So, out of curiosity I gave the AI RAW Denoise a blast today, and it did a really good job, straight out of the box.
I guess I just have a brain that wants to understand the ‘how’, and so wondered whether I could achieve exactly the same results, but using the original offerings.
My problem, is that I just don’t understand enough about denoising in Darktable to achieve that. Can anyone point me to good, easy-to-understand tutorials or videos that can get me on track.
AI is a good tool, but I don’t really want to use it. I’d like to know how I can achieve the same results, but on my own.
Hi Michael, I really like that AI denoising has been included in DT but if used ‘straight out of the box’ (I presume that to mean 100%) then I feel it can over cook the denoising and everything appears plastic. I find it harder to tame than the non-AI options because the preview works on only a small area whereas non-AI you can look at the whole image and make adjustments.
I would suggest there are already some good playraws with denoising problems that could guide you or you could start your own.
In this playraw I have used non-AI and Popanz has used AI…correction Uli’s first post had been AI but he reposted with non-AI denoising.
BTW, I tend to use AI denoising at very low values like 10-20% but that would need to be varied depending on the image.
For me values over 50% are unusable. I love fine details. On some pictures just like on the linked Play Raw, the AI denoising for me is killing too many of them. Just have a look at the structures of the leaves. On other pictures it works quite well.
I have only played with the denoising a little and personally on the few images I tried it the AI denoising that works on the processed image seemed better than the raw denoise variant…
Google rawfiner and watch his YouTube videos…they are a bit old and a couple of the modules have since been renamed. For example astro denoise was non local means and surface blur was bilateral denoise
But he walks thru all the means for denoising in DT pre AI of course…
He was the main author I believe of the profiled denoising module and he has 2 video’s…the initial variant and his updated one that we use now…
The video says DT 2.6 but it’s still breaks down handling noise.
While there check out his chromatic aberration video. Again he was the author and it’s one of the few if any on how to tweak and get the most of that module…
I sometime use the composite module to selectively mask which portions of the AI denoising are contributing to the edit. I combine the tiff output with the raw file. Sometime dark shadows benefit while well exposed areas don’t. Also the details threshold slider can be helpful if I remember correctly.
but hope it will help.