I’ve got a preview release of the Noiseless AI utility that will be available to Luminar Neo users on August 30. It’s not yet complete graphically, but has basic functionality. My copy just runs under Rosetta on my Mac Studio, but when it goes live it will be Apple Silicon Native.
Everyone who lives in the world of photography has problems with noise. Landscape photographers, wedding photographers, portrait and advertising photographers: we all deal with low light and the noise it can cause.
Digital editing has made the problem much easier to solve. These new noise reduction and correction techniques could allow us to push our equipment far beyond what we were able to do a few years ago.
As a landscape and night sky photographer, I am well aware of the need for noise reduction and I am a fan of Topaz DeNoise AI as it has been available and previous iterations for many years.
Of course, the folks at Skylum want to keep you in their Neo Ecosystem, so we’re starting to see the equivalent of plug-ins or extensions in Luminar Neo. The first is the HDR extension that came out last month, and the noiseless AI is the second. By the end of the year, Sklyum says Neo will have a total of seven extensions on offer.
How does noiseless artificial intelligence work?
You launch it from the selection menu. Skylum says it will work on any file type, but I did all my work on raw files.
The extension will make suggestions on how to reduce the noise, or you can choose your own. There is also a slider that we see on most noise reduction services and that is to reduce color noise. And there is an option to restore original details and increase sharpness, which I consider edge enhancement.
I opened the sunset file in low light using Noiseless AI and the noise was very noticeable. (It’s slightly compressed and shrunk to fit our site, but you can see the noise). It appears as spots and defects of varying sizes, most easily seen in the brighter parts of the sky. This is part of the frame at 300% magnification.
Then I selected average noise reduction and here are the results:
Eve, with my JPEG resizing and compression, you can see everything has been cleaned up beautifully. I actually felt the ground lost a bit of sharpness and I saw little improvement when I pushed the detail and sharpness sliders. I took the same file in Topaz DeNoise AI and here are the results:
This is also nicely cleaned up (you’re seeing it zoomed in 200%, but it’s scaled down to fit our format). Topaz has an auto mode, and that’s what I used. It has selected parameters for noise reduction. I think Topaz did a little better at preserving detail, but the two shows are pretty close together. I like the split-screen Topaz provided for comparison, but the Luminar Neo provides an icon that lets you switch from the original image to a reduced-noise image. The Topaz plug-in is native to Apple Silicon and is very fast. We will have to wait a few days to see how the Neo extension performs in the same environment.
My thoughts
If you’re a satisfied Topaz user or you’re happy with another noise reduction plan, I don’t see much reason to switch. There’s an advantage to working inside Luminar Neo for everything if that’s your workflow.
For editing, I usually start in Lightroom or Camera Raw, (usually earlier with DXO PureRaw 2), then Photoshop, and Topaz sharpening and noise reduction plug-ins, then Neo for perfection. But your workflow can be vastly different.
Noiseless AI would be a great addition for photographers looking to reduce noise at a professional level. There are already tools inside Neo to reduce noise, but this new noiseless AI outperforms in quick parallel tests. It’s a bit like the noise reduction feature in Lightroom and Photoshop. Both are pretty good, but some third parties do it better if you’re a photographer at a level where that’s important to you.
Existing Neo users will be able to get their extensions at a discount, or you can opt in to all new extensions at a higher discount, but you’re buying open-ended extensions. future extensions that can’t be seen without knowing if they’ll be useful to you or not. However, Skylum only told me that two new extensions, made available this year, will be Upscale AI, an AI-powered tool for enhancing image resolution in a natural way, and AI Background Removal , an AI-powered tool that automatically removes the background behind any subject.
Increasingly, Luminar Neo grows (or grows) into a subscription, which will leave many early buyers unhappy, as Skylum originally looked like an alternative to the Adobe subscription world. But companies must survive in a difficult world. I think Skylum owes its customers their thoughts on the current direction and why it seems like a change of philosophy.
Get AI noiseless
Noiseless AI will be released on August 30. It can be purchased with a Luminar Neo Pro Monthly or Annual subscription, or purchased as part of the 2022 Extensions plan. Monthly or weekly Pro subscription. year has been available as of August 16, 2022 and includes Luminar Neo and all extensions to be released during the subscription period. By signing up in the early stages, Luminar users will get the best possible price for the first year of subscription. It is available here.
My look at this latest noise reduction tool is pretty sketchy as I only had a few days to test it out. Also, this is not the final version and experience tells me there will be changes before the final version comes out at the end of the month. It will probably be faster, and I haven’t seen an Apple Silicon version potentially with better performance.
Still, it’s clearly a worthy tool, and it seems to cancel out the noise as well as some of the best stuff around. It is worth considering if you are a Luminar Neo user. Skylum has a confusing array of purchase options, and you’ll have to sort them through to see what works best for you. Sales happen regularly and prices change frequently.
