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dchew

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Topaz Article
« on: June 02, 2010, 06:22:21 am »

Interesting article in regards to improving scans from a Nikon 5000.  I noticed in the installation pdf it says, "If you want to use DeNoise in Aperture, Lightroom or iPhoto you will need to download Topaz Fusion Express..."

Before I dive in and do that, does anyone have experience with the LR plugin?  Mark, did you try that?

Dave
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #1 on: June 02, 2010, 08:48:49 am »

Quote from: dchew
Interesting article in regards to improving scans from a Nikon 5000.  I noticed in the installation pdf it says, "If you want to use DeNoise in Aperture, Lightroom or iPhoto you will need to download Topaz Fusion Express..."

Before I dive in and do that, does anyone have experience with the LR plugin?  Mark, did you try that?

Dave

Hi Dave,

No I didn't. Maybe as time permits I should, but I didn't prioritize on that for this article. As you know, LR3 will be hitting the market some time soon, so, for me, the time to test that would be on the commercial edition of the new version.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Jack Flesher

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« Reply #2 on: June 02, 2010, 12:11:04 pm »

Quote from: Mark D Segal
Hi Dave,

No I didn't. Maybe as time permits I should, but I didn't prioritize on that for this article. As you know, LR3 will be hitting the market some time soon, so, for me, the time to test that would be on the commercial edition of the new version.

Does it work in 64-bit CS5?


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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #3 on: June 02, 2010, 12:32:26 pm »

Quote from: Jack Flesher
Does it work in 64-bit CS5?

Yes.

Topaz DeNoise compatibility
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Jack Flesher

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« Reply #4 on: June 02, 2010, 10:54:01 pm »

thanks -- downloaded it and so far pretty impressed.  Nice job on the article BTW!

Thanks,

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Eric Myrvaagnes

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« Reply #5 on: June 02, 2010, 11:37:01 pm »

Yes, an excellent article. Clear (as usual) and covers the essential points well. I especially like the advice given on how to judge how to use the sliders for various situations.
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David Sutton

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« Reply #6 on: June 03, 2010, 05:31:45 am »

I've been vacillating about trying Topaz DeNoise for a few months but your article has pushed me well over the edge, particularly the example of the texture on the lampshade. Thanks for a well written review.
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bjanes

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« Reply #7 on: June 05, 2010, 04:04:08 pm »

Mark has produced a very useful and well written review of the Topaz Denoise program and I would like to add a few of my own comments for discussion. My progression in NR programs is similar to Mark's. I had used NeatImage, then NoiseNinja and finally Noiseware, settling on the latter for my routine work.

I downloaded the trial version of Topaz Denoise and tried it out on some images taken with the Nikon D3 at ISO and rendered into PSCS5 with ACR 6.1 (64 bit Win 7). Since one doesn't want to sharpen noise, I turned of all sharpening in ACR. I also turned off luminance and color NR, but am not sure if this is the right thing to do. Color NR might best be accomplished from the raw file.

I adjusted luminance and color NR to get a good looking result at 100% and adjusted the detail slider to increase sharpness a bit. The question is, should one use the detail slider for this purpose or rely on subsequent capture sharpening for this task? I then performed capture sharpening with PK medium and then output sharpening for an 11.8 x 17.73 inch print at 240 PPI. Of course, this brings back noise, especially chrominance noise.

The results are shown below with crops at 100%. No sharpening is on the bottom, capture sharpening only in the middle and both capture and output sharpening on the top.

[attachment=22418:TopazCompos.png]

Comments on the best work flow are welcome. More chrominance NR would seem appropriate.

One difference clearly noticeable between Noiseware and Topaz is speed: on my i7 system, processing time was 42 and 6 seconds respectively.

« Last Edit: June 05, 2010, 04:24:59 pm by bjanes »
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #8 on: June 05, 2010, 04:39:39 pm »

Quote from: bjanes
Mark has produced a very useful and well written review of the Topaz Denoise program and I would like to add a few of my own comments for discussion. My progression in NR programs is similar to Mark's. I had used NeatImage, then NoiseNinja and finally Noiseware, settling on the latter for my routine work.

I downloaded the trial version of Topaz Denoise and tried it out on some images taken with the Nikon D3 at ISO and rendered into PSCS5 with ACR 6.1 (64 bit Win 7). Since one doesn't want to sharpen noise, I turned of all sharpening in ACR. I also turned off luminance and color NR, but am not sure if this is the right thing to do. Color NR might best be accomplished from the raw file.

I adjusted luminance and color NR to get a good looking result at 100% and adjusted the detail slider to increase sharpness a bit. The question is, should one use the detail slider for this purpose or rely on subsequent capture sharpening for this task? I then performed capture sharpening with PK medium and then output sharpening for an 11.8 x 17.73 inch print at 240 PPI. Of course, this brings back noise, especially chrominance noise.

The results are shown below with crops at 100%. No sharpening is on the bottom, capture sharpening only in the middle and both capture and output sharpening on the top.

[attachment=22418:TopazCompos.png]

Comments on the best work flow are welcome. More chrominance NR would seem appropriate.

Thanks Bill - glad you found the review useful.

In your third paragraph, if I understand the sequence correctly you were making these adjustments using Topaz to a file opened in Photoshop, having turned off all sharpening and noise reduction in ACR 6.1. I think the answer to your question in that paragraph needs to be empirically determined, unless one knows a lot about how these algorithms function under the hood. I was working under the presumption - and at this point it is only a presumption - that the algorithms for edge and texture retention in Topaz were specifically configured to counterbalance (without bringing much of the noise back) the kind of softening which occurs from the noise reduction algorithim, so perhaps it is best to balance the whole trade-off with the same set of tools, as they have been designed to work rogether. Whether that's necessarily true in practice I think should be tested in practice, bearing in mind that PK Capture Sharpen is a fairly light pass primarily designed to counter the softening of the digital capture process.

I don't think Output sharpening should bring back more than a very minimal amount of noise. If it's bringing back a lot, it would indicate to me that the initial chrominance noise reduction may not have been aggressive enough, which coheres with your last comment.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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ejmartin

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« Reply #9 on: June 05, 2010, 04:58:29 pm »

Quote from: bjanes
One difference clearly noticeable between Noiseware and Topaz is speed: on my i7 system, processing time was 42 and 6 seconds respectively.


Is Noiseware really that slow -- 42 seconds?  I would have thought it was reversed, since I believe Topaz is using some variant of non-local means for NR, which is very compute intensive.  On the other hand, Noiseware seems to be a variant of wavelet or similar multiscale methods, which are usually reasonably fast.
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emil

Mark D Segal

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« Reply #10 on: June 05, 2010, 05:18:10 pm »

On the whole I too would expect Noiseware to be faster. On my Windows XP 32-bit Xeon 5160 Dual Core system it processes very quickly - when it doesn't crash Photoshop altogether (apparently a resource issue on my computer according to their Tech Support). Topaz on the other hand doesn't crash Photoshop, but the processing time varies according to the file size. Smaller files take little time and larger ones quite a bit more. I didn't clock it because I wasn't concerned about it, but I noticed it can be quite a bit slower depending on file size.
« Last Edit: June 05, 2010, 05:18:31 pm by Mark D Segal »
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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bjanes

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« Reply #11 on: June 05, 2010, 05:40:02 pm »

Quote from: ejmartin
Is Noiseware really that slow -- 42 seconds?  I would have thought it was reversed, since I believe Topaz is using some variant of non-local means for NR, which is very compute intensive.  On the other hand, Noiseware seems to be a variant of wavelet or similar multiscale methods, which are usually reasonably fast.
Sorry, but I reversed the figures. Topaz was 42 seconds and Noiseware was 7 sec.

Bill
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bjanes

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« Reply #12 on: June 05, 2010, 06:27:04 pm »

Quote from: Mark D Segal
In your third paragraph, if I understand the sequence correctly you were making these adjustments using Topaz to a file opened in Photoshop, having turned off all sharpening and noise reduction in ACR 6.1.
Mark, yes that is what I did.

Quote from: Mark D Segal
I think the answer to your question in that paragraph needs to be empirically determined, unless one knows a lot about how these algorithms function under the hood. I was working under the presumption - and at this point it is only a presumption - that the algorithms for edge and texture retention in Topaz were specifically configured to counterbalance (without bringing much of the noise back) the kind of softening which occurs from the noise reduction algorithim, so perhaps it is best to balance the whole trade-off with the same set of tools, as they have been designed to work rogether. Whether that's necessarily true in practice I think should be tested in practice, bearing in mind that PK Capture Sharpen is a fairly light pass primarily designed to counter the softening of the digital capture process.
I think that your assumption makes sense, but agree that empiric testing would be needed. Subsequent sharpening brings back noise to some extent. The disadvantage of separating NR and sharpening is not only that the two algorithms might not work well together, but also that one can not adjust the relative amounts of sharpening and NR interactively. For example, with Topaz and PK sharpener, one would run Topaz first and then PK. If NR is insufficient after sharpening, one would have to go back to Topaz. For heavy duty NR, Topaz seems to be a very good choice. However, for the relatively small amount of noise with the D3 at ISO 3200, I find that I can get good results using only ACR 6.1. One can adjust the sliders interactively and try a bit of masking, all with minimum effort.
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #13 on: June 05, 2010, 06:34:44 pm »

Quote from: bjanes
However, for the relatively small amount of noise with the D3 at ISO 3200, I find that I can get good results using only ACR 6.1. One can adjust the sliders interactively and try a bit of masking, all with minimum effort.

Based on what I saw in LR3 beta I think this is true and makes sense. As I mentioned in the article, heavy-duty noise reduction is less frequently needed with today's better DSLRs than it was only several years ago, given how digital technology is improving so remarkably fast. I'm actually more excited about a routune role for Topaz in dealing with film scans.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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