Denoise Not Available in LRC 14.0.1 Mac

[Danny32003927whoj]

I just upgraded to LRC 14.0.1, and the denoise feature no longer works. It says, "Denoise is not currently compatible with this photo format." The file is a full-size CR3 from a Canon R5c, which worked with denoise in LRC 13.x. 

I am on an 2021 M1 Max Macbook Pro, 64 GB RAM, 4 TB SSD, 10 cores. 

Adobe mentioned, "The October release of Lightroom Classic version (14.0) has disabled Apple Neural Engine support for AI Denoise on macOS." 

Does this mean denoise doesn't work for me or is this a bug? I've reset preferences, restarted my machine, and uninstalled/reinstalled LRC. Any help is appreciated! 

[JohanElzenga]

No, that neural engine thing has nothing to do with this. Denoise should still work, just a little slower. Try another image to see if it does.

[Danny32003927whoj]

I've tried a different image and reimporting it to LRC. I still get this error. 

[JohanElzenga]

Then the problem must be with these files somehow. I just tried denoising a Sony A7R V raw file in Lightroom Classic 14.0.1. on my MBP with M1 Max, and that went without any problems. Is this some kind of special raw version perhaps?

[Danny32003927whoj]

They're full-size CR3s, I haven't done anything to them. I found a previous image I used denoise on, with the denoised version still stacked to the original, and I still get this error if I wanted to re-run it on the original image. 

Maybe there's some issues caused by the new compatibility for smaller Canon Raw files? 

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Can you share one of your files that will not Denoise for us to check? 

Note: You will need to post it to a file-sharing service and send us the link. 

[Danny32003927whoj]

Here's a sample file: https://dpr.box.com/s/2jzoezx09ywz8lcenv380lvwrsr8vn9e

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

I have no issues Denoising your file on a 2022 Mac M1 (14.7)

 
I am guessing the issue is on your local machine. Have you reset your preferences? 

[Danny32003927whoj]

Huh, that's so odd. I've reseted my preferences, uninstalled/reinstalled Lightroom, and restarted my Mac. I'm on 14.5, maybe that's the issue? Are there other troubleshooting steps I can take? 

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

As a test, can you perform the operation in Camera Raw? 

[Danny32003927whoj]

It works in camera raw, just not Lightroom.

[Danny32003927whoj · Accepted solution]

I just downgraded to 13.5.1 and then upgraded back to 14.0.1 and now it's working! I have no idea why that fixed it or what the underlying issue was, but it's working again. 

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Reinstall is a prudent step in some cases. I am glad you are working again!

[Danny32003927whoj]

Same here, thank you for your help!

[rntbot2]

how do you downgrade to 13.5.1

[Conrad_C]

I don’t have a solution for why Denoise isn’t working on a file that worked in version 13, but I can explain the line about the Neural Engine.

Disabling Neural Engine support should not affect whether you can run Denoise. The Neural Engine only affects how fast Denoise runs.

Denoise performance largely depends on GPU performance. (The Max is relatively good, with all those GPU cores). When Denoise came out it practically only used the GPU. The Neural Engine should be well suited for accelerating AI operations such as Denoise, but macOS has had some bugs with the Neural Engine so it was not enabled at first. At one point Adobe decided those bugs were fixed enough that they enabled Neural Engine support in Denoise, and this made Denoise take somewhat less time. But the GPU still made the most difference in how fast Denoise runs.

It looks like Adobe found more bugs in macOS Neural Engine support, I think image quality was affected? Anyway, they decided to stop Neural Engine support for now, but the practical effect it should have on you is that Denoise might run a few seconds longer than when they did support it.

[Danny32003927whoj]

That's good to know! I don't mind if it's a little slower, it's just not working at all.

I can access denoise through camera raw, but not through LRC, so it's not a system requirements issue. I tried re-importing an image and that doesn't work. I don't know what else to do to try to make this work in Lightroom. 

[BryanKirkwood]

I'm glad to see this honestly. Slightly faster results and the full use of the Apple Silicon chip sounded nice theoretically, but I noticed a rather drastic drop in quality/increase in artifacts when the neural engine was used. Weird patterns would show up and the results were just... uglier. Since the last update quality has been great. Worth the processing time increase IMO.

Hopefully Apple/Adobe can sort these issues out at some point because ideally it'd be nice to use less power with the neural engine and get more edits while on battery power but it's not worth a loss in quality.