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DavePinMinn
Inspiring
April 22, 2023
Question

dng file from external software loses profile and appears corrupted

  • April 22, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 924 views

I don't SEE any posts about this, and I THINK it's the external program, but just to check, 'cause when I go complain to Topaz my guess is they'll blame Lightroom.

Lightroom 12.3, DNG converter 15.3.0.1451, camera is Sony Alpha 1 with current firmware. 

RAW was shot with profile CameraST, Lightroom shows Camera ST.

Open RAW ARW file, do basic exposure adjustment to see if the image is worth working on.  Open Topaz Denoise AI 3.7.2 OR Photo AI 1.3 (both current versions, very recently installed)...

Run the external software, process and get back a .dng file.

Back in Lightroom, profile is still CameraST, but LR says "Profile Missing".  The dng file looks very different than the RAW file, and when the basic adjustments are synched to the .dng the image looks perceptibly different than the RAW.

I don't RECALL this happening with earlier versions of the Topaz software, but I may have missed it.  Is there something in the dng file coming back to Lightroom that could cause Lightroom to not have the profile and/or treat the dng file as corrupted?  Is there some other simple, stupid thing in Lightroom I may be missing?

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1 reply

DdeGannes
Community Expert
DdeGannesCommunity Expert
Community Expert
April 22, 2023

Are you following the instructions from Topaz, see the link below.

https://support.topazlabs.com/article/134-the-recommended-raw-workflow-in-lightroom-classic

 

Regards, Denis: iMac 27” mid-2015, macOS 11.7.10 Big Sur; 2TB SSD, 24 GB Ram, GPU 2 GB; LrC 12.5,; Lr 6.5, PS 24.7,; ACR 15.5,; (also Laptop Win 11, ver 24H2, LrC 15.0.1, PS 27.0; ) Camera Oly OM-D E-M1.
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DavePinMinnAuthor
Inspiring
April 22, 2023

First, do a sanity check for me - my presumption is that if I take a RAW image and send it to denoise or photo AI (or any other noise reducing product), I should get back an image (hopefully a "raw" dng), that looks virtually identical to what I sent, except that the noise has been mitigated (and in the case of photo ai, perhaps somewhat sharpened).  But the image should otherwise not change or change in such a slight way that no, or only very slight changes have to be made.  Am I correct, or is it normal to get back a dng that requires significantly different processing due to changes in the external software?

 

As far as I can tell, there is no plug-in extra for Denoise AI.  That's why I ran it standalone.  I don't see a way to run Denoise, do RAW processing and get back a dng file from the external editor in Lightroom.

 

I also tried this with an older version - Denoise V3.6.2 and it does the same thing.

I also tried Denoise with a Nikon D500 file and it does the same thing there. The Camera Matching profiles are gone in Lightroom when the dng file is imported back in, and the DNG looks different than the original.

 

Photo AI doesn't appear to be as bad in that when the image comes back to Lightroom it doesn't lose the camera matching profile, but the dng image is perceptibly (to me, it looks a LOT) different than the raw and responds to adjustments differently.  I've attached 4 images with the Histogram and Basic palette visible.

 

This is the original RAW

This is the RAW with basic exposure adjustment prior to sending to Photo AI

This is the untouched DNG returned from Topaz AI. 

This is the DNG after it's synchronized with the original RAW image.  It looks very different.

 

    DdeGannes
    Community Expert
    DdeGannesCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 22, 2023

    @DavePinMinn , these are just my thoughts, as I do not have the Topaz DeNoise application you are using. In the article I attached in my initial reply it refers to "our demosaicing algorithm", which leads me to believe the DNG file that is returned to Lightroom is tiff data in a DNG wrapper, it is not a raw DNG.

    Later in the article there are recommended procedures, have you followed those instructions? See the screen capture.

     

    Regards, Denis: iMac 27” mid-2015, macOS 11.7.10 Big Sur; 2TB SSD, 24 GB Ram, GPU 2 GB; LrC 12.5,; Lr 6.5, PS 24.7,; ACR 15.5,; (also Laptop Win 11, ver 24H2, LrC 15.0.1, PS 27.0; ) Camera Oly OM-D E-M1.
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