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Noise Reduction

Testing six AI-based noise reduction programs for astrophotography

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In a detailed technical blog I compare six AI-based noise reduction programs for the demands of astrophotography. Some can work wonders. Others can ruin your image.

Over the last two years, we have seen a spate of specialized programs introduced for removing digital noise from photos. The new generation of programs use artificial intelligence (AI), aka machine learning, trained on thousands of images to better distinguish unwanted noise from desirable image content. At least that’s the promise – and for noisy but normal daytime images they do work very well. But in astrophotography our main subjects – stars – can look a lot like specks of pixel-level noise. How well can each program reduce noise without eliminating stars or wanted details, or introducing odd artifacts, making images worse?

To find out, I tested six of the new AI-based programs on real-world – or rather “real-sky” – astro photos. Does one program stand out from the rest for astrophotography?

The best photo noise removal software in 2022

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Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are everywhere in photography now. I recently wrote about whether we should be worried about AI in photography. My conclusion is that we shouldn’t. Today I’m demonstrating the power of AI in the form of a battle, putting the leading noise removal software head-to-head. I’ve searched through my raw images to find a particularly noisy shot to work with.

Google’s new NeRF AI has learned to see in the dark better than any camera you own

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Computational photography is a big thing these days. Not only when it comes to smartphones but also with software for the desktop using photos shot with a “real camera”. One particular area where it’s beneficial is noise reduction. It’s built into many smartphone camera apps automatically and it’s available for the desktop in applications like Noise Ninja and Topaz DeNoise AI, not to mention denoising features built into apps like Lightroom.

Google’s new Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) AI, titled RawNeRF (AKA NeRF in the Dark), however, blows them all away, with images that are not only so good they look almost flawless but it can then go on to generate completely artificial 3D scenes that you can move around in after the fact, as well as adjust exposure, gamma & tone mapping and even focus – including bokeh balls!

Luminar Neo’s Noiseless AI plugin fixes your noisy photos in a second

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Last month, Skylum launched its very first Luminar Neo extension – and they don’t plan on stopping. Coming soon is Noiseless AI, another plugin from Skylum that aims to make your editing process faster and simpler.

Noiseless AI is another paid plugin for Luminar NEO. As the name suggests, it removes digital noise with the power of artificial intelligence. Skylum shared some details about the latest extension with us, so let’s dive right in and see what you can expect.

DxO PureRAW 2 is now 4x faster on Apple Silicon and adds Fuji X-Trans file support

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DxO has announced DxO PureRaw 2 which brings with it some pretty big performance increases, with a 50% speed boost on Windows and runs up to four times faster on Apple Silicon-based Macs. The new release also adds support for Fujifilm’s X-Trans files, promising “demosaicing and denoising like you’ve never seen before” that “corrects every possible lens defect”.

Like the previous version, PureRAW 2 uses convolutional neural networks to perform the demosaicing and denoising process. But over its predecessor, it sees a couple of new ways of working. You can pre-process your images from directly within Lightroom, to generate already-enhanced Linear DNG files for editing, or you can do it straight from the Windows Explorer or macOS Finder interface.

DxO PureRAW cleans up noise and softness in your photos before you load them into Lightroom

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DxO has announced DxO PureRAW, their new software to… Well, I suppose “pre-process” is the best term to describe it. It pre-processes your raw files before you load them into Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw, Capture One or whatever raw software you happen to use. Its goal is to help improve your starting point with increased sharpness and reduced noise.

DxO PureRAW is not a plugin. It’s a standalone application through which you run your raw files before your usual editing workflow. It claims to remove noise, chromatic aberration, vignetting, distortion and to improve sharpness and clarity using DxO’s DeepPRIME AI tech after which it exports out a set of new DNG raw files for editing.

DxO PhotoLab 4 comes with AI-powered high ISO noise reduction

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DxO’s PhotoLab has seen a lot of improvements over the years. Their latest iteration, PhotoLab 4 comes with some pretty impressive high ISO noise reduction along with a host of workflow speed and other features. These improvements allow you to customise the user interface and provide easier access to your more commonly used tools, as well as adding a few new ones.

Topaz DeNoise AI for night photos review

Topaz has recently launched its newest version of DeNoise AI, and I have tested the software on a night image. Does this latest iteration of Topaz’ noise reduction program live up to the hype? According to Topaz, DeNoise AI has received several updates and improvements.

When you run the program you can choose between two modes: manual and auto. Auto comes with only one slider (Chroma Noise). In manual mode, you can also adjust the level of sharpening and noise reduction applied. In addition, you can also decide how the program displays the changes in real-time. I have only used the split-screen option when testing the software. The real-time preview isn’t very accurate. The processed image looks quite different from what the preview suggests.

Kandao Raw+ offers automated image stacking for raw files without ghosting

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Stacking raw files isn’t anything new. We’ve been able to do it in Photoshop for years. But doing it in Photoshop requires some legwork. If you’ve got moving subjects in your shots, you need to mask things out, which can take a lot of time depending on the shot. Kandao’s new Raw+ software, however, figures it out automatically.

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