Big AI Denoise DNG files bogging down ACR and Ps

Report · Sep 22, 2023

I don’t know whether this is an issue with Photoshop, Adobe Camera Raw, or Bridge but I’ll post it here for comment or discussion.

I was processing some CR3 raw image files from a Canon EOS R6 of dancers on stage. They were not my images; I had permission to clean them up to be used for posters and programs. The images were good but grainy. I thought this would be a good application for the new AI Denoise features of ACR. I don’t typically work with DNG files, but that is what the AI Denoise produces.

I started with Br and browsed the image files. I opened the file in Camera Raw and applied the AI Denoise. The initial CR3 file was about 22.3 MB in size. The resulting DNG file grew to 532 MB. Not a problem for ACR or my PC. I was able to do a fair amount masking to allow me to darken the background and emphasize the dancers.

When done with ACR I wanted to open the file in Ps to do some further editing before exporting the final as JPG files. Passing the huge DNG image from ACR to Ps took ages, like 15 minutes (or more) during which both Ps and Br were not responding. I watched the process in Task Manager and neither ACR nor Br consumed more than 10% CPU. Mostly the PC looked idle. When I eventually got the file in Ps I saved it as a PSD which resulted in a 157 MB file. The PSD files could quickly and easily be opened in Ps.

Versions:

ACR 15.5.1.1597
Br 14.0.0.102
Ps 25.0.0.37

I tried this several times, restarting my PC in between – just in case. The PC in a very new Windows 11 with a recent Intel CPU and a good NVIDIA GPU, and lots of memory. I tried two different version of Br and Ps – ACR was always the same version. It seems to me that the 500+ MB DNG file was just too big for the software to handle. There were actually several CR3 files and my experience with all of them was about the same. So not an individual file problem.

I wonder why AI Denoise has to produce a DNG file? Why can’t it stay within the same workflow that we had previously. Now I have another file type to keep tarch of. This really discourages me from using the AI Denoise tool.

So hopefully this will make it back to the developers as feedback. Comments and suggestions are welcome, as are any reports of similar experiences.

Thanks.
Peter