If that was easy to know, there would probably be some competitor offering identical results, or even a free open source version
I'm also thinking that the AI part of it is more than just noise reduction but is attempting to identify and correct for lost information. That tiny cell phone image that someone took did not have the information, there were not enough pixels. Before running Topaz, I used the Adobe Enhance feature to increase the resolution. I'm going to try that with some other images to see if the combination works miracles.If that was easy to know, there would probably be some competitor offering identical results, or even a free open source version
Doesn't look like regular deconvolution, as your input image is already a digital mess which should have lead to much worse artifacts.
I guess chances are good there's some neural networks involved.
Completely unrelated, but I also find it very interesting how much detail Nvidia can restore (or rather, guess) with their Deep Learning Super Sampling. It runs 3D computer applications at a low resolution and produces a much higher resolution image in real time so that the user/player can enjoy high framerate and visual fidelity.
It's pretty crazy how well it works. In this video the upper corner shows if you're looking at the low resolution version or the upscaled version or the one with DLSS. You usually can tell by the blurry image though
I see that I can run Topaz on my CR3 raw files, but it outputs tiff. Apparently it is converting the RAW files to tiff and then working on them. In any event, there is a lot more for me to understand.
Topaz has really been a game-changer for me. Previously, I would not consider taking photos above ISO 3200, because I never liked the results. Below is a photo of a male Pine Grosbeak, a species that eluded my camera for years. Unfortunately, it was almost as dark as a cave when I took this photo: 5d iv, 100-400L + 1.4x @ 560 mm, ISO 5000, F8, 1/60 handheld, standing with nothing to rest camera on. Until Topaz, I would have tossed this image, but Topaz gave me a decent image (not great, but decent since it is my only image of the species). By the way, in my testing Topaz Gigapixel works better than Photoshop for upsizing. However, I usually have better luck with the sharpening in Topaz DeNoise than in Topaz Sharpen. The first image is straight through LR, with no sharpening or noise reduction; second is after Topaz DeNoise and some other adjustments in LR. Third is the final image cropped looser.
I have Topaz as well and while it can handle CR3 files, like you.. disliked having to convert and sometimes the converted TIFF or DNG would introduce artifacts which were not visible until I adjusted the resultant file with other software. its a decent product, but not great for my work flow.
Is it possible to get the RAW file so I can process it with DxO PL4 for comparison? A link to Dropbox that you can later remove is one possibility.
Thanks. Here's the crop. It's has just standard lens sharpening and DeepPRIME noise reduction on DxO PL4, with no attempts to enhance contrast, colours etc.
Don't know if you have Photoshop, if you do there is a way to DeNoise without losing raw editing capabilities. You can open your CR3 as a smart object in PS and use Topaz as a smart filter. You will have to save this file as TIFF or PSD, but if you reopen this file you can make additional adjustments to the Topaz filter, or open the original layer in ACR to adjust RAW parameters. I don't do this often, but I find it a better option than opening the raw in DeNoise and being left with raw changes baked in.
its the attempts to sharpen/color that tend to make the noise more noticeable.
