Who is the Leader of the Pack now?

Every year I review the best of the best RAW image noise removal tools. Each year they all up their game. DxO have just released V8 of Photo Lab featuring DeepPRIME XD/XD2s noise removal; their most powerful noise reduction tech ever.

But how does it comapre with Topaz Photo AI and Luminar Neo? Both have released incremental updates throughout the year. 

The noise wars are underway!

DxO have just released Photo Lab V8, and one of its key features is RAW Image Noise Reduction. This release updates its already excellent noise reduction technology, and this quick test shows you what it can achieve.

For this test, I picked an image taken at ISO 3200 with an APS-C camera. Such images will be noisey, and this image presents any tool with significant challenges:

• Severe noise
• Colour noise as well as luminence noise
  • It’s really hard to remove colour noise whilst preserving the image’s colours.
• Pleanty of detail
  • Removing noise without losing detail is a challenge.

I am comparing DxO Photo Lab 8’s results with Topaz Photo AI and Luminar NEO. All three have AI assisted noise reduction for RAW images.

Below are the results – I’m just presenting the original image and the processed image in a format that you can compare the before and after results.

DxO Photo Lab 8 Result:

The quality of the noise reduction whilst retaining colour and detail is the best I have ever seen. There is no softness or smudgyness in the fur. Of course, DxO’s database of camera + lens combinations adds to the quality on display here. DxO has the unique capability of correcting lens sharpness defects. If the lens is soft in the corners, then DxO sharpens the corners more to compensate. That’s why DxO is the quality leader for RAW processing. Nothing I have tested can replicate the quality DxO achieves.

Topaz Photo AI

Topaz lacks DxO’s smart sharpening database, but has its own excellent image sharpening tech. To keep the playing field level, I used Photo AI to remove noise and add a little sharpening.

a Topaz’s result is good, really good. But look closely at the fur and the scarf. It hasn’t retained the same level of detail as DxO. The difference isn’t huge, but it is perceptible. As a photographer I always go for the best quality, and for RAW noise reduction would choose DxO over Topaz.

When removing noise from a TIF or a JPEG, Topaz is better than DxO, as DxO’s high quality noise reduction is RAW only.

Luminar NEO

Luminar NEO features an ever expanding range of AI photo adjustments, including Noiseless AI and Supersharp AI, both of which I applied to the image.

Luminar has done a decent job but the scarf is duller and the image is softer than both DxO’s and Topaz’s.

Conclusion

DxO remains the leader of the pack when it comes to RAW image noise reduction and RAW development quality. Of course, there is more to image processing than this, and DxO has comprehensive image processing. From a technical point of view, its RAW processing cannot be beaten. However, its post processing noise reduction and sharpening is nowhere near as good as Topaz Photo AI. Luminar Neo is a very good ‘artistic’ image processor. Its RAW processing is not as good as DxO’s, but it has features that nothing else has. 

I still use all three. I use DxO and Topaz Photo AI on every image and reach for Luminar NEO if I want to use its unique artistic effects.