P: Denoise unavailable on compressed DNGs

[Jim Pixley 2]

On all my compressed DNG files I am seeing "denoise is not currently compatible with this photo format"

Anyone else?

[Ian Lyons · Accepted solution]

Denoise is only compatible with Bayer and X-trans files. DNG uses Bayer, but Compressed DNG have already been demosaiced.

[Jim Pixley 2]

So even though I used Lightroom's "Lossy Compression" I will never be able to use this feature?

[Ian Lyons]

>  I will never be able to use this feature?

I can't speak of the future.

Now?

HDR and Pano Merged DNG files have already been demosaiced. Therefore, they're not compatible with Denoise. Your Compressed DNG files at 8-bit are equally not compatible with Denoise.

[Jim Pixley 2]

Thanks for the information

[Lisa29930489pfzq]

Thanks, i was searching for this reaction. I used HDR at all my photo's and now Denoise doesn't work. Too bad!

[Keith Reeder]

Well yes, it does work - exactly as designed, on the formats it's intended for.

[Conrad_C]

So even though I used Lightroom's "Lossy Compression" I will never be able to use this feature?

By @Jim Pixley 2

Saying “never” is probably too far of a leap to jump to a conclusion right now. Today Adobe engineering posted an article on how AI Denoise works. In it, Eric Chan (who has driven a long list of Lightroom/ACR innovations) wrote:

What’s next?

Denoise is our third Enhance feature. We’re proud of what it can do today, but we’re already looking ahead to make it even better. For instance, we have some ideas on how to use additional training data to improve resolution. We’d like to support additional file formats and combine Denoise with Super Resolution. We’re even looking into ways to speed up the workflow by not needing to make a new DNG file.

It’s clear that Adobe thinks this new feature they just released is only a first try; it says they are open to supporting additional formats. So it is possible that some future version of AI Denoise will be more useful than it is today.

[Jim Pixley 2]

It would be good if I had known there were going to be limitations in the future to converting certain libraries to lossy compression.  At the time I was trying to save space with, as best I could tell, no real loss in quality.  Thank you for the article.  Here's hoping...

[Conrad_C]

What I am hoping for along these lines is this (which is purely my own speculation): There will be a lot of demand to AI denoise popular demosaiced lossy formats such as JPEG. If Adobe figures out a good way to AI Denoise that, it may lead to being able to AI denoise the DNG demosaiced lossy format.

[Keith Reeder]

"It would be good if I had known there were going to be limitations in the future to converting certain libraries to lossy compression."

I'm not sure I understand your objection, Jim - nobody knows that there are (or are not) going to be limitations in the future: but as the article from Eric Chan made clear from Day One, the current limitations are certainly known and publicised:

"Denoise is currently supported only for Bayer and X-Trans mosaic raw files, but we’re looking into ways to support other photo formats in the future."

It's in the "What's New?", too:

"Denoise can run only on Bayer and X-Trans RAW images."

[Keith Reeder]

"We’re even looking into ways to speed up the workflow by not needing to make a new DNG file."

I was glad to see that: creating a new "RAW" file from a RAW file has been the major (workflow-killing) irritation in the process, for me.

[Keith Reeder]

"Today Adobe engineering posted an article on how AI Denoise works."

It was actually a month ago, Conrad - that's Eric's original article on the subject.

[Conrad_C]

Not sure what you mean Keith…the article was a month ago because what was quoted is from a reply I posted…a month ago. The date on the reply where I posted the link is the same date as the linked article.

[orit7077834]

Could you please update the app that we could use those functions with the medium comprassed raw format sony a7 iv?
It is a very used format for wedding photographers.
When will it come out? Thanks

[D Fosse]

It's not as simple as that. Denoise doesn't work with any M or S raws from any camera. It has to be full resolution.

Currently, Denoise can only work on mosaic raw files, Bayer or x-trans encoded. Downsampling a raw file means disrupting the Bayer/x-trans pattern, so downsampled files need to be pre-processed in camera, either by RGB-encoding them or some other special processing.

Either way, what you're requesting is an extension of Denoise's basic functionality, so that it can also process RGB-encoded data. This may be (and probably is) on Adobe's future roadmap, but we're not there yet.

EDIT - but Super Resolution should work.

Denoise:

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Today's updates to Denoise allow for additional raw file formats. See: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/whats-new/2025.html#denoise