Topaz DeNoise v LR

Quick and dirty test for Web-sized images. Nothing scientific, but with no effort and a considerable advantage in speed, LR clearly beats Topaz in this test. Batch processing is important for me too.
K5 stuggled to make enough noise to play with!
6400 ISO
Topaz:
'Stongest with debanding' (actually created banding under the window)
Resized to 800px, USM 50: 1: 0



Lightroom:
Luminosity:50
color:100,25,25
Resized to 800px, USM 50: 1: 0


No idea why there's a funnel in my bedroom

Hi

I wear varifocals so bear with me- looking at the visible side of the wardrobe- LR seems to promote more noise?

Cheers

Mac

Yes that's true, but it's the detail/noise balance that I am concerned with. Topaz has just smeared it and made everything look plastic. If it was a critical image I could apply local variations.
I haven't really given Topaz (free trial) a fair shot at this, but looking at my own test of the way I work with event photography (i.e. minimum editing), LR is more than capable of cleaning up an image in a batch process without turning it to mush.

At the viewing sizes provided, and on the admittedly uncalibrated monitor I'm currently sitting at, the Topaz result looks quite a lot better than the LR one to me.

I'm a little biased towards film-like grain. I tend to remove colour noise but leave a little texture behind (and detail).
The K5 actually produces nice fine grain, which can add to the ambiance.
I'm looking forward to seeing Topaz experts' images before and after (if you can be bothered).
Remember this is as much about speed as anything. Clearly better results could be had if you are free to work on a file indefinitely.

I've been giving Topaz Denoise a try, prompted by the half price offer. With the limited testing I have done so far, I have been pretty impressed with Denoise, it does seem to remove more noise than LR and still retain good detail. I'd agree its slower and less convenient though so would only really use it for selected images. I'm still thinking it might be worth the £25ish it will cost though.

I just realised I made a BOO BOO
The top image by Topaz had already had my default colour noise removal in the Raw processor.
Here it is with JUST Topaz. It's even worse, with a bad band under the window after Topaz second-guessed the texture, and smudgy noise created in the shadows.
This is 'Raw strongest with debanding' and custom colour setting to give it some help. It was also very slow. taking at least 30 seconds on my new Mac.

Its difficult without knowing exactly what settings you're using. All I can add about Topaz is that you have to rebalance things after noise reduction slider inputs with adding 'detail recovery' and 'deblur', which are in the lower panel on the right. Also the shadows slider alone can have a dramatic blurring effect on the blacks, but it also needs to be balanced with the main strength slider. Your image above doesn't look like there's been any colour noise reduction?

Maybe we could all have a great Noise Reduction Shootout

Yes, I fiddled with all those. The default colour noise reduction was already petty strong in Topaz, and more didn't help.
I've given it a fair shot now and all the Topaz images have that old-fashioned smudgy noise look. Instead of just nice grain.

Its hard to know without seeing exact settings - real comparisons are tricky IMO unless the users skills and experience are similar on both softwares - I certainly wouldn't expect to get good NR results with Lightroom myself.

For what its worth, my normal main strength slider setting in Topaz DeNoise is about 0.5 or 0.6, very small really. To this I add a touch of shadow, blue & red colour NR, and a good dose of the main 'reduce colour noise' slider.

I'll keep playing Nigel, time allowing. Maybe I was a bit heavy-handed with the settings.
I have a bit of a mantra with new software - don't slag it off till you know what you're talking about! This thread is in response to the very tempting special offer on the software, so I thought I would start a discussion with my first findings with the trial.
I'll eventually give it a fair shot and maybe change my tune.
I'm certainly open to discovering that it's actually awesome, but on speed alone it's looking like I'll probably pass.

Well, I always figure that if its taking a long time then it must be doing some serious stuff! If batch processing and speed are a priority, then a solution like Lightroom is going to be best - Topaz DeNoise works on a single image at a time, although it's settings are stored from the previous use when you reopen it again so can be reapplied with one click to a new image.

The thing about Topaz really to consider, is that it works as a Photoshop Filter plug-in - so the most 'intelligent' way to use it is on a duplicate image layer ... so you duplicate your background layer, then work in Topaz and apply the filter onto the upper layer. Then you can make use of all the great flexibility of layer techniques .... you can use a layer mask to precisely apply the effect to exact areas, and you can also use the opacity of the upper layer to allow the unfiltered original underneath to blend through, say to bring back a touch of the original texture and noise grain, to help with your detail restoration.

In these ways it is a most flexible tool, and so the options for finely controlling the effect after it's applied are probably far greater than in Lightroom.

Here's my standard workflow in Topaz - give it a go and see if it works for your images : these settings are start-points :

Once the plug-in is open, click on Reset All - this will get you to a zero start point.

1. Set 'Overall strength' to 0.07
2. Check (at 100%) midtoned and brighter smooth areas like skies - any fine luminance noise should be gone now
3. Check deep shadows and move 'Adjust Shadow' to 0.20 ... this will blur these areas for now
4. Look closely at the colour of remaining noise patterns - most common is patchy yellow, but you can also sometimes see blue or red specks. For yellow pull the 'Clean Colour' slider to about 0.30. This will reduce the yellow noise and slightly pull down yellow tone overall. Check again for any blue or red specks and pull up on the appropriate slider (often most blue has already gone in the shadow adjustment)
5 Now set 'Recover Detail' to 0.20 and 'Reduce Blur' to 0.15. Look at the texture coming back in and then just balance back and forward with the 'Overall Strength' slider and the detail ones.

Its always a compromise to an extent between smoothness and detail - thats where the layer masking comes in to fine tune things around the photo.

Anyone who works in software will know that if something is slow it is almost always because the code is badly written or designed rather than that it is doing something really special.

Which doesn't mean that there isn't an exception somewhere - I've never come across one yet though.

I was being a bit tongue in cheek there Rob Of course, I don't know whats going on 'under the hood' - we can only go by the results we can see. The issue of processing time here is surely only of real significance to a batch-style workflow, where an accumulation of time multiplied by a high number of images could really slow you down - if time is really that important and you couldn't get on with anything else while you wait.

But Topaz DeNoise is really for an 'Optimised workflow', meaning special, unique and maybe multiple processes for one simgle image. Here the aim is to perfect and tailor the adjustments exactly to each unique photo, so I wouldn't be rushing through all that anyway. Topaz takes about 40 secs on my machine which I find perfectly OK.

How do we know if the slowness is being caused by the software being badly written, or just the toll of all the number crunching being taken on the computer?

Personally I am more than happy with the results of the NR from Lightroom 4.

The batch processing aspect of LR is also a clincher in workflow.

I rarely apply NR on an image by image basis.

Because Lightroom has an SDK and allows the writing of plugins I wrote a plugin that interrogates the EXIF for each image in a selection and applies a preset amount of luminance and Colour Noise reduction depending upon the ISO of the image.

It only takes a few seconds to apply it a thousand images.

40 seconds ( as Nigel's claim ) is 40,000 seconds for a thousand images is over 11 hours. Life is too short use lightroom