Stop struggling with Lightroom! There's no need to spend hours hunting for the answers to your Lightroom Classic questions. All the information you need is in Adobe Lightroom Classic - The Missing FAQ!
Well that one stood out so it was not that tough to remember. I wish everything else was that easy. I often use it as a reference but avoid using her name. Especially other sites.
I see two things in that thread. One is the unnecessary use of XMP side car files which will grow to hold the XMP data necessary to produce a derivative of the original. Sidecar files do not replace a master catalog and are redundant to that end. What is more "bloat"? Duplicating the information stored in the Lightroom master catalog or storing that same information is a complete derivative file with headers including metadata and a modified RGB image. Second is the complaint of file bloat. All of the information is necessary to create a Denoised derivative. So it can't be called 'bloat'. The reference ro a catalog file that is only 1.78MB when the are many (most?) catalogs that are gigabytes in size.
Good points. I've like XMP files and always considered them clutter. On other sites there is confusion about needing them. I never thought of the 1TB SSD other than Apple charing too much for it. My travel MB Air M3 that I just got with 512GB will be fine. I actually normally get 256 but I waited too long and ran out of time before a trip for a special order. Might have been a blessing. I just got a Mac Mini M4 with 512. I'll see how things go over the next few years. With all of feedback Adobe may come up with something to help with that.
With respect to the total disk usage of the old and new Denoise, it helps to separate out the issues, which have been conflated in all the angry yelling in the Adobe thread:
This. It's one thing to keep the images - original and DNG derivative - on an external drive, another to keep the LR cat and other LR data files on an EDD. I guess it's another workflow change we'll get used to.
I was not aware of the third storage location. But this is an important statement about XMP. That should not be ignored
Wow, thank you again for that deep test. Just one question, are compressed a7 R3 raws lossy or lossless? Because that might be another factor which might influence the AI denoise.
And again, thank you for your insight. I don't use sidecards but knowing they're currently buggy is always handy.
I am sorry but I am getting a little tired of the argument that it "is no where near the 50MB DNG's it used to create". I have never understood why anyone would want to keep those DNGs. I used them to generate a JPEG and then threw them away. After all, if needed you could always denoise the original again.
Well, you can also do exactly the same with the new behaviour. Just delete history and, sooner or later, (remember it's not immediate), when you optimize your catalog, the AI denoise data will be purged from lrcat-data.
Interesting point. While the DNG was not a RAW file but with Jpeg XL compression there were some concerns. Often called destructive denoising. I read articles and about it and didn't really see much difference but I'm not an expert in that area. I know I didn't like the 200MB TIFF files it produced. before Adobe reduced the size.
Being able to vary the amount after the Denoise is computed is a plus since you do not need to recompute the denoise each time you want to adjust the intensity. However I am wishing for a user set default instead of an arbitrary 50.
That is why I said it can't be that tough. All the values are computed.
There are a few things I noticed while using this new feature:
This is a good idea but something that is not (yet) implemented. While many basic develop features are included in the Mask, Denoise is not one of them. If you submit a feature request to Adobe I would add my support.
The curent method does not offer masking. I always using the Masking slider in the Detail panel. I further Denoise the background by opening masking and selecting the background. I reduce Texture, Sharpening and increase the Noise slider (manual - non AI). I don't touch Clarity. I can wipe out noise completely for a silky smooth finish. Great for screen media but for print a little background noise helps prevent posterization.
I have been having many issues with the length of time it takes to even move the slider - regardless of whether I do it for a single file or batch several files at once. While I can tolerate having to find other things to do during the initial Denoising, sometimes it will take just as long to change the setting from 50 to 67. This has severely impacted my workflow.
I am glad I was able to find this thread, as you touched on exactly what I was going to post a question about. I had a two part question and you have answered the second part. As I got to know LRC DeNoise and my camera's different ISO setting noise levels, I often knew what DeNoise setting I wanted and would set it for my first run. We can't do this now (so glad I upgraded my 7 year old computer; Denoise now takes about 6 seconds vs 6-11 minutes!).
Perhaps I did not make myself clear. Once the initial Denoise completes (during which time I am unable to continue working in Lightroom Classic), when I try use the slider to change the level, it sometimes causes Lightroom to go into a black hole, before I have even set a new number. Other times, when I am able to set the new level, say to 67, for example, it still can take as long to apply the new setting as it did to initially Denoise the file(s). The fact that it works for you is great. However, in my case, I am having considerable performance issues, on my iMac with an M1 chip running Sequoia 15.5.
That sounds like you are a little light in the computer specs department.
