P: Noise reduction not working if image is cropped and export size small

I'm sorry, I forgot to mention, that output sharpening was disabled in both LR export dialog and CR.

Creative sharpening (details section) was set to extreme values as seen in screenshots (both develop ui and CR ui). If you disable creative sharpening, differences between develop and library/export are barely visible (but are there).

Maybe I should mention a bit of history of this problem:
LR50 introduced a bug, which caused unsharpen + not noise reduced images if your export was smaller than 50% of original. This problem was addresed also by Rob Cole's plugin which exported original size and resized later using Imagemagick utility (http://www.robcole.com/Rob/ProductsAn...)

It was supposed to be corrected in 5.2 (see changelog), but still in some cases the output wasn't ok - this was the original subject of this report and acknowledged by Adobe. Now, in 5.4, all exports seem same as the wrong ones in 5.0-5.3.

Library and Develop look the same for me, which seems different for you.

Develop is not the same as Export if you resize or sharpen during Export.

Export sharpening (Screen-High, Matte-Standard, etc) is never shown in Develop because it changes on a per-Export basis.

What sharpening are you applying in the ACR workflow options? Because your ACR version is darker I'd guess you aren't applying any sharpening, whereas in LR you are.

Hello Steve, thank you for your extensive testing and explanation, I read through it but I still think, that LR output is not correct.
I was always in the impression, that preview image seen in develope module is supposed to be the most accurate. That is the look we all base our editing decisions on. This is not the case in LR54. Exported image is different to the one seen in develope module in noise level, brightnes and even color (subtle, you need good monitor to see this).
Exported image is more similar (if not same) to library module. Please see also output and screenshot from Camera RAW 7.2 which I still have installed (older version, but same process), which is far better that current LR output and I think it is "correct". Please notice also color shifts between develop ui and library ui screenshots (very visible in navigator preview). These screenshots vere taken after image was "stable" - few seconds after module switch.
To sumarize similar/same looks:
Correct look: LR develop UI = CameraRaw UI = CameraRaw export
Incorrect look: LR library UI = LR export
Please download sample images here:
http://dubovsky.changenet.sk/lr54_nr_...

Looking forward LR5.5.... :-)
Martin Dubovsky.

I deleted my previous reply because I played with things a bit more, so while what I said in that reply was true for a constant zoom level, it isn't if one zooms in and out on the same image.

There seem to be two versions of a preview image, one that has smoother and one that is sharper. The smooth one shows up, initially, and may be a video-driver resize of the previous preview, whatever size that was, then the sharper one shows up after LR has recomputed it from scratch.

I am not sure I see the same things you do at 1:2 zoom when switching back and forth between Library and Develop--the two images appear the same to me, pixel-for-pixel, once I have clicked back and forth between Library and Develop a couple times so that the preview is being retrieved from something computed accurate at that size rather than inaccurately resized from another size as seems to occur the first time I click into Library or Develop at a new zoom level for a particular image.

The sharper one at 1:1 zoom seems to match the Exported one, now, and so that is the accurate one. I think you're calling this accurate one the worse one because it is lighter and shows more noise. I think this is just because Adobe is actually applying all the noise-reduction and sharpening to the Exported image before resizing it smaller and sharpening it with the Export sharpening of Screen-High that you have specified, now.

Before what was happening when you first produced your example JPGs that are in the ZIP using an earlier version of LR that had a bug, was is that LR wasn't applying the sharpening to the image if it was smaller than a certain ratio compared to the original, and the first two of your three images were larger, and were being resized down smaller than that ratio and didn't have sharpening applied and looked smoother and darker, but this was inaccurate. Only the last image where the original was cropped the smallest was resized down still large enough to have the sharpening applied, so it appeared lighter and has more noise. In other words what I'm seeing with your original JPGs was two darker-smoother exports and one lighter-rougher one that is more accurate.

Then Adobe fixed this ignoring of sharpening in LR 5.3, but the Develop preview, when resized smaller than 1:1, especially non-whole-number-zoom amounts used with Fit and Fill, seemed to accentuate noise by using a simple, fast, and somewhat inaccurate resampling algorithm. This caused confusion because the now correct Exports were smoother than the overly-noisy Develop image if resized smaller than 1:1.

With LR 5.4 I think the Exports are all the same brightness because the Detail and Sharpening settings are being applied consistently starting in 5.3, and Adobe has made the Develop previews more accurate, with a more time-consuming re-render of them at a smaller-than 1:1 zoom. Or at least this is what I'm seeing, because for me the Develop previews don't change in noise and brightness between Library and Develop other than momentarily in Develop before things become the same as in Library.

So what I'm seeing is that the Develop previews and Library previews are the same, and the Exported versions are similar brightness and noise to the 1:1 Zoom Previews in both Library and Develop. All that seems correct to me. What is still different is that less-than 1:1 zoom images are not entirely accurate since the interpolation in Library and Develop isn't as time-consuming as what happens during an Export and there isn't any Export sharpening being applied in Develop and Library, which is also expected.

Is something else happening for you in LR 5.4?

I don't work for Adobe, but I was going through posts that Eric Chan replied to and saw this one and tried to duplicate what you're seeing, but cannot.

Using the new LR 5.4 on Windows 7 64-bit on a calibrated monitor, I am not seeing what I interpret you're saying you're seeing switching between Library and Develop.

Specifically I see no pixels change going from Develop to Library once I've done it a couple times and the preview has been updated, and going from Library to Develop I see a slightly worse image for less than a second and then Develop renders a full preview and things look identical to the Library version--this is at 1:2 Zoom as I interpret "set preview size to 1:2" to mean.

If I set the Zoom to 1:1 then I see no change in the pixels going from Develop to Library or Library to Develop once I have done it a couple times so the Library preview has been updated with the Develop settings.

The overly-noisy view I see for less than one second going from Library to Develop at 1:2 zoom is, I believe, due to LR using a very fast resample algorithm, initially, maybe nearest-neighbor which at 1:2 would throws away every other pixel without interpolation, so you have something to see other than a gray area while it is doing the more careful and time-consuming accurate preview, after which the Develop preview looks normal. I say this because at 1:1 zoom there is no momentary too-sharp image, so that must be due to something LR does only for non-1:1 zoom levels.

Maybe your issue is that the Develop preview never snaps back into the accurate view and you always see the quickly-resampled one? I'm not sure why that would be. Maybe rebuilding the previews or purging the camera-raw cache in LR preferences would make things work differently, since your images didn't exist in the camera-raw cache until I downloaded them, so my cache is different than yours.
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As far as Exported output looking different than the Develop module look, in the screenshot of your Export settings, I notice you have Export sharpening set to Screen-High. This will accentuate any unevenness in the original image once it has been resized smaller, and it probably will look more noisy given the micro-detail caused by the maxed-out the Detail Sharpening slider in these test images.

Maybe you're export settings are different than the screenshot shows, and if so, what are they?
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To summarize, I see Library and Develop previews that look the same, at various zoom levels, once I let Develop finish its more time-consuming preview computation and after I have clicked back and forth between Develop and Library a couple times so they're both using the freshly-computed preview from Develop.

And I would expect any Export sharpening to make an exported image look more noisy than it looks in Develop and Library, especially if it has been resized smaller during Export.

Hi, I have just installed LR 5.4. It is true, that output is now consistent and it doesn't depend on output size or crop.

It is now bad at all sizes.... :-(

I will be happy to provide more information, but I think it will be enough if you just use the sample files I already provided. If you set sharpening amount and detail to max and export the image it is very noisy and different to the preview you see in develop module. This is also the case for preview seen in library module.
To replicate the problem, you need to do this:
1.set sharpening amount and details to max
2. Set preview size to 1:2
3. compare preview image in develop and library modules (noise amount, sharpening and even colors are slightly different)
4. Export image is same as the preview in library module (I think it is worse as in develop module)

Please let me know if you need more information, I will try to do my best to help you to troubleshoot and to correct this. Thank you.

Thanks for the details Martin.  I've downloaded the zip (feel free to remove from your site, if you wish).  We'll look into it and follow up in this thread if we have any questions.  

Hi Eric, the problem is visible if Detail in Sharpening section is on a higher value (use 100 for best demonstration). Original image is 6016x4016. I used 950x750 as export dimensions. The result depends on crop amount. I do not know exact border when the processing starts to be different. I used 5757x3843 - the exported image is as it should be - nr and sharpening applied correctly. If I slightly change crop to 5628x3757, the exported image is very noisy and slightly brighter. In some kind of images also strong banding is visible. The problem is somewhere between these 2 dimensions.
However, the easiest way how to reproduce this issue, would be to download a sample catalog, with original NEF and virtual copies, together with export dialog screenshot from here: http://dubovsky.changenet.sk/lr_nr_ex...
Just open the catalog and use export as seen in the screenshot, then evaluate exported jpegs.

What is the size of your original NEF, and what is the size of your exported image? (in pixels)

I've just tried 5.3 final. It seems, that the correction didn't make it to this release, still same issues as described.