BEST Noise Remover for High ISO Photos Top 5 Compared: Topaz vs DxO & More!
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Date: 2025-01-11
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Comments and reviews: 20
mikebrownhill4662
A great comparison. I photograph wildlife and I often work in low light so the new generation of de-noise software has been a revolution for me. I've used all of these apart from Capture One and I think your findings are accurate. DXO is my go-to application and it does a fantastic job on most images, getting rid of noise and fixing a few other lens/sensor issues that Lightroom doesn't do a good job with. It has a couple of Advanced options that you didn't touch on - Force Details being the most useful for me because I can get back a little bit more detail in feathers and fur with it. On the rare occasions that I'm not happy with DXO, my next step is to try de-noising in Lightroom and again, this does a very good job on many images. It's a bit less accurate in removing luminance noise in my experience but I can usually get it to work for me. Finally, if all else fails, I'll use Topaz Photo AI or Topaz Denoise. Both work well on removing noise but I find the results can look artificial - especially when the AI kicks in and starts putting in details that were never in the original image in the first place. I've seen Topaz add in feather details, for example, where no detail was in the original file and this can look very strange, especially in areas that were out of focus anyway because of depth of field. Topaz also does a very poor job retaining the tonal and colour integrity of the original image in many cases. Overall, I try to stick to DXO and Lightroom and use Topaz as an emergency fall back, or if I want to run a second round of very low denoising on a TIF file towards the end of my edit.
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A great comparison. I photograph wildlife and I often work in low light so the new generation of de-noise software has been a revolution for me. I've used all of these apart from Capture One and I think your findings are accurate. DXO is my go-to application and it does a fantastic job on most images, getting rid of noise and fixing a few other lens/sensor issues that Lightroom doesn't do a good job with. It has a couple of Advanced options that you didn't touch on - Force Details being the most useful for me because I can get back a little bit more detail in feathers and fur with it. On the rare occasions that I'm not happy with DXO, my next step is to try de-noising in Lightroom and again, this does a very good job on many images. It's a bit less accurate in removing luminance noise in my experience but I can usually get it to work for me. Finally, if all else fails, I'll use Topaz Photo AI or Topaz Denoise. Both work well on removing noise but I find the results can look artificial - especially when the AI kicks in and starts putting in details that were never in the original image in the first place. I've seen Topaz add in feather details, for example, where no detail was in the original file and this can look very strange, especially in areas that were out of focus anyway because of depth of field. Topaz also does a very poor job retaining the tonal and colour integrity of the original image in many cases. Overall, I try to stick to DXO and Lightroom and use Topaz as an emergency fall back, or if I want to run a second round of very low denoising on a TIF file towards the end of my edit.
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josgeusens4637
I am using DxO PhotoLab for about five years now and it never disappointed me with high ISO images. Comparing price to value, this software (with DeepPrime XD included among other noise reduction tools) stands out beyond many if not all photo processing software. You can clearly see that DxO has put in a lot of research into the restoration of the raw images. It is not about getting rid of the noise or using artificial intelligence to guess what the image was containing. It works by meticulously studying what the image should be and is. No hocus-pocus, just science.
The amount of control for details and colour is top notch without all the artificial AI. All AI tools just add things that were not in the image and in the end look superficial. That is why a miracle will be needed for me to switch from DxO. Another major point is, that it supports all raw formats, even my dinosaur ORF files from my Olympus E-420, E-3 and E-5 - not to forget the magic that happens with the raw images of my first digital Olympus XZ-1 and Canon Powershot A550.
And before anyone asks: I have paid the full price for the software and I have no one of DxO who is going to tap on my shoulder. It is just admiration and sometimes pure astonishment.
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I am using DxO PhotoLab for about five years now and it never disappointed me with high ISO images. Comparing price to value, this software (with DeepPrime XD included among other noise reduction tools) stands out beyond many if not all photo processing software. You can clearly see that DxO has put in a lot of research into the restoration of the raw images. It is not about getting rid of the noise or using artificial intelligence to guess what the image was containing. It works by meticulously studying what the image should be and is. No hocus-pocus, just science.
The amount of control for details and colour is top notch without all the artificial AI. All AI tools just add things that were not in the image and in the end look superficial. That is why a miracle will be needed for me to switch from DxO. Another major point is, that it supports all raw formats, even my dinosaur ORF files from my Olympus E-420, E-3 and E-5 - not to forget the magic that happens with the raw images of my first digital Olympus XZ-1 and Canon Powershot A550.
And before anyone asks: I have paid the full price for the software and I have no one of DxO who is going to tap on my shoulder. It is just admiration and sometimes pure astonishment.
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brilliantmiami
I bought dxo pure raw a couple of years ago. It was very expensive but it worked really well. A few months later LR was updated with an AI denoise and I was blown away. I compared side by side and I couldn't tell the difference. Both are extremely good but there are 3 major problems with DXO. First, the price and second the awkward and complex workflow. I use LR so there is a plug in to process the files which is quicker than before instead of drag and drop but no only it takes a lot longer to process but then you end up with a new dng that loses the adjustments on the original raw files. Meaning you have to manually copy and paste settings and most of the time the colors were off. Specially skin tones..
The LR de noise is perfect and it's almost instant on my M4 Max with 60mp sony files. There is a new right next to the original raw and with the same exact settings.
LR is better, quicker, easier and Free.
So it's a no Brainer. Cheers!
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I bought dxo pure raw a couple of years ago. It was very expensive but it worked really well. A few months later LR was updated with an AI denoise and I was blown away. I compared side by side and I couldn't tell the difference. Both are extremely good but there are 3 major problems with DXO. First, the price and second the awkward and complex workflow. I use LR so there is a plug in to process the files which is quicker than before instead of drag and drop but no only it takes a lot longer to process but then you end up with a new dng that loses the adjustments on the original raw files. Meaning you have to manually copy and paste settings and most of the time the colors were off. Specially skin tones..
The LR de noise is perfect and it's almost instant on my M4 Max with 60mp sony files. There is a new right next to the original raw and with the same exact settings.
LR is better, quicker, easier and Free.
So it's a no Brainer. Cheers!
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ytuberization
After many years following the different options, my preferred path for maximum image quality is as follows: Open RAW in DxO Photolab 8 (better than current Pure RAW) and apply DeepPrime XD2S and lens corrections. Export as DNG and open in PS with the new Adobe Adaptive Profile. Do image editing and save. Open in Topaz Photo AI and do some final sharpening, face recovery and potentially upscale. Results are astonishing.
Notes: As you have shown, Topaz is sometimes excellent, sometimes garbage. Still not fully reliable. Capture One has huge liabilities in the Sharpening and Denoise section. They have to improve urgently here, if they not totally want to rely on wedding photographers in future. Skylum is starting a myriad of features, but is not improving the different AI tools. Disappointing.
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After many years following the different options, my preferred path for maximum image quality is as follows: Open RAW in DxO Photolab 8 (better than current Pure RAW) and apply DeepPrime XD2S and lens corrections. Export as DNG and open in PS with the new Adobe Adaptive Profile. Do image editing and save. Open in Topaz Photo AI and do some final sharpening, face recovery and potentially upscale. Results are astonishing.
Notes: As you have shown, Topaz is sometimes excellent, sometimes garbage. Still not fully reliable. Capture One has huge liabilities in the Sharpening and Denoise section. They have to improve urgently here, if they not totally want to rely on wedding photographers in future. Skylum is starting a myriad of features, but is not improving the different AI tools. Disappointing.
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lutzherzog8007
Hi Unmesh, a very good comparison of these applications. Thanks for your effort and sharing.
I like the Adobe engine in terms of the result, but it takes a long time to get there.
Unfortunately, this point is neglected in your comparison.
The process times you quote here are utopian for me.
My experience is as follows: the first image in a session (raw, approx. 45 MB in size) takes approx. 30s. This value increases with each additional image that I process in ACR. After 5 images I am then quite quickly at 2.5 min and more.
Sounds to me like a resource that fills up after several uses.
Does this depend on a setting in ACR or do special hardware requirements have to be created here
Would you have any further information on this
Thank you.
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Hi Unmesh, a very good comparison of these applications. Thanks for your effort and sharing.
I like the Adobe engine in terms of the result, but it takes a long time to get there.
Unfortunately, this point is neglected in your comparison.
The process times you quote here are utopian for me.
My experience is as follows: the first image in a session (raw, approx. 45 MB in size) takes approx. 30s. This value increases with each additional image that I process in ACR. After 5 images I am then quite quickly at 2.5 min and more.
Sounds to me like a resource that fills up after several uses.
Does this depend on a setting in ACR or do special hardware requirements have to be created here
Would you have any further information on this
Thank you.
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fredingham1855
Nice job with the comparision of products. Your observations square with my own regarding these products. Two additional thoughts, it would useful to talk about how long each of these products takes to denoise a RAW file (realizing that every computer is different). For Canon photographers, there is also the Neural Net Image Processing Tool (subscription required) and I have found it to be as good, if not slightly better, than both Adobe Camera RAW and DXO PureRAW. However, on my computer, it takes about 25-30 seconds per photo with NNIPT versus 3-5 seconds in the other two products. When one is denoising several hundred photos, that is a big difference! Still waiting for DXO PureRAW to support the Canon R1...
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Nice job with the comparision of products. Your observations square with my own regarding these products. Two additional thoughts, it would useful to talk about how long each of these products takes to denoise a RAW file (realizing that every computer is different). For Canon photographers, there is also the Neural Net Image Processing Tool (subscription required) and I have found it to be as good, if not slightly better, than both Adobe Camera RAW and DXO PureRAW. However, on my computer, it takes about 25-30 seconds per photo with NNIPT versus 3-5 seconds in the other two products. When one is denoising several hundred photos, that is a big difference! Still waiting for DXO PureRAW to support the Canon R1...
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SteveDisenhof
I tested Camera RAW denoise in Lightroom versus Topaz deNoise AI, which I had been using before Lightroom’s new denNoise was released. My verdict was that Lightroom was marginally better than Topaz, although a little slower. However, because I am usually processing dozens of high iso stage performance images at a time, Lightroom was clearly the winner, because it allowed me to sort images by metadata (ISO), adjust just one to my liking, and then process all of them at that ISO as a batch. I can go grab a cup of coffee, come back, and two dozen ISO 6400 images will be ready for me to process or do the same thing with my two dozen ISO 8000 images, etc. As always, thank you for this very excellent video tutorial!
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I tested Camera RAW denoise in Lightroom versus Topaz deNoise AI, which I had been using before Lightroom’s new denNoise was released. My verdict was that Lightroom was marginally better than Topaz, although a little slower. However, because I am usually processing dozens of high iso stage performance images at a time, Lightroom was clearly the winner, because it allowed me to sort images by metadata (ISO), adjust just one to my liking, and then process all of them at that ISO as a batch. I can go grab a cup of coffee, come back, and two dozen ISO 6400 images will be ready for me to process or do the same thing with my two dozen ISO 8000 images, etc. As always, thank you for this very excellent video tutorial!
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arthur3038
Your examples are impressive. We spend a lot of time at classical /and Jazz concerts and the light forces us often to go up to ISO 12,800 at a certain aperture and exposure time.
Back in the office we then let the Denoise run the rest of the night with preset values (usually 37%) as batch, throw the CR3 files out of LR Classic in the morning and then select and edit the DNG files.
You might ask yourself, why not select first
We do if we have to send results to someone the same night.
Photos are simply easier to evaluate and select when they are denoised.
For photo #1 of 1000, we might then make another version later with more differentiated denoising and a final edit
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Your examples are impressive. We spend a lot of time at classical /and Jazz concerts and the light forces us often to go up to ISO 12,800 at a certain aperture and exposure time.
Back in the office we then let the Denoise run the rest of the night with preset values (usually 37%) as batch, throw the CR3 files out of LR Classic in the morning and then select and edit the DNG files.
You might ask yourself, why not select first
We do if we have to send results to someone the same night.
Photos are simply easier to evaluate and select when they are denoised.
For photo #1 of 1000, we might then make another version later with more differentiated denoising and a final edit
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weltwind
I have been a Topaz DeNoise user for several years. After your video, I tried DxO PureRAW on 50 photos with ISO of up to 6400. I tried both in Lightroom, on photos taken with Canon R5II. I found that I preferred DXO over Denoise in about 50% of the photos. However, I discovered that the DXO processes the unprocessed raw file, ignoring any crops and edits in Lightroom, resulting in a much longer processing time (typically 10x longer). In contrast, Denoise retains all Lightroom edits, including cropping. To me, that is a major advantage favoring Denoise.
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I have been a Topaz DeNoise user for several years. After your video, I tried DxO PureRAW on 50 photos with ISO of up to 6400. I tried both in Lightroom, on photos taken with Canon R5II. I found that I preferred DXO over Denoise in about 50% of the photos. However, I discovered that the DXO processes the unprocessed raw file, ignoring any crops and edits in Lightroom, resulting in a much longer processing time (typically 10x longer). In contrast, Denoise retains all Lightroom edits, including cropping. To me, that is a major advantage favoring Denoise.
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Slave-Of-Christ
Promise I'm not a Topaz phanboy but, Photo AI has a lot of tweaks available and it makes a huge difference how things are set. It's also unintuitive how the settings interact and you just have to play around until you find out. In most cases I just use Lightroom/Camera Raw because it's more than adequate and quick. When I have an image that I don't like the results of in LR/CR, I run to Photo AI and get better results, but it takes time tweaking the settings. I think it's pretty hard to go far wrong with whichever, Topaz, LR/CR, or DXO.
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Promise I'm not a Topaz phanboy but, Photo AI has a lot of tweaks available and it makes a huge difference how things are set. It's also unintuitive how the settings interact and you just have to play around until you find out. In most cases I just use Lightroom/Camera Raw because it's more than adequate and quick. When I have an image that I don't like the results of in LR/CR, I run to Photo AI and get better results, but it takes time tweaking the settings. I think it's pretty hard to go far wrong with whichever, Topaz, LR/CR, or DXO.
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jamescraig3345
Stuck shooting performance images in b&w with dim lighting with Fuji. iso runs from 12,800 and up using DXO Photolab 7 (should have gotten just the RAW because do not like working in Photolab) to do noise control and convert to dng. Results are phenomenal wouldn't use this on other images, but for stage performance (expecially with Fuji and especially for the b&w)) it's a magic formula. Oddly, even when underexposing two stops, I leave it at 12.800 because I like my corrections better than what the camera does to the RAW.
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Stuck shooting performance images in b&w with dim lighting with Fuji. iso runs from 12,800 and up using DXO Photolab 7 (should have gotten just the RAW because do not like working in Photolab) to do noise control and convert to dng. Results are phenomenal wouldn't use this on other images, but for stage performance (expecially with Fuji and especially for the b&w)) it's a magic formula. Oddly, even when underexposing two stops, I leave it at 12.800 because I like my corrections better than what the camera does to the RAW.
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MarioTorre
I have both topaz and dxo, and dxo is the one that I usually use, it also has better distortion correction. There are cases where photo ai gives better results however, so it is always worth to test both in any given situation. I’m not a super fan of denoising ai however, if I can avoid it I do prefer. Capture One does have a pretty obsolete denoising tool, it’s more for selection based denoising, and I never really use it, there’s a feature request open but obviously has been sitting ignored for ages.
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I have both topaz and dxo, and dxo is the one that I usually use, it also has better distortion correction. There are cases where photo ai gives better results however, so it is always worth to test both in any given situation. I’m not a super fan of denoising ai however, if I can avoid it I do prefer. Capture One does have a pretty obsolete denoising tool, it’s more for selection based denoising, and I never really use it, there’s a feature request open but obviously has been sitting ignored for ages.
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flcon16
Camera RAW looks to be consistently great across the board, all the others kept having weird quirks with one image or another.
I also like that it can be tuned back. All of these look way overcooked to me. There's nothing wrong with a little noise. Personally, I'll eliminate chroma noise and then just do 1-3 stops worth of noise reduction.
Luminar Neo did a very good job of looking natural, but not a great job of preserving colors. Everything looked pretty flat and would need more work to tune the colors.
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Camera RAW looks to be consistently great across the board, all the others kept having weird quirks with one image or another.
I also like that it can be tuned back. All of these look way overcooked to me. There's nothing wrong with a little noise. Personally, I'll eliminate chroma noise and then just do 1-3 stops worth of noise reduction.
Luminar Neo did a very good job of looking natural, but not a great job of preserving colors. Everything looked pretty flat and would need more work to tune the colors.
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piximperfect
I have been using CaptureOne for several years and the noise reduction feature is completely useless.
It works for low-noise images such as daylight shots, but artifacts appear on night shots where I want to use noise reduction.
I recently purchased PureRaw4 and have been using it to process images before importing them into CaptureOne. It works great.
PureRaw only generates a separate DNG file with noise reduction, so it works even if I change editing software.
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I have been using CaptureOne for several years and the noise reduction feature is completely useless.
It works for low-noise images such as daylight shots, but artifacts appear on night shots where I want to use noise reduction.
I recently purchased PureRaw4 and have been using it to process images before importing them into CaptureOne. It works great.
PureRaw only generates a separate DNG file with noise reduction, so it works even if I change editing software.
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HokgiartoSaliem
Add DXO PL 8 with Denoise Prime XD2. Perhaps it has improvement over PureRAW 4. I need 5 minutes using I5 3470 to process 18 mp RAW EOS M 2012 (the first EOS M). I have GTX 750 Ti with 2 GB, unfortunatelly even though it has 1,5 GB VRAM in task manager, DXO 8 still refuse use it and complain that it need 1 GB VRAM available.
Also add demo photo with a bit dark photo of group people photo at iso 25K old cam. Let see how good there are denoising the faces.
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Add DXO PL 8 with Denoise Prime XD2. Perhaps it has improvement over PureRAW 4. I need 5 minutes using I5 3470 to process 18 mp RAW EOS M 2012 (the first EOS M). I have GTX 750 Ti with 2 GB, unfortunatelly even though it has 1,5 GB VRAM in task manager, DXO 8 still refuse use it and complain that it need 1 GB VRAM available.
Also add demo photo with a bit dark photo of group people photo at iso 25K old cam. Let see how good there are denoising the faces.
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AR-vf7vg
IF monochromatic results (for instance sepia) are the end goal, first step might be Dxo (before continuing with LR or photoshop).
I'm foremost LR user sometimes PS forth and back to LR.
BTW it seems he never mentiones LR Have not practiced for a wile.. Has LR now the same refinements as shown here in camera raw The other way around -CR interface resembling LR - I know about.
Also BTW, An edited mastet file exported as Raw could thus be Ai denoised too
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IF monochromatic results (for instance sepia) are the end goal, first step might be Dxo (before continuing with LR or photoshop).
I'm foremost LR user sometimes PS forth and back to LR.
BTW it seems he never mentiones LR Have not practiced for a wile.. Has LR now the same refinements as shown here in camera raw The other way around -CR interface resembling LR - I know about.
Also BTW, An edited mastet file exported as Raw could thus be Ai denoised too
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horrgakx
It would be good for you to talk about pricing. Some of these are REALLY expensive.
The AI Denoise in Lightroom is very, very good, and included in the program, so is essentially free.
Although, Topaz Face Recovery does look very good. Perhaps too good, and maybe verging on unnatural But it's too much cash. I have the older Topaz Sharpen AI which was a lot cheaper. I don't know why they moved away from that pricing model but it's not worth the outlay IMHO.
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It would be good for you to talk about pricing. Some of these are REALLY expensive.
The AI Denoise in Lightroom is very, very good, and included in the program, so is essentially free.
Although, Topaz Face Recovery does look very good. Perhaps too good, and maybe verging on unnatural But it's too much cash. I have the older Topaz Sharpen AI which was a lot cheaper. I don't know why they moved away from that pricing model but it's not worth the outlay IMHO.
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richardhuggins4002
Capture One is known by users to not be good at noise removal. Many of us do our raw processing in C1 after turning off de noise and sharpening then send a tiff to photo ai to clean up noise and do the sharpening. You left out Iridient from the comparison. Any reason why Other thing is C1 is aimed at studio professionals and with the lighting right they don't get noise, so its probably not a major issue for them.
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Capture One is known by users to not be good at noise removal. Many of us do our raw processing in C1 after turning off de noise and sharpening then send a tiff to photo ai to clean up noise and do the sharpening. You left out Iridient from the comparison. Any reason why Other thing is C1 is aimed at studio professionals and with the lighting right they don't get noise, so its probably not a major issue for them.
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Vijay----Kumar839
Hey Umesh Sir,
Do you think Photo Editing, Photoshop Manipulation, and Digital Art are slowly losing relevance Will AI eventually take over these fields entirely What’s your opinion on this If I were still learning photo editing right now, what would you suggest I do And what about those who were planning to build a career in this field and earn from it Please share your thoughts.
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Hey Umesh Sir,
Do you think Photo Editing, Photoshop Manipulation, and Digital Art are slowly losing relevance Will AI eventually take over these fields entirely What’s your opinion on this If I were still learning photo editing right now, what would you suggest I do And what about those who were planning to build a career in this field and earn from it Please share your thoughts.
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Vijay----Kumar839
Hey umesh sir,
Do you think Photo Editing, Photoshop Manipulation, and Digital Art are slowly losing relevance Will AI eventually take over these fields entirely What’s your opinion on this If I were still learning photo editing right now, what would you suggest I do And what about those who were planning to build a career in this field and earn from it Please share your thoughts.
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Hey umesh sir,
Do you think Photo Editing, Photoshop Manipulation, and Digital Art are slowly losing relevance Will AI eventually take over these fields entirely What’s your opinion on this If I were still learning photo editing right now, what would you suggest I do And what about those who were planning to build a career in this field and earn from it Please share your thoughts.
reply
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