Staggering quality improvement using AI Gigapixel on MP2 Files

[kilomikebravo]

Yep Brett, as a retired Naval Aviator, I still use the radio phonetic alphabet fairly frequently and that's why you see it for my MPF account. But, my friends just call me, "KB."

 

[kilomikebravo]

My guess would be when you upsamle something, the software has to interpolate what is supposed to fill the gaps when stretched. Now if you reduce the image back down, there will be more detail to work with even though some of it is created by the software...

I hear ya, amigo, but that is the main question of this thread. If the algorithms for noise reduction are disabled, how is any NR being accomplished by simply upsampling the original? I know the Topaz folks have created some amazing image editing tools for us to use but I'm still at a loss as to how using AI Giga reduces noise. I can't make it duit so I'm hoping that Busty will give us the skinny on how to use it to achieve that type of result.

 

[sar104]

I thought I would try to test the capabilities of A.I. Gigapixel with some representative images. The one that was most illuminating contained a variety of detail - trees, buildings, vehicles and other geometric shapes. I took the raw image and processed it with DxO PhotoLab 2, and then ran it through A.I. Gigapixel on 200%/moderate. Then I downsampled it back to the original image size for comparison. Below is a subsample of the image before and after:


Processed RAW


Processed + A.I. Gigapixel

A.I. Gigapixel definitely improves the image detail, at least subjectively. I can get somewhat equivalent sharpness using an unsharp mask, but at the expense of more noise. Overall I was quite impressed.

 

[kilomikebravo]

A.I. Gigapixel definitely improves the image detail, at least subjectively.

SAR: I agree with that statement but I also have to say the difference, to me at least, is minimal. You didn't have sky in your test shot as I did and I'm wondering if that's why AIG brightened mine so much and reduced the contrast.

Anyway, I just did another test as well and with my original test image, I used 200/mod, then downsampled back to 4k to match the original as you did. I then let Imaginomic's Noiseware have a go at the original and I tweaked that to my own subjectivity I guess. Finally, I saved them all as 8-bit TIFF's and put them on the cloud.

I'm just not seeing the magic that Busty achieved and if I can do almost as good or even as good with a simple plug-in in PS, it's not really worth the time to go through the AIG routine.

Here are the three images...

 

[sar104]

SAR: I agree with that statement but I also have to say the difference, to me at least, is minimal. You didn't have sky in your test shot as I did and I'm wondering if that's why AIG brightened mine so much and reduced the contrast.

Anyway, I just did another test as well and with my original test image, I used 200/mod, then downsampled back to 4k to match the original as you did. I then let Imaginomic's Noiseware have a go at the original and I tweaked that to my own subjectivity I guess. Finally, I saved them all as 8-bit TIFF's and put them on the cloud.

I'm just not seeing the magic that Busty achieved and if I can do almost as good or even as good with a simple plug-in in PS, it's not really worth the time to go through the AIG routine.

Here are the three images...

Right - no sky in that one, but I've tested it with others that do and it did not change the curves in the way yours did. Something definitely went badly wrong there. As for the difference, it's far from minimal in the example that I posted.

 

[Bussty]

Busty: No comments on my #44 post? I saw no assistance with noise in AI Giga but then, the advice was to leave the NR option in "None" which is somewhat confusing given what you said about it removing noise while upsampling>

Sure would appreciate some insight as to what I may be doing wrong.

Hey Kilomikebravo, sorry has been a busy week work wise haven't a chance to get on to my editor much. Can you please repost the RAW file (seems to have vanished) and I'd love to have a play. That noise button..... I have been using on Moderate with excellent results, I don't use any noise reduction when I develop from RAW to TIFF then use AI Gigapixel to reduce noise and increase details.

Let me know how you go or if you fire that RAW back up I can see what I can do. I doubt it but maybe the RAW convertor I'm using (Affinity Photo) is adding some magic as well?? There really is an infinite number of combinations and development styles with the plethora of image editing settings and RAW convertors available so your starting point before you get to AI Gigapixel could vary hugely from RAW convertor to RAW convertor.

Cheers

Bussty

 

[brettbrandon]

I thought I would try to test the capabilities of A.I. Gigapixel with some representative images. The one that was most illuminating contained a variety of detail - trees, buildings, vehicles and other geometric shapes. I took the raw image and processed it with DxO PhotoLab 2, and then ran it through A.I. Gigapixel on 200%/moderate. Then I downsampled it back to the original image size for comparison.

A.I. Gigapixel definitely improves the image detail, at least subjectively. I can get somewhat equivalent sharpness using an unsharp mask, but at the expense of more noise. Overall I was quite impressed.

Looking at the two pics here I really see no difference. Downloading them and a/b them, I see the difference. It also seems that the picture is quite out of focus on both shots. I'm guessing this may be intentional to see how much it can fix.

 

[brettbrandon]

Yep Brett, as a retired Naval Aviator, I still use the radio phonetic alphabet fairly frequently and that's why you see it for my MPF account. But, my friends just call me, "KB."

Cool. I'm studying for my part 107 or I probably wouldn't have noticed....

 

[Bussty]

Hi gents, Hopefully this one is a little clearer...

This series of images is an extreme crop from some very cool images provided by LapetusOne (see here Sold my Inspire 1 Pro and couldn't be happier )

The middle image is a straight RAW convert to TIFF with no noise reduction just exposure adjustment using AFFINITY PHOTO in Develop mode. The image on the left is that image run through the best Noise Reducer I know DFine from Nik (outside of Prime Noise Reducer from DXO Photolab which currently doesn't support MP2 RAW files.) The image on the right is the middle image then run through AI Gigapixel.

Middle Image - Pretty much true to the RAW and you can clearly see the noise everybody is talking about but it is without any noise reduction at all.

Left Image - After Nik Dfine the noise has certainly gone but so has much of the details

Right Image - After AI Giga on the standard RAW converted to TIFF (without any noise reduction on the RAW conversion).

Again I think quite remarkably the level of detail AI Gigapixel has brought back while removing noise is quite amazing. If you can't see it here I have added an original TIFF crop here...Compare TIFF.tiff

I might try a plane section next...

Cheers Bussty

 

[Bussty]

Same treatment for a different section of image

This series of images is an extreme crop from some very cool images provided by LapetusOne (see here Sold my Inspire 1 Pro and couldn't be happier )




The middle image is a straight RAW convert to TIFF with no noise reduction just exposure adjustment using AFFINITY PHOTO in Develop mode. The image on the left is that image run through the best Noise Reducer I know DFine from Nik (outside of Prime Noise Reducer from DXO Photolab which currently doesn't support MP2 RAW files.) The image on the right is the middle image then run through AI Gigapixel.

Middle Image - Pretty much true to the RAW and you can clearly see the noise everybody is talking about but it is without any noise reduction at all.

Left Image - After Nik Dfine the noise has certainly gone but so has much of the details

Right Image - After AI Giga on the stand RAW converted to TIFF (without any noise reduction on the RAW conversion).

Again I think quite remarkably the level of detail AI Gigapixel has brought back while removing noise is quite amazing. If you can't see it here I have added an original TIFF crop here... Compare TIFF plane.tiff


Cheers Bussty

 

[Bussty]

SAR: I agree with that statement but I also have to say the difference, to me at least, is minimal. You didn't have sky in your test shot as I did and I'm wondering if that's why AIG brightened mine so much and reduced the contrast.

Anyway, I just did another test as well and with my original test image, I used 200/mod, then downsampled back to 4k to match the original as you did. I then let Imaginomic's Noiseware have a go at the original and I tweaked that to my own subjectivity I guess. Finally, I saved them all as 8-bit TIFF's and put them on the cloud.

I'm just not seeing the magic that Busty achieved and if I can do almost as good or even as good with a simple plug-in in PS, it's not really worth the time to go through the AIG routine.

Here are the three images...

Hey kilomikebravo

That doesn't look right at all??

Are your settings like these?

 

[kilomikebravo]

it's far from minimal in the example that I posted.

SAR: Obviously, your eyesight is better than mine. <grinning> I believe I'll stick with Noiseware if for no other reason than it's much quicker.

Can you please repost the RAW file

Busty: I saved each of the three test files in .TIFF format intentionally to keep everything on a level playing field but I'll upload the .DNG now and here's the link.

I can definitely see the detail improvement in each of your two examples (but you didn't say what magnification level you used for the crops, although it looks like 200,) and yes, my AIG settings are identical except that I have a GPU so that option is enabled. But even with the GPU, AIG takes SO long to process that I would not want to take the time to use it for every keeper image I shoot. Without a GPU it must take forever. Plus, the weird brightening effect still mystifies me but I'm going to play around with a couple different test images with varying subjects and see if I can replicate the results you and SAR are achieving.

 

[Bussty]

Busty: I saved each of the three test files in .TIFF format intentionally to keep everything on a level playing field but I'll upload the .DNG now and here's the link.

I can definitely see the detail improvement in each of your two examples (but you didn't say what magnification level you used for the crops, although it looks like 200,) and yes, my AIG settings are identical except that I have a GPU so that option is enabled. But even with the GPU, AIG takes SO long to process that I would not want to take the time to use it for every keeper image I shoot. Without a GPU it must take forever. Plus, the weird brightening effect still mystifies me but I'm going to play around with a couple different test images with varying subjects and see if I can replicate the results you and SAR are achieving.

Hi there, crops are around about 140% (I guess on the previous image _ I just zoomed in until I found noise) your below images are approx 100% or so. I just did a little tonal adjustment in developing the DNG to TIFF then edited that in AFFINITY to the TIFF on the left (no sharpening or noise reduction) then just ran it through AI Gigapixel. Certainly sorted the noise and again residual details are pretty good.

Oh and re the time it takes yes I agree that's why I'm only rendering small crops but you can batch up and let AI Gigapixel run over night.

Cheers

Bussty

 

[sar104]

Looking at the two pics here I really see no difference. Downloading them and a/b them, I see the difference. It also seems that the picture is quite out of focus on both shots. I'm guessing this may be intentional to see how much it can fix.

You are looking at a pixel level subset of a 20 MP image taken at ISO 400. The softness isn't a focus issue - you may have noticed from the perspective that it was taken with a long focal length. I used an image from a Sony RX10 (same sensor as the M2P) at full zoom with some atmospheric distortion to challenge the program.

 

[sar104]

SAR: Obviously, your eyesight is better than mine. <grinning> I believe I'll stick with Noiseware if for no other reason than it's much quicker.

I agree that it is subtle, but still significant. Are you finding it to be slow? It's processing 20 MP 16-bit tiff images in around 3 minutes, which seems pretty good to me.

 

[sar104]

Same treatment for a different section of image

This series of images is an extreme crop from some very cool images provided by LapetusOne (see here Sold my Inspire 1 Pro and couldn't be happier )

View attachment 55469


The middle image is a straight RAW convert to TIFF with no noise reduction just exposure adjustment using AFFINITY PHOTO in Develop mode. The image on the left is that image run through the best Noise Reducer I know DFine from Nik (outside of Prime Noise Reducer from DXO Photolab which currently doesn't support MP2 RAW files.) The image on the right is the middle image then run through AI Gigapixel.

Middle Image - Pretty much true to the RAW and you can clearly see the noise everybody is talking about but it is without any noise reduction at all.

Left Image - After Nik Dfine the noise has certainly gone but so has much of the details

Right Image - After AI Giga on the stand RAW converted to TIFF (without any noise reduction on the RAW conversion).

Again I think quite remarkably the level of detail AI Gigapixel has brought back while removing noise is quite amazing. If you can't see it here I have added an original TIFF crop here... Compare TIFF plane.tiff


Cheers Bussty

I'm inclined to agree - I suspect I'll be buying the software at the end of the trial period. By the way - DxO PhotoLab 2 has M2P RAW support.

 

[dannybgoode]

I'm inclined to agree - I suspect I'll be buying the software at the end of the trial period. By the way - DxO PhotoLab 2 has M2P RAW support.

Does it now - excellent news. I bought DxO 2 as it is by far and away the best for correcting the lens distortion on my Canon G7X II and use Affinity also. Both excellent packages.

Have a couple of photos from yesterday to process so will try DxO.

 

[sar104]

Does it now - excellent news. I bought DxO 2 as it is by far and away the best for correcting the lens distortion on my Canon G7X II and use Affinity also. Both excellent packages.

Have a couple of photos from yesterday to process so will try DxO.

They released the M2P module last week.

 

[kilomikebravo]

Are you finding it to be slow? It's processing 20 MP 16-bit tiff images in around 3 minutes, which seems pretty good to me.

SAR: Yes, AIG is very slow on my system. Prior to today, I had only fed AIG RAW files, never a TIFF, so I saved a 20mp DNG image from the M2P to 16-bit TIFF in PS and then fed it to AIG. It took about the same amount of time as the DNG file did. (14+ minutes.) Now how you got it to accomplish the same thing in THREE minutess is beyond me.

My system: 8-core I7 (4ghz), 32g memory (70% available), nVidia GTX-970, 1tb SSD drives for boot disk and data disk, Windoze 10 optimized for Performance.

For now, I'm tired of dealing with these huge TIFF files and mucking around with AIG. However, during all this, I learned about a Topaz Studio "pro" adjustment called "AI Clear" which SOUNDS like it's doing the same things as AIG without the upsampling. I gave it a whirl but, it has the same performance problem as AIG and while it did "clean" up the original DNG, again it took forever and the result was no better than when applying Topaz Denoise 6 and then color correcting, which took almost no time at all. I have learned that version 2.0 of AI Clear is available but TL hasn't ginned up the trial version yet.

Anyway, I will undoubtedly purchase AIG for the upsampling capabilities but I don't see me using it in my normal DNG workflow. However, I did drop Topaz Labs a note asking about this as well as about AI Clear. We'll see what they have to say.

 

[Bussty]

They released the M2P module last week.

Hi SAR
I'm picking you are on a Mac? Still can't see the module for MP2 in available downloads in the WIndows version?. Can't wait to see what DXO PRIME does on noise in MP2 images.