I have shared high-than-usual-resolution images on this blog post, to showcase the detailed difference between the before and after of using the new AI Denoise on a RAW image.
It blew my mind. I cannot believe it actually did that. My old laptop would have probably taken 45 minutes for this but thankfully I have a new, small and powerful gaming machine with a good GPU, so it took a couple of minutes to use this enhancement feature.
Below is the image before the Denoise was applied.
Below is the image after the AI Denoise was applied.
Below left is a 100% crop of the image before the AI Denoise and below right is the same crop of the image after the AI Denoise.
All I did was literally click a button “Denoise” and leave it at the “50%” amount as automatically selected by Lightroom. I did not make any other adjustments to the automatic window that pops up and within a couple of minutes, my mind was blown. Obviously, it also depends on the image that you would choose to apply the AI Denoise to. In this case, the difference is so stark because it is a wooden sculpture, so there’s not a lot of detail except the wood’s change in coloration. So, you could say that this is a relatively easy image for the AI to work with.
Which is why, here’s another, slightly more complex image. This one took about 6 minutes for the AI Denoise enhancement to conclude. Note that Adobe mentions that this enhancement should ideally be applied before you make any other post-production changes to the RAW file. This is because the Denoise enhancement can affect the other post-production choices you’ve made.
Below, full image before AI Denoise.
Below, full image after AI Denoise.
Below left BEFORE and below right AFTER, 100% crop.
Not sure if it is clearly visible to you but you see the AFTER image above, it has more correct colours. The greens on the grape stems were washed out before when I’d only applied manual denoise, specifically Colour Noise Reduction. AI Denoise seems to have brought back that detail!
I’m thinking that this AI enhancement would definitely help me with the art-style images that I have been thinking of creating. If I push the slider toward 100% Denoise, it will give me an almost vector-like image! I love using features to experiment with instead of simply for their intended purpose.
