AI Denoise creates rectangular artifacts in smooth skies
AI Denoise creates rectangular artifacts in smooth sky areas.
The artifacts are not limited to the Lightroom preview. They are permanently written into the generated DNG and remain visible in Photoshop and exported JPEG files.
The artifacts become much easier to see after increasing the Dehaze slider, but they are already present in the DNG.
I reproduced the issue with:
- Canon EOS R6 Mark II (CR3)
- Canon EOS R5 Mark II (CR3)
- iPhone 17 Pro Max (DNG)
The issue occurs in both Lightroom Classic and Lightroom Desktop.
Disabling GPU acceleration does not change the result.


System
Lightroom Classic 15.4.1
Camera Raw 18.4
Lightroom Desktop 9.4.1
macOS Tahoe 26.5.2
MacBook Pro 16"
Apple M4 Pro
48 GB RAM
Steps to reproduce
1. Open a RAW/DNG with a smooth blue sky.
2. Run AI Denoise with default settings.
3. Open the generated DNG.
4. Increase Dehaze to reveal the artifact more clearly.
5. Export as JPEG.
6. Open the DNG or JPEG in Photoshop.
The rectangular artifacts remain visible.
