Are Nikon D810 files compatible with Lightroom to denoise?

[fergs25]

Good Morning,

I have recently installed Lightroom Classic and am trying to denoise my Nikon D810 NEF-raw files and am seeing a grayed out error message that they are not compatible.  Are these files not actually Raw?  Are these not able to use Denoise?  

I was trying to receive support regarding this last night and then got disconnected from the chat.

Thank you for your assistance,

Kim 

[dj_paige]

What is the exact word-for-word error message?

Are you sure these are not JPGs?

[fergs25]

They are definitely not jpgs. 

[D Fosse]

Show a screenshot from Windows Explorer so that we can see file extension and file sizes (should be around 42 MB). Also pixel dimensions (they should be 7360 x 4912)

My own D810 files are all DNGs, but I also have some D800 NEFs, and Denoise works there too.

Bottom line - there is absolutely no reason raw files from a D810 shouldn't work with Denoise. So the question is what is special with these files.

[fergs25]

Adobe support said they seem to be compressed raw and so that is why they are not compatible. 

Actually so disappointed.

[John R Ellis]

"Adobe support said they seem to be compressed raw and so that is why they are not compatible."

You can't trust Adobe support about anything other than the most basic issues. Upload one of the problem files to Dropbox, Google Drive, or similar and post the sharing link here, and we can authoritatively determine what the issue is.

[dj_paige]

They are definitely not jpgs. 

By @fergs25

 I asked two questions. You only provided an answer to one question. Please answer the other question.

[D Fosse]

I had a D810 some years ago, and testing these files now, Denoise works.

I can't recall now if this camera had M or S raws, but if so, that won't work. They are probably demosaiced in camera, and Denoise can't work with demosaiced files. Only full resolution raws work.

[dj_paige]

According to Nikon USA, the outputs from a D810 are

so no M or S Raw, and I don't know if the "compressed" mentioned above is a problem for AI DeNoise, but I would not think so because all Nikons offer uncompressed and compressed RAW images.

[GoldingD]

Fairly sure LrC AI DeNoise will not support compressed RAW.

/edit/

I state compressed RAW, but actually in that Nikon, you have Nikon  Full resolution  RAW and Small size format. Perhaps stating Small as compressed is wrong. And the Small is not what LrC is looking for. So not that it is compressed, but that it is a separate format as far as LrC sees it.

You may need to look at it in camera to determine full or small. 

[dj_paige]

I don't normally see Nikon users screaming or complaining  that their RAWs are not compatible with the AI Denoise feature. Here are the Nikon Z6 II specs

Anyway, when I get home tonight I can check to see if my Z6 II is set to compressed or not, and if compressed prevents AI Denoise from working. Whatever I have setting I have chosen for my Z6 II, the AI Denoise works.

[D Fosse]

Actually Denoise does support compressed files from Sony, both lossy and lossless. Don't know about Nikon, but compression itself doesn't seem to be a problem.

The no-no is smaller raw files, usually known as M and S. I assume that is because the downsampling requires the files to be demosaiced in camera; otherwise the Bayer pattern gets all jumbled up and becomes undecipherable by the raw processor. Just a theory; but M and S seem to be universally verboten from all camera manufacturers.

[dj_paige]

Fairly sure LrC AI DeNoise will not support compressed RAW.

/edit/

I state compressed RAW, but actually in that Nikon, you have Nikon  Full resolution  RAW and Small size format. Perhaps stating Small as compressed is wrong. And the Small is not what LrC is looking for. So not that it is compressed, but that it is a separate format as far as LrC sees it.

You may need to look at it in camera to determine full or small. 

By @GoldingD

@fergs25 can determine whether the images are full or medium or small, by reporting the number of pixels (width and height) of the image. (Do not tell me megabytes)

[Jao vdL]

denoise AI absolutely supports compressed RAW in all possible formats from Nikon cameras. Only requirement really is that the image is still Bayer mosaiced, so you can't denoise lowered resolution raw (like mraw or sraw files) and dng files that have been linearized. Anything that is still in Bayer mosaic will work.

[dj_paige]

denoise AI absolutely supports compressed RAW in all possible formats from Nikon cameras. Only requirement really is that the image is still Bayer mosaiced, so you can't denoise lowered resolution raw (like mraw or sraw files) and dng files that have been linearized. Anything that is still in Bayer mosaic will work.

By @Jao vdL

Very clearly stated. Thanks!

[fergs25]

Had adobe help yesterday. They couldn't get it to work 😞 any recommendations?  Trying not to pay for other software when i already pay for creative cloud. 

[dj_paige]

People would like to help, we have asked for more information, and we have asked that you share one of these photos. But that information has not been provided and photo sharing has not happened. Without the information and without sharing one of the photos, its hard to see how we can help.

[Jao vdL]

Adobe support is usually not very knowledgeable and the reply that you got that compressed raw doesn't work is complete nonsense. I just looked on the web for examples of compressed raw from the D810 and found some here: https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d810/file-type-samples.htm and they ran through enhance AI just fine in 17 seconds each on my M1 Max machine. So it is clearly not the support for the camera that is the issue here but I would guess something is getting corrupted on your files. Indeed best to share a few files here by uploading to a cloud service (dropbox, iCloud, etc.) and sharing the link here. 

A hail Mary question is whether you perhaps used Nikon's software to download the images from your card/camera. Nikon's software is known to corrupt NEF files when you do that and if the software version is out of date. Haven't seen this in a few years on the forum (used to be a very comon problem) but thought I'd ask the question.