DXO PureRAW. Anybody using it alongside LR and/or PS?

[M.Chapman]

53 minutes ago, sb photos said:

When I get a spare moment I’ll search for reviews. I’m also interested in which application is the biggest resource hog, as I believe both use AI, as well as making the best job of minimising digital noise. I know DX PureRaw also requires ACR.  Also do either satisfactorily help in reducing p.m. grain in B&W negative scans or is that a no no? 

In my experience Topaz Denoise AI doesn't work well on RAWs. I therefore use the Topaz plugin within PS after conversion from RAW in ACR. I also use Topaz on a separate layer so I can reduce the effect if needed. I find that it can remove all noise (which then looks unnatural) and it tends to over-sharpen edges (even on the lowest sharpening setting). So I tend to use Topaz on a duplicate layer and then blend at 50% with the original. It can also be a little temperamental. If it decides film grain = noise it will totally remove it, if not it may leave "mottled" areas, so it takes a bit of tuning to see what works. In spite of the above limitations, I still use V2.4.2 for slide processing but haven't updated in spite of frequent nag screens as the price isn't attractive enough for a minor upgrade. I'll DXO Pure Raw to see how it does, but I've not been that impressed with Prime Denoise previously.

 

Mark 

[wiskerke]

2 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

In my experience Topaz Denoise AI doesn't work well on RAWs. I therefore use the Topaz plugin within PS after conversion from RAW in ACR. I also use Topaz on a separate layer so I can reduce the effect if needed. I find that it can remove all noise (which then looks unnatural) and it tends to over-sharpen edges (even on the lowest sharpening setting). So I tend to use Topaz on a duplicate layer and then blend at 50% with the original. It can also be a little temperamental. If it decides film grain = noise it will totally remove it, if not it may leave "mottled" areas, so it takes a bit of tuning to see what works. In spite of the above limitations, I still use V2.4.2 for slide processing but haven't updated in spite of frequent nag screens as the price isn't attractive enough for a minor upgrade. I'll DXO Pure Raw to see how it does, but I've not been that impressed with Prime Denoise previously.

 

Mark 

 

I wasn't impressed with Topaz tbh. I've checked it against dfine and plain ACR. There was nothing I couldn't achieve with ACR. Albeit with 2 layers sometimes.

However this was trying to find a way to get rid of B/W grain in old negative scans. I may just not have tried hard enough or not the right way with Topaz. I have used Topaz in the past way before ACR was any good.

I will try Topaz AI again when the occasion arises. See how intelligent it is. And if I'm intelligent enough to use it.

 

wim

[geogphotos]

At first sight of DXO I was wondering where all the sliders and controls were. But actually I like it that it just has this function of removing noise as a first step in RAW processing. For me this means a workflow improvement and time saved on dealing with noise on individual images at a later stage.

 

I won't purchase until some of these pass QC just in case I have missed some other problem such as those potential caused by sharpening.

 

Thanks for the comments about Topaz - it seems 'fiddly' by comparison. ie) not fitting well into workflow

[MDM]

8 hours ago, wiskerke said:

 

I wasn't impressed with Topaz tbh. I've checked it against dfine and plain ACR. There was nothing I couldn't achieve with ACR. Albeit with 2 layers sometimes.

However this was trying to find a way to get rid of B/W grain in old negative scans. I may just not have tried hard enough or not the right way with Topaz. I have used Topaz in the past way before ACR was any good.

I will try Topaz AI again when the occasion arises. See how intelligent it is. And if I'm intelligent enough to use it.

 

wim

 

Me too. The biggest problems I found with Topaz AI was that it produced strange coloured artifacts around the edges of slide mounts and even within the slides around objects when trying to deal with grain (not noise). It is also incredibly resource-intensive and very slow so experimenting with different settings can take ages. I have not used it on my latest M1 machine so that may handle it better if it has been optimised for silicon Macs but they charge for regular upgrades so I am not intending to bother (my version is a few years old). 

 

I came to the conclusion that manual noise reduction in LR was the way to go for effective grain reduction in slides - doing two raw conversions and blending them in Photoshop works really well. One conversion uses heavy NR with little or no sharpening for bland areas such as sky and the other uses more sharpening and less noise reduction for details areas. This is usually followed up with downsizing. This is not something to do if one was working on an industrial scale but very nice for high quality results that pass Alamy QC. 

 

For high ISO digital camera captures, one pass LR noise reduction and downsizing works well enough for most purposes for me.

 

Putting all my images through an expensive black box like Deep Prime before raw processing is not the way to go for me. The lack of control means you don't know what you are losing.

[geogphotos]

I have worked through quite a large varied batch today that was processed in DXO prior to ACR.

 

I see no downsides in terms of negative effects on the images. What I do see is that it gives much more latitude in RAW processing.

 

It is extremely helpful to virtually remove noise problems from shadows and from high ISO shots.

[wiskerke]

8 hours ago, MDM said:

 

Me too. The biggest problems I found with Topaz AI was that it produced strange coloured artifacts around the edges of slide mounts and even within the slides around objects when trying to deal with grain (not noise). It is also incredibly resource-intensive and very slow so experimenting with different settings can take ages. I have not used it on my latest M1 machine so that may handle it better if it has been optimised for silicon Macs but they charge for regular upgrades so I am not intending to bother (my version is a few years old). 

 

I came to the conclusion that manual noise reduction in LR was the way to go for effective grain reduction in slides - doing two raw conversions and blending them in Photoshop works really well. One conversion uses heavy NR with little or no sharpening for bland areas such as sky and the other uses more sharpening and less noise reduction for details areas. This is usually followed up with downsizing. This is not something to do if one was working on an industrial scale but very nice for high quality results that pass Alamy QC. 

 

For high ISO digital camera captures, one pass LR noise reduction and downsizing works well enough for most purposes for me.

 

Putting all my images through an expensive black box like Deep Prime before raw processing is not the way to go for me. The lack of control means you don't know what you are losing.

 

My thoughts entirely.

Plus my 2 (and sometimes more) layers workflow.

Seasoning always according to taste.

 

wim

[geogphotos]

1 hour ago, wiskerke said:

 

My thoughts entirely.

Plus my 2 (and sometimes more) layers workflow.

Seasoning always according to taste.

 

wim

 

 

Hi Wim,

 

I'm interested to know if you have used  DXO PureRAW and how you assess its pros and cons.

 

Thanks

 

Ian

[M.Chapman]

On 25/03/2022 at 14:29, wiskerke said:

 

Have you tried it on slide grain yet? That would be the holy grail.

 

wim

 

I just downloaded the trial of DXO PureRaw 2. I find it's good on digital camera noise and manages to remove it whilst retaining/increasing detail. But, so far as I can see, it's rubbish on film grain, it exaggerates it instead of removing it and there are no settings I can find that fix it (yes I tried turning off global sharpening). Topaz AI on the other hand I find good for both digital camera noise and film grain. MDM is right that there were problems with mottling around the edge of the frame with Topaz AI, but that was fixed in a later release. MDM is also right that, with skill, there's little that Topaz AI can do that can't be done in LR/PS. But, for me, Topaz is a much quicker way to reduce film grain using a fixed workflow (i.e. same slider settings) that work across multiple digitised slide images without having to make any selections. I don't tend to use Topaz for digital camera noise as I find LR/PS sliders normally do the job, but it looks like DXO PureRaw could do an even better job.

 

Mark

[wiskerke]

3 hours ago, geogphotos said:

Hi Wim,

 

I'm interested to know if you have used  DXO PureRAW and how you assess its pros and cons.

 

Thanks

 

Ian

Not yet.

 

wim

[wiskerke]

1 hour ago, M.Chapman said:

 

I just downloaded the trial of DXO PureRaw 2. I find it's good on digital camera noise and manages to remove it whilst retaining/increasing detail. But, so far as I can see, it's rubbish on film grain, it exaggerates it instead of removing it and there are no settings I can find that fix it (yes I tried turning off global sharpening). Topaz AI on the other hand I find good for both digital camera noise and film grain. MDM is right that there were problems with mottling around the edge of the frame with Topaz AI, but that was fixed in a later release. MDM is also right that, with skill, there's little that Topaz AI can do that can't be done in LR/PS. But, for me, Topaz is a much quicker way to reduce film grain using a fixed workflow (i.e. same slider settings) that work across multiple digitised slide images without having to make any selections. I don't tend to use Topaz for digital camera noise as I find LR/PS sliders normally do the job, but it looks like DXO PureRaw could do an even better job.

 

Mark

Thank you! Quite helpful.

 

wim

[geogphotos]

DPReview:

"Impressive noise and lens processing for any editing app"

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/dxo-pureraw-review

 

PC magazine

https://uk.pcmag.com/photo-editing/132791/dxo-pureraw

"I can’t recommend it highly enough if you want to get the clearest images possible from your digital camera. For that, DxO PureRAW is a PCMag Editors' Choice winner for photo editing software."

 

Amateur Photographer

https://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/reviews/reviews/dxo-pureraw-review

"With the release of PureRAW, DxO has thrown us something of a curve ball. We haven’t seen anything quite like this before, and it might be difficult for prospective users to see the point in spending a substantial sum of money on a program that converts camera raw files to DNGs. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and if you’re a dyed-in-the-wool Adobe user, PureRAW can usefully expand the scope of what you can do with your files, particularly those shot at high ISOs or with less-than-perfect lenses."

 

Digital Camera World

https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/uk/reviews/dxo-pureraw-2-review

 

DxO PureRAW 2 is not cheap, it does demand a shift in your workflow, and its Linear DNG files are 2-3 times larger than the raw files they’re created from (it’s because they’re ‘demosaiced’ into full RGB images). It’s not for everyone. But if you’re obsessed by image quality and, in particular, you struggle to balance noise and detail at high ISO settings, PureRAW is simply exceptional – especially if you use Lightroom.

 

 

[M.Chapman]

6 hours ago, geogphotos said:

DxO PureRAW 2 is not cheap, it does demand a shift in your workflow, and its Linear DNG files are 2-3 times larger than the raw files they’re created from (it’s because they’re ‘demosaiced’ into full RGB images).

Ouch - Just checked the DNGs created by PureRaw with my system. A 24MB RAW generates an 88MB DXO DNG. Not something I'd want to keep in my standard workflow and presumably doesn't sit well with LR workflow where it would presumably have to retained because the subsequent LR editing history would be linked to it?

 

Mark

[geogphotos]

15 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

Ouch - Just checked the DNGs created by PureRaw with my system. A 24MB RAW generates an 88MB DXO DNG. Not something I'd want to keep in my standard workflow and presumably doesn't sit well with LR workflow where it would presumably have to retained because the subsequent LR editing history would be linked to it?

 

Mark

 

I haven't noticed that it is a problem. I have 64 Gb RAM and it whips through the conversion of RAW to DXO/DNG files. I delete the DNGs as soon as they have been processed in ACR.

 

I don't have DXO integrated, it is standalone. So I do a batch at a time. Very impressed so far in the room for manouvere it gives in ACR. No more battling noise!

[geogphotos]

Passed QC so all is good.

[Rebecca Ore]

I poked around on the DxO FAQ pages and basically, DxO says that if you have DxO PhotoLab 5 Elite, it can do the same things as DxO PureRaw 1 or 2.  Will probably see how to do the PureRaw things in DxO PhotoLab 5 Elite, which I already have.

[Steve Hyde]

On 24/03/2022 at 14:13, Phil Crean said:

DXO PureRAW converter. They claim it works seamlessly with LR and PS... 

If you are using it I'd love to know how it is better than using ACR?

 

Thanks,

Phil

 
Phil, I’m with Geogphotos in relation to this. I’m really impressed with it. I’ve been using the demo version over the last few days to process some old shots. I’ve never thought of uploading them to Alamy as they were shot at high ISO’s and very noisy. Pure Raw 2 has done a great job on them, better than I’ve been able to in trying to salvage them. I uploaded a batch of of DxO processed images to Alamy on Monday and all went through QC with no probs. Here’s two from that batch…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Steve Hyde

[Phil Crean]

52 minutes ago, Steve Hyde said:

 
Phil, I’m with Geogphotos in relation to this. I’m really impressed with it. I’ve been using the demo version over the last few days to process some old shots. I’ve never thought of uploading them to Alamy as they were shot at high ISO’s and very noisy. Pure Raw 2 has done a great job on them, better than I’ve been able to in trying to salvage them. I uploaded a batch of of DxO processed images to Alamy on Monday and all went through QC with no probs. Here’s two from that batch…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks Steve. Glad you found it helpful.

Do you have a link to the pre DXO processed images for comparison?

 

Phil

[Steve Hyde]

1 hour ago, Phil Crean said:

Thanks Steve. Glad you found it helpful.

Do you have a link to the pre DXO processed images for comparison?

 

Phil

Hi Phil, my email address is

steve@stevehyde.me.uk

if you send me a quick message I’ll send over some screen shots 🙂

[sb photos]

I think I am going to download the DXO PureRAW 2 and Topaz Denoise AI 30 day trials to have a play with. I'm likely to go with the DXO PureRAW 2, but the Topaz trial interests me as I accidentally shot an event as jpg at high iso in Oxford Street at night. I'm hoping the Topaz trial will salvage around 10 keepers. The DXO software is for RAW only.