Enhance and/or PR4. I haven't found any consistency in the results so waste too much time trying to pick the best! Can I ask, do you batch process your RAW files with PR4 before importing to LR (or Capture One)? Or do you just export files to PR4 when needed?
nice video. how can we crop and develop raw in LRC and launch pureraw 4 from LRC with LRC edits as we do with a tif file with topaz AI (edit in) ? I have been surprised that pureraw 4 didn't sharpen a little bit my image (a duck with slight lens blur on eye) while topaz ai add sharpen does that perfectly, even with juste denoise and minor fine detail slider
Denoising (and sharpening) in pureraw4 should be the first step of the workflow. You can edit the file in lightroom after you denoised it with pureraw4. Regarding the sharpening: to which setting did you set the sharpening in pureraw4?
thank you. I am not fan to launch a huge 61Mpx arw file into pureraw for a 1600x1600px cropped duck :-) also i prefer using a small exposure retouching (ie: auto in LRC) before launching pureraw if image is too dark,... i kept default values for PR4. i am surprised i don't have a panel in LRC edit in pureraw suggesting to keep LRC edits and allowing to make a tiff file as i have with topaz ai
I've found the same results with the R5, Photo AI and heat haze. It's not perfect but works wonders. It saved a great picture of a male Northern Harrier I took during this past winter that had a surprising amount of heat haze. If I just need noise reduction, I've been using Lightroom AI a lot, especially since Topaz is still working on R5 Mark II RAW support. With Lightroom there's never a checkerboard pattern in the background after denoising, which can often happen with Topaz, especially with a blue sky. Usually Lightroom denoise takes about 15 seconds, but randomly, some photos can take a minute or two even if the estimate is 15 seconds.
Did you have the lenshood when you had the heat haze problem? Sometimes the temperature difference between the air inside the lenshood and outside can be the cause of the phenomenon.
Thanks, I‘ve heard about the phenomenon. But I can’t imagine that this was the case, as the images if birds on land (just taken a bit before and after) were sharp. So it really needs to be a layer of air over the lake
With Topaz, why not use two sharpen filters stacked set to different values with differential masks? it will work for both being focus filters or one focus and one motion blur, your choice?!
For best results, I suggest & use DxO Photolab with highest noise reduction/detail mode, and then Topaz DeNoise, making a careful choice mode (Clear for the worst files). This will further improve both the NR and the sharpness. The best results come from using both, not either/or!
I came to the same conclusion after testing PR4 and PAI3.2 recently: you can get great results with PAI, but every image takes a different tweaking of all sliders. With PR I almost never need to change a slider, which makes it suited for batch processing. Also, PR4 supports the R5II now, PAI didn’t when I checked last week.
hi Fabian I'm going to say something that you may not want to hear, but isn't a less megapixel camera like the Upcoming R1 a better solution. with fewer pixels on a large censor you will have less trouble with noise.
@@FabianFoppNaturephotography I've never had any problems with high ISO values with my R3. I think that the R1 may give even better results, but that will have to prove itself. I also think that with a high resolution camera you see more motion blur. more megapixels seems nice, but also has its disadvantages
Looking at your examples, it seems Topaz leaves a little more noise in its sharpened images, resulting in a more natural look. The DxO results seemed a bit too artificial for my taste. Perhaps this can be tweaked though.
Thanks! Yes, I noticed that too but actually preferred the cleaner look. But it would be easy to just reduce the noise-reduction slider in PureRaw if that is desired
While I really like your video it would be more helpful for your viewers if you gave some more information about how you actually used Topaz. When you are talking about sharpening with Topaz Photo AI 3.2 you do really have to mention how it's been used as regards module used. If thats not enough how you invoke Topaz either as a stand alone app or the two methods inside LR, one producing a DNG and the other a Tiff, each method having the potential once more to produce different results especially when it comes to colour. From my experience Photo AI 3.2 takes some work to get the best out of it as it's not just a one click application so comparisons are tricky to do. And if all thats not enough RAW file type comes into play as the new versions, as far as I have been told, handles Canon, Nikon and Sony RAW files pretty well , so owners of other brands may well have to be careful about how they actually launch the app as a stand alone or a plugin as that can have an impact on how colour is handled. All in all its best doing some research to see how Topaz deals with the RAW files from your camera brand.
Thanks for the feedback, I think you make some very good points. I wanted to keep it simple and therefore didn’t go into detail (I used different modules, depending on the image). I processed all photos as Raw (from C1) though. I will try to go more into these details in my next video
You can try or buy the programs for free here (affiliate links):
DXO PureRAW 4 tidd.ly/3VmJyNR
Topaz Photo AI www.topazlabs.com/topaz-photo-ai/ref/901/
I have been using Photo AI for a long time and rescued several photos using it. I like the various options such as the ability to include (or not) noise reduction and sharpening
in processing and in recent upgrades has now introduced the ability to create your own presets. Upgrades are being introduced very frequently so it is (usually!) being continuously improved.
Thanks for sharing your experiences
There is a reality that we often overlook and that I think is very important. RAW development programs do not work the same for all manufacturers. In short, we have to look for the one that works best with our brand. The most compatible. For example, Camera RAW has never correctly interpreted Olympus raw files...
Good point, I should have mentioned that I work mostly with Canon files
From my experience with Topaz products I think you are correct. Results from different camera brands do appear to differ. The new version of Topaz Ai 3.2 has been improved for both Nikon users and in my case Sony users in that Topaz AI now handles Sony RAW files much better that it did in the past. I had to abandon Photo AI due to unacceptable colour shit and artefact problems with Sony RAW files that now appears to have been rectified in this new release.
Great video, many thanks. I'm using Topaz Denoise Ai and Sharpen Ai as appropriate, LRC Enhance and/or PR4. I haven't found any consistency in the results so waste too much time trying to pick the best! Can I ask, do you batch process your RAW files with PR4 before importing to LR (or Capture One)? Or do you just export files to PR4 when needed?
Thanks! I just batch process the selected ones from C1 or Lightroom
@@FabianFoppNaturephotography Great. Many thanks for your advice. 👍
Fabian I generally use PR4 for noise removal at the start of my workflow and PAI for the final sharpening. Do you think this is overkill?
If it works for you, that’s great! I would just be too lazy to use both programs
nice video. how can we crop and develop raw in LRC and launch pureraw 4 from LRC with LRC edits as we do with a tif file with topaz AI (edit in) ? I have been surprised that pureraw 4 didn't sharpen a little bit my image (a duck with slight lens blur on eye) while topaz ai add sharpen does that perfectly, even with juste denoise and minor fine detail slider
Denoising (and sharpening) in pureraw4 should be the first step of the workflow. You can edit the file in lightroom after you denoised it with pureraw4.
Regarding the sharpening: to which setting did you set the sharpening in pureraw4?
thank you. I am not fan to launch a huge 61Mpx arw file into pureraw for a 1600x1600px cropped duck :-) also i prefer using a small exposure retouching (ie: auto in LRC) before launching pureraw if image is too dark,... i kept default values for PR4. i am surprised i don't have a panel in LRC edit in pureraw suggesting to keep LRC edits and allowing to make a tiff file as i have with topaz ai
I've found the same results with the R5, Photo AI and heat haze. It's not perfect but works wonders. It saved a great picture of a male Northern Harrier I took during this past winter that had a surprising amount of heat haze. If I just need noise reduction, I've been using Lightroom AI a lot, especially since Topaz is still working on R5 Mark II RAW support. With Lightroom there's never a checkerboard pattern in the background after denoising, which can often happen with Topaz, especially with a blue sky. Usually Lightroom denoise takes about 15 seconds, but randomly, some photos can take a minute or two even if the estimate is 15 seconds.
Does the pattern go away if you disable lens corrections in LR before denoising?
Thanks for sharing your workflow
@@KoenKooi Good question! I've never tried that before exporting to Topaz. Next time I see this happen I can certainly try that.
Did you have the lenshood when you had the heat haze problem? Sometimes the temperature difference between the air inside the lenshood and outside can be the cause of the phenomenon.
Thanks, I‘ve heard about the phenomenon. But I can’t imagine that this was the case, as the images if birds on land (just taken a bit before and after) were sharp. So it really needs to be a layer of air over the lake
I use Photo AI but often the workflow and more natural look of lightroom denoise swings it for me.
Thanks for sharing
Yes, same for me. I was about to post that Lightroom AI denoise is still giving me better results than all the other ones.
Fabian could we not mask the results in photoshop with different opacity brushes to get the desired opacity out of photo AI?
Yes, that would work if you use photoshop (which I don’t)
With Topaz, why not use two sharpen filters stacked set to different values with differential masks? it will work for both being focus filters or one focus and one motion blur, your choice?!
I will try that next time
For some files that may be a good idea.
For best results, I suggest & use DxO Photolab with highest noise reduction/detail mode, and then Topaz DeNoise, making a careful choice mode (Clear for the worst files). This will further improve both the NR and the sharpness. The best results come from using both, not either/or!
Thanks for sharing. PureRaw should work as well (instead of Photolab), right?
@@FabianFoppNaturephotography Right. RAW 4 is contained in Photolab 8.
L’oiseau inconnu est une belle grive à bec noir 😊, catharus gracilirostris.
Merci!
I came to the same conclusion after testing PR4 and PAI3.2 recently: you can get great results with PAI, but every image takes a different tweaking of all sliders. With PR I almost never need to change a slider, which makes it suited for batch processing. Also, PR4 supports the R5II now, PAI didn’t when I checked last week.
Thanks for sharing
hi Fabian
I'm going to say something that you may not want to hear, but isn't a less megapixel camera like the Upcoming R1 a better solution. with fewer pixels on a large censor you will have less trouble with noise.
That‘s hard to say without having test results. The R5 was better in high iso than the R6, despite the higher pixel density
@@FabianFoppNaturephotography I've never had any problems with high ISO values with my R3. I think that the R1 may give even better results, but that will have to prove itself. I also think that with a high resolution camera you see more motion blur. more megapixels seems nice, but also has its disadvantages
Looking at your examples, it seems Topaz leaves a little more noise in its sharpened images, resulting in a more natural look. The DxO results seemed a bit too artificial for my taste. Perhaps this can be tweaked though.
Thanks! Yes, I noticed that too but actually preferred the cleaner look. But it would be easy to just reduce the noise-reduction slider in PureRaw if that is desired
While I really like your video it would be more helpful for your viewers if you gave some more information about how you actually used Topaz. When you are talking about sharpening with Topaz Photo AI 3.2 you do really have to mention how it's been used as regards module used. If thats not enough how you invoke Topaz either as a stand alone app or the two methods inside LR, one producing a DNG and the other a Tiff, each method having the potential once more to produce different results especially when it comes to colour. From my experience Photo AI 3.2 takes some work to get the best out of it as it's not just a one click application so comparisons are tricky to do. And if all thats not enough RAW file type comes into play as the new versions, as far as I have been told, handles Canon, Nikon and Sony RAW files pretty well , so owners of other brands may well have to be careful about how they actually launch the app as a stand alone or a plugin as that can have an impact on how colour is handled. All in all its best doing some research to see how Topaz deals with the RAW files from your camera brand.
Thanks for the feedback, I think you make some very good points. I wanted to keep it simple and therefore didn’t go into detail (I used different modules, depending on the image). I processed all photos as Raw (from C1) though. I will try to go more into these details in my next video
Black-billed Nightingale-Thrush
Catharus gracilirostris
Thanks, Boris
You take nice photos, for me artistry trumps technicalities...
Thanks
Try DX Photolab 8
I was wondering about it for a while!
Catharus gracilirostris ist der Vogel aus CR
Danke!