Plugins — Latest News from David Keep Photography

In my last post I explained how I’d begun using Topaz DeNoise AI & been super impressed with the results. Well DeNoise AI has a couple of sister products, one of which is Sharpen AI, so I downloaded the trial version to give it a test. As anyone who's been to one of my lectures or workshops will know, I’m really happy with the sharpening tool in the TK Action panel. I use nothing else because it’s never let me down, so I was not expecting to see any great advantages from the Topaz software. I was right - for the general sharpening of images i.e. the last step of the processing workflow, it gives no advantages I could discern, so I’ll be sticking with the TK sharpener.

But… when I used it directly after using Topaz Denoise I did find it re-emphasised detail that DeNoise had removed. This was really noticeable on skin tones, particularly faces. Any noise reduction software works by smoothing out fine detail (after all that’s all noise in an image is - detail we don’t want) & this can give skin a plastic like appearance. Using Sharpen AI seems to undo that effect - but still remove the noise.

I’ve used it on the two players in the squash image below i.e. DeNoise AI first followed by Sharpen AI & I think I’ve got a better result than my previous techniques would have given. Looks like I’ll be buying the trial version!

This image was shot at 2500 iso & by using the two Topaz products the skin tones are not too bad. Not perfect of course, but acceptable I think.

Over the last 12 months I’ve read lots of reviews extolling the virtues of Topaz DeNoise AI , but you see so many rave reviews of different products that I find I become a bit immune to them. I know this is a mistake because with software you really can sometimes get big leaps forward with a new product that can significantly help your post processing. But all that said, it takes quite a bit for me to try something new. However, it’s different if a colleague you respect says it’s good… & that was the case recently with this product.

Most of my boxing shots have been taken stood alongside my good buddy David Cudworth. We both love the adrenaline rush you get from photographing contact sport, but we also both hate the shooting conditions - it’s virtually dark! I have an unwritten rule of never wanting to go above 1600 iso with my Canon 1Dx Mk2 because I find that anything above that point makes skin tones very difficult to process. But that rule has to go completely out of the window at a boxing match - 5000 iso is the norm :-(

Up until now I’ve used Nik Define as my noise reduction software & been reasonably happy with the results, but David convinced me to try DeNoise AI. I downloaded the trial version & conducted some side by side tests alongside Nik Define. I was very impressed - it is definitely better for images with extreme noise. Less than 2000 iso I couldn’t really see a lot of difference, but up in the 5000 iso range the difference was well, frankly staggering.

It’s not a cheap plugin (£86 before any discounts) but after my tests I didn’t hesitate to buy it. It also motivated me to look through my back catalogue of kick boxing images & I’ve just worked up this one. I’ll be looking through my squash images next to see if I can find one of those I’ve dismissed due to excessive noise. Fingers X’d I’ll find one.