Denoising programs - some thoughts

russellsnr said:
This is the big problem for me and probably 99% of amateurs, you see all this hype about how good this or that software is then the only way you can get to use a 100 £, $ or Euro software is spend another thousand to get a system that it will work on.
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It's no consolation, but photography has always been an expensive hobby, I suspect I spent a lot more on darkroom equipment, film, paper and chemicals than I do on computers and software.

Until my recent upgrade to the lowest cost Mac Studio, I had a similar problem with running the most up to date software, at least if you manage to get a new computer, the software isn't all that expensive.
 
russellsnr said:
Have Topaz photo ai but it seems to be a never ending story, I also have denoise and find it does a better job. Along with an attempt to use DXO Pure Raw but that I am finding on many occasions it's stopping 5 or 6 seconds before completing, wish I could get it to work but have been told that an i5 cpu and a gpu with 6gb is not powerful enough, seems to be the answer nowadays from software developers. Russ
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I had a similar problem with DXO Photolab. Some files would complete, some wouldn't and some did but were corrupted! PureRAW wouldn't work at all.

Try disabling "use GPU acceleration". In Photolab the sequence is

Edit>Preferences>Performance>Use CPU only.

I had a very long email conversation with DXO about this and they and I both gave up with no solution in sight. I contacted a guy called Robin Whalley (google him) who suggested it. I recommend him for tips on software usage.
 
myotis said:
DXP Pure Raw 3.0 is meant to be coming out in March, and they may well deal with the lack of control problems I had with it. And as with PhotoAI. I may well change my mind about Pure Raw. once V3 comes out.
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Knowing DXO they'll just change the colour of the interface and charge £80
 
ecoleman said:
Knowing DXO they'll just change the colour of the interface and charge £80
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There was minimal change from PR1 to PR 2 (just better LR integration) but I will be surprised if they don't add DeepPrimeXD, and more control over sharpening. The latter being a constant complaint from many users.

On the other hand, if PR2 had offered more control over sharpening, I wouldn't have paid the extra to get PL6, but just stuck with the cheaper PR2. So maybe it will just be Deep Prime XD that is added.
 
jerry12953 said:
I had a similar problem with DXO Photolab. Some files would complete, some wouldn't and some did but were corrupted! PureRAW wouldn't work at all.

Try disabling "use GPU acceleration". In Photolab the sequence is

Edit>Preferences>Performance>Use CPU only.

I had a very long email conversation with DXO about this and they and I both gave up with no solution in sight. I contacted a guy called Robin Whalley (google him) who suggested it. I recommend him for tips on software usage.
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Thankyou but I did try using just GPU and CPU but made no difference, I have an I5 CPU and a 1060 6GB GPU but according to DXO it is not enough now to run the program and this does seem to be the excuse companies make, I had the same kind of problem with On1 so I did upgrade my system but you have to ask when is enough enough? Again I said in previous reply "spend 100 £ or $ on software then another thousand on a new system to run it" when do you stop?
 
russellsnr said:
Thankyou but I did try using just GPU and CPU but made no difference, I have an I5 CPU and a 1060 6GB GPU but according to DXO it is not enough now to run the program and this does seem to be the excuse companies make, I had the same kind of problem with On1 so I did upgrade my system but you have to ask when is enough enough? Again I said in previous reply "spend 100 £ or $ on software then another thousand on a new system to run it" when do you stop?
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Sorry to hear that. My previous (ancient) PC would run Topaz DeNoise but each file took about 30 minutes!
 
myotis said:
There was minimal change from PR1 to PR 2 (just better LR integration)
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Yeah, that's what I was referring to. Another £70 for something that should have been in V1

It's been the same with the Nik collection. Update the UI of one of the apps, add a couple of presets and charge a full upgrade fee. They really do take the p***.
 
russellsnr said:
Thankyou but I did try using just GPU and CPU but made no difference, I have an I5 CPU and a 1060 6GB GPU but according to DXO it is not enough now to run the program and this does seem to be the excuse companies make, I had the same kind of problem with On1 so I did upgrade my system but you have to ask when is enough enough? Again I said in previous reply "spend 100 £ or $ on software then another thousand on a new system to run it" when do you stop?
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Just another thought:

After you switched to CPU only , did you restart the PC? The first time I tried it I forgot the restart hence it didn't make any difference.
 
jerry12953 said:
Just another thought:

After you switched to CPU only , did you restart the PC? The first time I tried it I forgot the restart hence it didn't make any difference.
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No I didn't but will try tomorrow, up early Red Squirrel photography I hope
 
russellsnr said:
No luck so just sticking with Topaz thanks for your help, did not even see squirrel but got this so not a wasted day.
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Nice!

It might be worth enrolling on the DXO Forum if you haven't done so already. There quite a bit of disquiet at the moment about the "black files" that PureRaw2 is producing , and generally about DXO Support. I must say i agree with the latter and PureRAW files produced black files for me although closer inspection revealed they also had a pattern of coloured dots on them.
 
jerry12953 said:
Nice!

It might be worth enrolling on the DXO Forum if you haven't done so already. There quite a bit of disquiet at the moment about the "black files" that PureRaw2 is producing , and generally about DXO Support. I must say i agree with the latter and PureRAW files produced black files for me although closer inspection revealed they also had a pattern of coloured dots on them.
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Sent an image as requested by them on 25th Jan 2023
Reply - 26th Jan 2023.
Hello Russell,

Thank you. We will send your ticket to our development team for their review. As soon as we hear something back from them, we will let you know.

Thank you for contacting DxO Customer Support.

Seth - DxO Labs Support Team
 
I had a very long email conversation with them and several emails like that. They asked me for various files etc but got nowhere with the problem. As far as I remember they didn't make any suggestions about CPU/GPU usage at all. I'm still waiting for a reply but don't expect i'll get one. I see you've been waiting a month..... :(
 
The denoise and sharpening processes do seem to use a lot of power, but the hardware the makers recommend is only really on a level similar to a typical gaming system that many households will have bought just for entertainment. I suspect that just popping in a £300 Nvidia 3060 card will solve a lot of problems unless the whole computer is too old to support that.

FWIW I've recently started using the noise reduction tool in On1 2023 for sharpening, but don't use the sharpening tool because it's way too aggressive.
 
This post has just appeared on the DXO Forum regarding black files.

"I actually found a post on DXO stating in the past black files was due to out of date drivers. It would have taken a few minutes to reply rather than me trying to work it out for 7 days. They only answered my ticket with a question yesterday about my original DXO program. The solution was in some obscure area on DXO when in desperation I was doing a search of their site. I wouldnt even be able to tell the exact area I found the info. As you pointed out the black files was mentioned quite a few times but never was this solution mentioned which was the root cause. This solution is now available to all no thanks to DXO staff informing this forum. I dont wish to discuss further I have wasted 7 days on this issue. I am not computer savvy like many others I suspect. DXOs after sale service sucks".
 
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