AI & Image Noise

Hello, my friends! While in photo school, I scoffed at the pixel-peepers squabbling about sharpness, resolution, acuity, and color noise. The debate was simply beneath a student of the arts. Well, maybe I've lost my self-appointed throne because I want to peep at some pixels.

Noise is simply signal variation in the pixels. That variation is caused by lots of things that we'll not discuss because my brain is already kinda mushy today. So, we'll skip straight to looking at some post-processing options for how to get rid of it or smooth out all those mountains of variation into hills and plains.

Let's take a look at the RAW file in question today. The full resolution jpgs will be available for download at the bottom of this post. I shot this image in Washington DC in January 2021. Not on the 6th. To be clear. A couple weeks later, during the Presidential Inauguration.

I recorded the image at 3200 ISO on my trusty Sony A7R III. Predictably, there is ample color noise and grain throughout. As software algorithms work to smooth the tones, we'll often see a few reductions in three main categories: noise (yeah!), sharpness (boo!), saturation (boo!), and detail (boo!). We'll also witness the birth of gross photo goblins which I'll just call "artifacts" (ew! and boo!). Each program has sliders and modes that can affect the outcome. This is not an exhaustive look at every program, rather just an overview of what you might expect if you buy one of these programs and apply it to your photos on the default or recommended settings.

Your first option is to just shift the sliders around in the Detail tab in Lightroom. Good results. Nothing spectacular, nothing egregious. The monumental breakthrough occurs with Lightroom's new Denoise AI. Stunning. There's no apparent loss in detail, sharpness or saturation. There are some artifacts in the tile work. If you already have Lightroom, you can probably stop reading. That's all you'll need. The others are either only just as good or worse.

But, this is about the judgy science of pixel-peeping just as much as it's about consumerism (i.e. solving your photo noise problems by buying a new product). So, let's continue. Next, we have Dfine 2 from DxO's Nik Collection 5. Let me know if Nik Collection 6 is worth the money. I am a practicing consumerist.

Dfine 2 maintains the sharpness, detail, and most of the saturation (yeah!), but it also keeps most of the noise (boo!). In short, it's about as good as the Lightroom sliders. Next, we have Luminar Neo's Noiseless AI.

Noiseless AI leaves something to be desired - a lot like Dfine 2. I don't have much to say. Next, we have Topaz Labs Photo AI. This one is fun. It all but completely wipes the detail from the concrete. The tile floor is now just a clay cloud with very odd patterns in the foreground tile. The text is very odd looking. There are sliders in this program that appeared to have absolutely no effect on the outcome. This one is dead last in the ranking.

Sticking with Topaz Labs, let's look at Denoise AI. The difference is staggering. It is neck and neck with Lightroom's Denoise AI. There's a bit less detail than Lightroom's Denoise AI, more loss in saturation, but no artifacts and no loss in sharpness. I'll add here that it processes the image significantly faster than Lightroom. Significantly. In short, they are tied for first.

Lastly, I'll add the good 'ole Photoshop method - the Reduce Noise filter. It's decent. Detail and sharpness are maintained. Not all the noise is removed - which is fine with me. I don't have the same vendetta many photographers have against the appearance of grain or pixels. I don't want everything to look like it was molded in plastic.

If you already have Photoshop and Lightroom, you are absolutely set. I wouldn't branch out into a new program. That's not what I would have said before Lightroom released their Denoise AI a few months ago. Topaz Labs Denoise AI was head and shoulders above the rest. There's no current need to buy another program for removing noise from an image. There are lots of other reasons to buy the other programs though - but that's not what this post is about. If you do not have any post processing software yet, I'd still start with Adobe. I know that's not really a hot take. The software world evolves fast enough though that something insane might be around the corner.