Show us your SOOC to Final Conversion

[West Coast Birder]

We know that post-processing software can seemingly do magic these days - between shadow recovery and noise reduction and AI-based removal of unwanted objects in the photo.

So, this thread is for demonstrating what you managed to do - post an SOOC image after you have pulled it into your software of choice, and a final image that you saved to your drive, ready to upload to your gallery or take a print. If possible, give a brief description of what you did - only general summary, no details needed.

Here is one of mine. This is an image of a turkey vulture soaring on thermals near the cliffs at Heceta Head on the Oregon Coast circa 2016 on a very foggy day. As you can see, the bird is barely visible. The image resided on my hard drive unprocessed all this time and I finally decided to try to recover the image using Lightroom.

Well, the only two thing different from my usual workflow was that I went aggressive with the dehaze slider - pushed in all the way to the right, and tested out the denoise AI in Lightroom. I am quite pleased with the denoise AI capability in Lightroom although it seems to be a resource hog compared to, say, Topaz Denoise AI. It took me about 10 minutes on my oldish computer with CPU at 100%. Having a GPU card would have helped.

Anyway here are the results. It is far from the best turkey vulture photo I have taken, but I was qutie impressed at how good the post-processing software tools are these days.

Original SOOC:

Canon EOS 7D Mark II EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM +1.4x III ƒ/8.0 560.0mm 1/1250s 800ISO

After workflow:

 

[joayne]

...So did you start with a RAW file?
There must have been a lot of data in that file.

Software Used?

 

[West Coast Birder]

...So did you start with a RAW file?
There must have been a lot of data in that file.

Software Used?

Yep, started with a raw file SOOC (7D2). Software was Lightroom Classic Version.

 

[digital paradise]

...So did you start with a RAW file?
There must have been a lot of data in that file.

Software Used?

Adobe Denoise AI was released in LrC 12.3 in April. The DNG files were crazy huge. Almost 4 times the size if the original RAW. LrC 13 was released in October and they changed the compression so that reduce the DNG file size by ⅔. Here is a current example. 55 MB for the original RAW to 82.3 MB for the DNG. In September that would had been 200 MB. This did not effect processing times.



As Sam stated it is GPU dependant. I've seen anywhere from 5 seconds to 10 or more minutes. AI eats VRAM. I learned that the hard way with my pre 2019 iMac. It could not even run Topaz Denoise AI. It looked great in Topaz but awful in back in Lightroom. Swaths of artifacts. In the the Topaz forums someone suggested I crop my files to 50% and that worked. The old iMac just didn't have the horsepower.

I knew more AI would be coming so I ordered my 2019 iMac with 8 GB VRAM. Currently Adobe Denoise takes about 45 seconds. In perspective so did PureRaw DeepPrime XD and Topaz Photo AI. DeepPrime about 25 seconds and Topaz DeNoise or Sharpen about 12.

Apple dropped Intel for the M chip. Currently there is a problem with both OS's Ventura and Sonoma and M chips. A bug prevents the use of the Neural Engine cores, so Adobe Denoise has to use the GPU cores. This bug also affected DXO and Topaz. DXO for colour shifting and checker boarding but DXO found a work around. I'm not sure about Topaz but only Photo AI would have been effected.

This does not affect Windows but is still GPU dependant. If Apple ever fixes that bug it will speed things up. Maybe Adobe will find a workaround as well.

 

[digital paradise]

Canon R7. 33mp. Pushing the crop a bit too much for the ISO which is 20000. Just an example of what can be done these days. Adobe Denoise AI only.

 

[digital paradise]

This one had a better start. Canon R - 30 MP. ISO 16000

 

[digital paradise]

If Archibald joins we can ask him to post his 5 stop underexposed flash failure recovery of a dragonfly he posted at POTN.

 

[i-G12]

Adobe Denoise is quite good IMO. Topaz has more bells and whistles but for straight noise reduction Lightroom is pretty much really good.

 

[digital paradise]

As to not post the same file twice.

https://focus-on-photography-forum.net/threads/our-moon.138/#post-801

 

[digital paradise]

Adobe Denoise is quite good IMO. Topaz has more bells and whistles but for straight noise reduction Lightroom is pretty much really good.

Remarkable for first time release. For really tough jobs I think DXO still leads but they have been at it for a long time. In May I got rid of all my 3rd party apps except for Topaz Sharpen AI which only use it when needed.

 

[i-G12]

I have Topaz Photo AI and it’s come a long way. But didn’t upgrade to their latest version but still have their stand alone Giga Pixel, Sharpen and even Denoise AI. Adobe seems to do the job now so I’m happy. Don’t think Topaz will be updating the other apps anymore.

 

[digital paradise]

I have Topaz Photo AI and it’s come a long way. But didn’t upgrade to their latest version but still have their stand alone Giga Pixel, Sharpen and even Denoise AI. Adobe seems to do the job now so I’m happy. Don’t think Topaz will be updating the other apps anymore.

I used Photo AI from day one. It was not ready for prime time but they came a long way. I just imagine by October and 24 updates later. If it hadn't been for Adobe Denoise I'd likely still be using it. I'm just trying to simplify things so no particular reason for not using it. Saving costs on 3rd party does help a bit.

Things are odd at Topaz these days. Sharpen AI's last update was in March of 2022. DeNoise was February of 2023 yet they still sell them with on year support. When I looked at my account at the beginning of October they are still offering the $99 annual maintenance fund that covered all the apps you own. I have them all except Video AI. Now I see that they pulled that and are offering support for all the apps separately. I won't spend $49 until I see Sharpen AI actually get an update.

 

[i-G12]

I used Photo AI from day one. It was not ready for prime time but they came a long way. I just imagine by October and 24 updates later. If it hadn't been for Adobe Denoise I'd likely still be using it. I'm just trying to simplify things so no particular reason for not using it. Saving costs on 3rd party does help a bit.

Things are odd at Topaz these days. Sharpen AI's last update was in March of 2022. DeNoise was February of 2023 yet they still sell them with on year support. When I looked at my account at the beginning of October they are still offering the $99 annual maintenance fund that covered all the apps you own. I have them all except Video AI. Now I see that they pulled that and are offering support for all the apps separately. I won't spend $49 until I see Sharpen AI actually get an update.

Totally agree. And let’s not pretend Adobe is finished. Next they’re prob going to update the sharpen model in Lightroom. As of right now it’s not very good.

 

[digital paradise]

Totally agree. And let’s not pretend Adobe is finished. Next they’re prob going to update the sharpen model in Lightroom. As of right now it’s not very good.

That needs some work for sure. I hope they add that one day.

 

[i-G12]

That needs some work for sure. I hope they add that one day.

Just a matter of time. They’re in competition with other developers and want to increase their base so improvements have to come to “keep up with the jones”.

 

[digital paradise]

Hope we see some DXO and Topaz examples.

 

[Wilt]

To illustrate the benefit of having RAW files, one key benefit is 'Screw up cover up'. This photo was taken about 15 years ago, when my wife and I were on holiday, during a bus tour in Australia. Getting off the bus, I find my wife has purchased bird seed to feed wild (but somewhat domesticated) birds, and she was very startled at how the birds lacked any reluctance to come for the food...my shutter finger responded with a short series of shots before my brain could adjust the camera settings, and this resulted (after her initial fear had been overcome...)

Blown shot...JPG

Recovered JPG after PP

Photo editor (PSPX) RAW conversion

LR1 RAW conversion

Same RAW file converted with LR2...

Now using LR6
]

I publish this series as a demonstration of the fact that more recent versions of the same RAW conversion software can exhibit tangible improvement in fundamentals, not merely in additional breadth of capabilities added over time.

(I have no newer body which would motivate me to get a newer version of LR, so I am unable to portray what the very latest version of Lightroom can do, sorry. If someone with the latest version of LR (or even different RAW conversion software) wishes to PM me, I can provide a link to the RAW file so that comparative conversion can be posted.)

 

[West Coast Birder]

Amazing transformation!

 

[fotoi]

Mountain moon rise before and after. Done with Photoshop CS6.
Canon EOS 5D Mark III • Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM @800mm • 1sec • f/11 • ISO 100


After

 

[joayne]

To illustrate the benefit of having RAW files, one key benefit is 'Screw up cover up'. This photo was taken about 15 years ago, when my wife and I were on holiday, during a bus tour in Australia. Getting off the bus, I find my wife has purchased bird seed to feed wild (but somewhat domesticated) birds, and she was very startled at how the birds lacked any reluctance to come for the food...my shutter finger responded with a short series of shots before my brain could adjust the camera settings, and this resulted (after her initial fear had been overcome...)

Blown shot...JPG

Recovered JPG after PP

Photo editor (PSPX) RAW conversion

LR1 RAW conversion

Same RAW file converted with LR2...

Now using LR6
]

I publish this series as a demonstration of the fact that more recent versions of the same RAW conversion software can exhibit tangible improvement in fundamentals, not merely in additional breadth of capabilities added over time.

(I have no newer body which would motivate me to get a newer version of LR, so I am unable to portray what the very latest version of Lightroom can do, sorry. If someone with the latest version of LR (or even different RAW conversion software) wishes to PM me, I can provide a link to the RAW file so that comparative conversion can be posted.)

It just kept getting better and better