Optics Pro Prime noise reduction

[DanK]

Anyone here use Optics Pro for its noise reduction? I just saw a posting elsewhere with some impressive results, and the poster wrote that Optics Pro will output DNG files. I have never heard of a noise reduction program that outputs modified raw files. If this is really true, I would be interested to know how it compares with the newer versions of noise reduction in Lightroom.

[Manfred M]

Dan - I have been a long time user of Optics Pro (I believe Donald is as well). I personally feel it is the strongest commercial raw convertor available and Prime is one of the main reasons I upgraded is that I sat in on DxO Lab's seminars on Optics Pro 11. They spent a lot of time showing us how well Prime worked.

I've only used it a couple of times, as I tend to try to avoid noise by shooting low ISO as much as possible. But the few times I used Prime, I would have to say that they have a solid, but very slow product. You only get a small area preview area when you use prime and it takes a long time to run (i.e. go top up your coffee).

The noise reduction occurs at the proper point in the workflow, when all of the data is available in the raw file and before any sharpening has occurred.

The real issue that I have with the product is that it is quite slow when compared to Lightroom / ACR or Capture One, which is why I don't use it in my everyday use. The user interface is not as intuitive as I would like, but get a noisy image, it is definitely an excellent product, but I tend to use it when needed.

I think it would be best to post an example. These are some super noisy shots I took at night with my Panasonic GX7 when we were backpacking through South Asia a couple of years ago. We were on a boat on the Ganges River watching the sunset blessing on shore. I had to push the camera to the maximum to get any images at all. I find the results out of Optics Pro to be amazing.

1. ACR / Lightroom CC 2017






2. DxO Optics Pro 11 using Prime




The difference can be seen just looking at the images, but in Lightbox the results are even more astounding.

[DanK]

Manfred,

Thanks very much. That is an impressive result. My second reason for finding this interesting is one you mentioned: noise reduction should be done first, and I rarely do that now--unless I use LR's noise reduction--because I do most of my parametric editing on the raw file. This would solve that problem.

My problem is that I would probably end up using this software solely for noise reduction and, like you, I usually shoot to avoid noise.

Have you compared the retention of detail to the best that you can obtain with LR/ACR?

Dan

[Manfred M]

Dan - I would say that overall image quality is quite similar to ACR / Lightroom. Where I do notice a difference is that the automatic CA reduction seems to be better and the lens corrections also seem to be a touch better. In general, these are fairly small differences, so I find that the integration of ACR / Lightroom and Photoshop outweigh any minor quality advantages that Optics Pro gives me, most of the time. I can see them if I do a side-by-side comparison at 100%, but in real life that rarely happens, so its not something I get to excited about.

What I have always done is use Optics Pro when I am preparing an image for print. Here the slight quality improvements are worth the extra effort. I started using Optics Pro back when the ACR engine (pre-2012) did not deliver particularly good results with Nikon cameras, especially when it came to skin tones. The latest Adobe raw converter engine (2012) is a significant improvement over both previous iterations (2003 and 2010), so I no longer need a alternative in my day-to-day use.

[DanK]

Manfred,

thanks very much. Given this, I think it probably is not worth it to me. I shoot Canon, and I find that LR renders the skin tones from Canon cameras well. I doubt I would end up using the software for anything other than NR, and if LR will do that about as well, I might as well stick with that.

One nice thing about doing NR in LR is that the order in which the software applies the edits when you are done is not determined by the order in which you make them, so you don't have to worry about doing it first. You just have to do it before you export to any other software.

Dan

[proseak]

I use DxO a lot, partly for it's NR, which is quite remarkable. The lens correction and CA removal are also first rate. As to the speed, on AMD 8350/W7/16Gb it does 3-4 per minute using PRIME NR, so 15-20 seconds each. Those are 15/18 MP images, from Canon crop cameras. The quality is good enough that little further work is required.

For high-ISO images, I depend on it; Adobe doesn't come close.

[Donald]

Dan - I have been a long time user of Optics Pro (I believe Donald is as well).

He is indeed. I do all my Raw processing with DxO Optics Pro and I agree with Manfred that is superb at noise reduction .... and everything else. Since I don't use any other tool, I cannot comment on how good it is viz-a-viz other software.

[DanK]

I just saw that they offer a 30 day trial. I will find time over the coming days to locate or create a very noisy image and then try an A/B comparison of this with LR. If I get anything interesting, I will post it.

[proseak]

Dan, it's worth getting together quite a few "problem" pics, and only starting the trial when you have time to eperiment; the workflow is very different.

[DanK]

Dan, it's worth getting together quite a few "problem" pics, and only starting the trial when you have time to eperiment; the workflow is very different.

Thanks. My plan is to do no editing at all with either software other than noise reduction, to get as close to a minimal contrast as I can.

[proseak]

Will you compare lens correction/CA at the same time?

[davidedric]

I know shoot only m4/3 and so noise is more often a problem. I find that DxO certainly does a better job than Lightroom / ACR. I also find that it seems to be able to extract more detail.

I don't use it on every image, for many the differences are small. In part because it messes up the workflow, and aesthetically I don't like those dann great tiff's hanging around.

Dave

[DanK]

Will you compare lens correction/CA at the same time?

No. I'm satisfied with those functions in Lightroom.


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[DanK]

I know shoot only m4/3 and so noise is more often a problem. I find that DxO certainly does a better job than Lightroom / ACR. I also find that it seems to be able to extract more detail.

I don't use it on every image, for many the differences are small. In part because it messes up the workflow, and aesthetically I don't like those dann great tiff's hanging around.

Dave

I have a 4/3 also, so I can test an image from that too.

Re TIFFs: can't you do the NR in DxO and then export a dng to import into LR? That capability is why I am interested in testing it. I don't want the TIFFs either.


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[davidedric]

Hi Dan.

You might find this thread interesting: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/58909890

And this more learned discussion of tif and dng referenced in the thread: https://blogarithms.com/2012/01/09/w...omment-page-1/

Dave

[DanK]

Hi Dan.

You might find this thread interesting: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/58909890

And this more learned discussion of tif and dng referenced in the thread: https://blogarithms.com/2012/01/09/w...omment-page-1/

Dave

very helpful. thanks

[Manfred M]

Dan - Optics Pro lets you export as a DNG, or directly into Lightroom or an editing program of your choice. The TIFF days (the only viable option in some of the earlier versions) are gone, although you can still save as 8-bit or 16-bit TIFF.

[DanK]

Dan - Optics Pro lets you export as a DNG, or directly into Lightroom or an editing program of your choice. The TIFF days (the only viable option in some of the earlier versions) are gone, although you can still save as 8-bit or 16-bit TIFF.

thanks. I took some test shots with two cameras and now just have to find time to work on them.

[davidedric]

The .dng produced by DxO is not a RAW file. To the best of my knowledge, it's a bit mapped image inside a .dng wrapper.

[DanK]

The .dng produced by DxO is not a RAW file. To the best of my knowledge, it's a bit mapped image inside a .dng wrapper.

That seems to be the case. I just compared the DNGs I created in the noise reduction tests I put in another thread to the original raw files. They are roughly 2.5 times the size of the original raw files. The pixel count is 22.12 million, which is what it should be regardless, as it was taken with a 5DIII.

So the bottom line seems to be this: with the software I know about, if you want to reduce noise at the beginning of the workflow, the cost is that unless you stay in that software, you have to give up the raw format.

I don't use NR often, and when I do, I usually do it in Lightroom, where this isn't an issue.