In this video, I demonstrate and compare the sharpening and noise reduction in Lightroom versus that of Topaz Labs Photo AI.

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I enjoy the vast majority of your videos and only skip those that relate to gear or editing products that I do not use or am not considering. However, this is about ageing' not photography. I am 78 years old, have a wife who will join my age bracket in less than a week, 6 adult children, 5 daughter and one son in laws, 11 grandchildren, and some unknown but significant number of cats, dogs and a few odds and ends that are spread between our scattered family homes. I shout HAY as loud as I can to get my targets attention if they are in danger or about to do something verry wrong; regardless of how many others turn to look at me. When "HAY" would be inappropriate, I just use a calm "I have something to tell you" and point to my target if others are present and also turn to look at me. I tend to ignore pets, even the several cats that live in my own home. I found these tips to be effective. But most importantly, all these related named people and pets constantly remind me that 1) aging beats the hell out of the alternative, 2) only the lucky get the privilege to grow old, and 3)I have been blessed. I hope they do similarly for you.😃

I repeated this with a slight difference. In Lightroom after Denoise I created a mask for the subject (the bird) and use a combination of sharpness, texture, clarity and dehaze. I think in this case Lightroom produced a better result, albeit with a little more effort. I will send the files by email. Another great video btw.

The difference between the two programs, as you noted in this video, is negligible. I am very satisfied with Lightroom Classic's Denoise application. For me, it does a very good job. Thank much Anthony for this video.

I tried the same test and gort very similar results - I think the right answer today is for people to use both and see how the updates play out over time.

Thanks for this Anthony. I too have found Topaz AI Denoise consistently produces more pleasing images than Lightroom Classic or Topaz Photo AI. Curious if others are experiencing something similar.

Thanks for the video, Anthony. I hadn't considered using Topaz Photo AI to process RAW files, as I'veI used it primarily to enhance scans of older prints. I have been using Lightroom Denoise and then sharpening in Topaz Sharpen AI, which gives me more control. As others have pointed out, the artifacts created by Photo AI are not welcome features.

Topaz AI is still introducing artifacts that were not in the original image. When you are zoomed in, look to the left of the head and you will see what looks like a blown white pixel. This happens all the time. It's easily removed, but requires searching the image for artifacts. I also think the sharpening in auto is way too heavy and produces weird patterns in feathers and fur. On many images it also causes some sort of pixel shift where when you compare the before/after, the image seems to move slightly and the new dng file created isn't the same dimensions as the original. I do think PhotoAI is pretty good, but I am finding myself using LR Denoise AI more often because of these issues.

One more comment, Anthony. I too have three sons, and I too mix up their names. I used to laugh at my parents for mixing up my and my brothers' names (my parents also had three sons), but I'm worse than they ever were.

Great video. My question is, "what about when I need to crop and enhance resolution", such as bird photography? I could followup you video with Gigapixel AI, but I get the feeling they are not doing much in the way of enhancements for Gigapixel AI anymore. Since I lose any cropping going from LR to Topaz Photo AI I am curious about the proper workflow. Thanks again.

I have found that editing the image in LR then exporting it as a jpg and then opening in Photo AI produces better results than using Photo AI on a RAW image. I am not sure why this is but I have tested it on a bunch of images and it works better especially if you need to upscale. The AI just seems to work better on jpg than RAW at least for Sony RAW. Thanks for the video!

The color shift you are seeing is the reason I don't use the plug-in to process with Topaz Photo AI. If you use the "Edit in . . ." instead you get the correct colors. Topaz does something with RAW file colors that it shouldn't be. Needs to be fixed, frankly. I have also found, if I want to denoise and sharpen, I usually just use Topaz Denoise AI. Seems a touch faster to me.

My first few attempts with photo AI resulted in far worse image quality. I am hoping they have made improvements along the way. Lightroom has improved so much I find I use it almost exclusively but for PS fantastic beta version to remove unwanted elements in an image.

Maybe I'm missing something but in Luminar, I don't know if you get the masking overlay when sharpening and doing noise reduction which is helpful (noticed this the other day when I was playing around with Luminar on a photo I had which had a bit of noise). It does clean up fine, but I can't tell with their masking system where I'm applying the masking (or at least, compare to LR, it's not as obvious in terms of overlays). (I would use the Denoise AI in LR more but my computer just takes too long so I've been using DXO which is a bit quicker or I just use the old fashioned noise reduction methods -- the sliders in the Detail panel).

When I use Denoise in LRC, it takes at least 10 minutes per photo. I hadn't heard of Topaz, but perhaps I can give it a try.

Lightroom uses different color profiles for RAW compared to Photo AI, thus the difference in white balance and saturation

I prefer DeNoise because I can use it after the edits, and because I can do large batches of photos quickly.

I used to use topaz denoise and sharpen AI religiously. Since denoise came out on Lightroom I just use that and then sharpen in Lightroom as well. I do not use topaz at all. I find it to be so much better. Now if I have an image that is a little soft I will denoise in Lightroom and then I will sharpen AI with topaz, but overall the denoise and Lightroom has cut my workflow down drastically. I am shooting with a Z9.

I prefer Topaz Denoise AI and Sharpen AI to Photo AI or Lightroom Denoise. Photo AI adds artifacts and distortion that the other products do not.