Say Goodbye to Noisy Photos: Why Lightroom's New Denoise Feature is a Game-Changer for Photographers
What’s this new feature?
As a special events photographer, there is one thing that is the bane of my existence: low light photos. Despite having my amazing Nikon Z6ii on hand that I can crank up to 20,000 iso if I want, this of course comes with unwanted, grainy images.
Of course, there are programs such as Topaz AI which photographers of all kinds have been using for a while to help with this noise issue. But did Adobe just release something on-par, something that can be a one-click wonder for a photographer’s low-light editing workflow?
On April 18, Adobe released a Lightroom update including a new feature: Denoise – an AI-powered noise reduction feature. “Denoise uses machine learning to interpolate [mosaic patterns created by camera sensors] and remove noise at the same time. That is, our models are designed and trained to perform both demosaicing and denoising in a single step,” Eric Chan stated in his article on Adobe.
Lightroom’s example of Denoise when you first open after updating.
What is noise?
Noise has been around in photography since the beginning, dating back to film where grain was an integral part. As Chan said, “a bit of noise is not an issue and can actually make a photo look more natural.” Without a tiny bit of noise, images can look too unrealistic, almost painting-like.
Denoise comes in when we are looking to get rid of that distracting and unwanted noise in our photos. Chan also mentions that it has been ten years since a noise update in Lightroom. In the past decade cameras, softwares, and technology overall have had massive updates to accommodate noise, and to improve. Adobe adding this feature is just about time, and much needed.
I first tried Denoise using some photos that I recently shot during Orthodox Holy Week. These photos were often shot with high ISO due to the low-light church setting I was shooting in. I cropped the images in a bit to really show the noise and then clicked Denoise.
My thoughts
To start, I was SO excited to try this. This has definitely been something I have been needing for my low-light and event shoots, so I had high hopes.
For each photo, it took about three to four minutes to fully process. Honestly, I was expecting a bit shorter wait time as this can obviously become very time-consuming. It also greatly slowed down my computer and got the fan going loud...
The first photo I tried it on was a cropped image of the back of a girl’s head. The biggest distraction was the background which, although blurry, the noise really stood out. I suppose this could be fixed by adjusting clarity and texture, but the AI Denoise pleased me greatly. The background looked stunning and made the image look as if I had just taken it that close up, truly no noticeable noise.
Before Denoise
After Denoise
The second image I tried it on was a cropped image of bay leaves being thrown on Holy Saturday. This image was shot at a high shutter speed, which meant that when I raised the brightness the noise was visible.
Before Denoise
After Denoise
I was, once again, quite amazed. With this photo test, the evidence is much clearer: this thing works. The only thing I noticed this time around is that the priest’s face looked a bit painting-like, but I did crank the denoise slider up pretty high, to around 70, so that was expected.
Overall, this is an incredible addition to Lightroom for photographers. Having this one-click tool right in the editing workflow will be a gamechanger!