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audio2design

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Trying them out. Super impressed with sharpening and gigapixel, less so with denoise, forming opinion on jpeg to raw. Like to go light so limits optical gathering and expensive heavy lenses.
 

StevenEleven

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Trying them out. Super impressed with sharpening and gigapixel, less so with denoise, forming opinion on jpeg to raw. Like to go light so limits optical gathering and expensive heavy lenses.

I love the Topaz DeNoise AI, but there is a new champ in town that does noise reduction even better—DXO Photolab 4 Elite. If your aspiration is to cover ground optically and for noise reduction through software that would otherwise be covered by more heavier and more expensive gear, DXO Photolab 4 (Elite) is pretty awesome (as long as you are shooting raw with a supported camera). It will correct for lens flaws, and buy you an f-stop or two extra with best in class noise reduction. Check out the Dpreview retouching forum for real-world comparisons. ;)

On Topaz DeNoise AI I usually back off of the default settings a little and adjust as needed. I also find Topaz Sharpen AI to be superb, but again I back off of the default settings a little. The defaults tend to be too strong for my taste.

Here you can see some of my pics—I think in all of them since last April (2020) or so I used Topaz DeNoise or Topaz Sharpen at some point: https://www.flickr.com/photos/46257101@N07/

Topaz Gigapixel AI works very well too, though I have only used it a couple of times.

Topaz JPEG to Raw hasn’t been real helpful for me.

One thing nice about DXO is that the noise reduction (if you are shooting raw and using”deep prime”) tends to work great with default values. Also DXO Photolab is not a one-trick pony. It’s good enough to be a one-stop shop for many pictures.

I’m a hobbyist, I like to share my photos but I’m not out to impress anyone. It’s just a thrill to take a decent picture. Flickr has an amazing world of great photographers so I know to check my ego at the door. :)
 
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audio2design

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Interesting. I have an earlier version of DXO will need to check it out. That extra f stop not to mention some improvement in sharpness.
 
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