Is Topaz DeNoise Dead? 

Photo AI works very slowly compared to DeNoise on my computer. I have also had instances where Photo AI changes the color saturation. To me, sharpening looks better on DeNoise, as well. So, for now anyway, I'm sticking with DeNoise. Good video, thanks.

I've been amazed by Topaz Photo AI since it came out. It does a phenomenal job on clearing up faces in the image, with the only downside that it's a little TOO clean and plasticky when you pixel peep. We just need a strength slider for Photo AI and it'll be perfect! But I'm happy enough with it that I'm not going to spend anymore money upgrading PureRAW.

I do a lot of very high ISO stage work. Until recently my workflow was to export from LR or PS to deNoise, then finish in LR. However, after testing on a variety of differing high ISO images, I’m now starting by importing the original RAW files directly into deNoise and using the RAW model. This consistently yields the better results than the other models. I rarely upscale images (and PS ‘does’ do a good job when I do) and I have used Sharpen AI to rescue photos, so not planning to give that up for Photo AI. They may be ‘failures’ but in the real world, sometimes you just have to rescue those. Good to know that Topaz is pretty much done developing the standalone version (I can stop paying for the annual updates!) :-) Another great video. Thanks Matt!

I agree with David Ligon. I think Denoise AI more often provides better results than Photo AI. I thought so even in the examples Matt was showing, until he got to the final two. Most of the Photo AI shots were too crunchy and the edges had distracting artifacts. They looked oversharpened. Granted, that was at 200% or 300% magnification, but that's what pixel peeping is all about. I have Denoise and Photo AI on my Mac, but I think DxO PureRaw beats them both for accuracy with no grittiness or waxiness when I photograph wildlife with a Sony a6300 with a variety of E-mount lenses up to 600mm full frame. I agree with Matt that Denoise is dead, but not for the same reasons. Mad respect to Matt's noise reduction workflow, though.

The Photo AI seems to add a halo around edges. Of course I'm sure if you adjusted the sliders a bit, this might go away, but I'd almost say at least in the case of the purple flower and the bird, DeNoise does a better job regarding halo suppression around contrasting edges.

Great video, I find when using denoise AI that you get those scraggily jagged detail edges here and there and photo AI emphasizes them even more, I then use the blending tool in PS around 5% to tone down those jagged edges and it looks so much better and you don’t lose a lot of details.

I use Topaz Photo AI every day. Mostly gives good results, although Recover Faces is sometimes a bit weird. I'm not a Pro, so nothing's critical. I own Denoise/Sharpen/Gigapixel/Mask, but now rarely use them. But I also work on a lot of old photos - scanned negatives, prints & transparencies (slides). Topaz AI would be a great one-stop shop .... if I didn't also use Lightroom, Photoshop, ON1 Photo Raw & Luminar Neo!! Cheers all.

Thanks for the video - I have had very mixed results with Photo AI and find better results on Denoise but it is really dependant on the photo composition. I often find that AI creates really weird background artifacts. This usually is resolved by masking the subject but again find that the masking is not quite there in photo ai (at least compared to Lightroom) Finally i often find that photo aI gets rid of details (looks like you used the smudge tool in PS) I think that its like many things - a tool bag full of tools is always better than one tool.

Unfortunately, Topaz Photo Ai consistently fails on my RAW Fall Adirondack landscape images - turns distant fall foliage and printed signs to mud, while the stand alone version does a decent job. Right now, DxO and Luminar Neo I think are better at this. I noticed most of the reviewers select images like the above. I would like to see how they handle wide landscape shots with fine detailed leaves, and with text on a written sign. At this point, for me, the individual Topaz plug-ins are still better for RAW Landscapes.

Great timing. With Adobe's release today of their own AI Denoise, it'd be interesting to extend this video to include it and compare. Adobe's seems promising, but can create very fake artifacts in multiple situations, is all-or-nothing (ie, doesn't work with masks), and has trouble with "softer" edges (eg, icebergs floating in choppy seas at twilight). Regardless, these tools are breathing new life into old, or challenging noisey images! Thanks for your continued work and sharing Matt!

Thanks Matt, this is pretty much where I ended up a month or so ago. Haven’t repeated the test edits with this weeks photo ai update but I find the program gets better results every week. All that being said, I still use Ps for all but the initial adjustments in LrC then off to Ps and Topaz for the heavy lifting as/if required.

Denoise is still my default choice unless I've had to crop the image substantially, in which case I find Photo AI's pilot choice of upsizing is good and removes most of the noise without the need for specifically selecting the denoise function. If it automatically selects denoise or sharpen functions then I usually turn these off as I find they make the image look unnatural. If I use Denoise AI, then I take off any default sharpening in Lightroom before I export the image to Denoise AI as, otherwise, I find that the resulting image looks overly sharp. In contrast, if I take a heavily cropped image into Photo AI, I leave the Lightroom default sharpening in place before exporting. I agree with your comments about sharpening unsharp images - if the image is not sharp to begin with then it's never going to be sharp to my satisfaction.

Thanks for the video, Matt! Your excellent review of Denoise AI as well as recommendations of a couple of friends, prompted me to purchase this stand alone version. I quite like it, actually, and it’s now part of my workflow. Consequently, I’m sorry to hear Topaz will not be doing anything further with this stand alone version. It sounds to me like it’s more of a money grab than anything else as Photo AI is more than twice the cost.

Thanks Matt, great comparison and explanation!

I really wish there was a coupon on topaz denoise. I would get it instantly. It's great for all those difficult shots where you have to choose noise against actually getting a shot.

Since both Photo AI and DeNoise are able to be tweaked, the differences are negligible. Photo AI will save you time.

Comparing LRC's new raw denoize with Topaz Photo AI today, I conclude that LRC has a bit more work to do before it is as good as Topaz. I expect that won't be long though.

I find it's a complete lottery between DenoiseAI, PhotoAI and DxO2. It doesn't make the workflow any easier!

Thanks Matt! I was wondering about that, but I'm too lazy to test it for myself.

I checked out the new PS denoise and find that the Topaz denoise is much, much better.

I like Photo AI as well because I seem to get better results from it (I don't often need the sharpening or upsizing so those parts of it are usually unused). But more times than not, the default settings don't work for me. I find that my best results come from a very low denoise amount (usually a setting of 1, even on an image shot at 52,000 ISO) and with the detail slider up between 20 - 40 depending on the image. If the denoise slider is too high and the detail too low, that's why you lose detail, and the default settings will cause that loss of detail. I wish Topaz would include the ability to customize the default settings so I don't have to adjust those denoise and detail sliders every single time.

I've assumed that viewing an image at 100% in LR/PS/ACR pretty much aligned image pixels with display pixels. At higher magnifications, these apps must be interpolating pixels, otherwise there would be pixel-level gaps on-screen. Above 100%, you must be looking at image effects of both the de-noise software AND the interpolation process. How can you differentiate software sharpening effects from interpolation effects? My thinking is that comparing images at 100% provides the best way to evaluate only the denoise settings.

Thanks for keeping it real Matt, amazing bird photos. Thanks, Martin.

Thanks Matt, really helpful demo. If I decide on AI i’ll use your link

Thanks Matt for the video. I am still a user of Denoise and perhaps it is time to make the switch to Photo AI. You mentioned you prefer Photoshop vs Gigapixel to upscale. What feature do you use in Photoshop? Preserve Details 2.0? Thanks again!

Around the one minute mark you mention not going first into Photo Ai. I agree but more over I am now going back more to Denoise where you can compare four options. Then Gigapixel if I want at the end. I seldom use the stand alone Sharpen app. As a bird shooter I find direct Raw into Photo Ai often overdoes the subject and loses detail. Beaks with more than one colour often look terrible. I must admit I am probably not starting with a great image as a hobbyist.

I agree with your conclusion. Thx 🙏 Though now, my workflow includes DxO PureRAW3 and/or Topas Photo AI.

Thank you very much, Matt! Lately I'm using only Topaz Photo Ai and it is good enough for me.

I hope that they don't abandon Denoise because there is no batch processing in Photo AI.

I keep hearing about DeNoise's ability to mask areas to be processed. My DeNoise doesn't have this function. Why not? I have version 3.7.2

Hi Matt. I'm a new subscriber. I was interested to hear you say you think Photoshop is the best app for upsizing. If you could do a video of how you use Photoshop to upsize images, that would be great!

Thanks for the instructions

I'm still waiting for the Topaz Denoise low-light model to be added to Photo AI! That still gives me better results on night time images with stars in the sky. Other than that, I do not use Denoise a lot anymore. But this was the reason why I wanted to keep my older Denoise license current and upgraded, even after I had already bought a license for Photo AI!

And I wish they’d just give up on working with raw images. The raw converters with all of these third part software (besides phase one) just can’t ever compete in the color department.

Photo AI also makes it sharper and sometimes a lot. On the other hand I think Gigapixel AI, Denoise AI, Sharpen AI are dead because Topaz is now only concentrating on Photo AI, so I'm surprised why they keep asking for so much money for the Image Quality Bundle. For my part, I continue to use Gigapixel because it is not so aggressive in sharpening.

DeNoise looks way better… of course you get bad results when trying to fix bad pictures by overdoing it. Also denoise is to be used with sharpen ai which has the Stabilize sub function to bid those motion blurry shots. I think on is worst served to use this content as any sort of guide. Misleading at best.

When I send Raw files to Photo AI from LR using the Files > Plug-In Extras > Process with Topaz Photo AI method, the process fails every time ... I get an error message and the resulting DNG has random large white squares in the image. I can't find anyone talking about this, but I can't be the only one.

Would Photo AI perform the same with all camera brand files such as Canon or Sony?

Photo AI seems to be a 'work in progress.' Topaz current version is v1.30. May I ask which version you used in this review? 🤔

They just want to make an all-in-one app instead of 3.

What about the new DXO raw 3 compared to Topaz Denoise?

Excellent video Matt. Do you have a video on your upscaling process in Photoshop? If not, I would love to see how you do it. Thanks.

I uses it and it is amazing

I think photo ai is the way to go.

when you say upscale in photoshop works best - is that comparing it to gigapixel ai ?

Well I have denoise and sharpening from Topaz. If they take them back and they give me one single program , why not … I mean with a huge discount. ;)

So far I prefer DeNoise.

So Matt, I keep wondering if you brought a lot of K/One viewers to your channel by the way you defend your presentations? As a long time viewer from both areas, why do that? I think your above and beyond defending your videos.

where was we before this? ... is Ai making photography better? when we talk about pixel peakers your doing it right now. so my way of thinking is any photo enhancer is making us look for noise and pixels hence destroying photography. My God lets get back to the Norm, take a good photo and throw away the shit. I believe in a little de noise and sharpen but AI is OTT, taking the fun out of getting it right.