Question: how much disk space is consumed by AI Denoising an image in Lightroom Classic 14.4?

[DonH]

Now that running AI denoise in Lightroom Classic no longer creates a new DNG, I assume it has to be storing a large amount of data somewhere.  Before I go crazy with denoise (the results are often amazing!) and consume many GB of storage in my Lightroom library files, I wanted to get an idea how much space this takes.

I have no way of measuring the library file size increase after a single operation, so I tried the same operation in Adobe Camera Raw (17.4) and found that denoising one 30.8MB Nikon D500 raw file created a new a 6.1MB .acr sidecar file.  So it appears that, at least in this case, denoise created an additional file that is about 20% the size of the original file.

Does anyone know if Lightroom Classic does something similar?  If it does, that means that running denoise on 5GB of raw files (only about 162 D500 files) will result in growing the library files by 1GB.  This is better than a whole new DNG, but it isn't insignificant, and would be part of library storage, not raw file storage!

As an additional question, will subsequently turning off (unclicking) denoise on an image in LRC eventually free up that additional storage requirement?

I use a Mac but the question would apply the same on Windows

Thanks in advance for any insight!

Don

[Paul McMurrick]

Good work. Hope they can fix this soon

[gg100]

Same problem here, my caatalog for 133,000 images was 2.1 GB

I added about 500 images, all of which I used the DENOISE feature

My catalog went from 2.1GB to 8.4GB 

while storage of an 8.4 GB catalog is not a big issue for me right now, back up / loading etc all slow down with a very large catalog

I was able to "Fix" the issue by;

1 exporting all 500 images

2 creating a new folder in LrC

3 Import the exported images from step 1 into a new folder

4 Delete and remove all the original images 

5 optimize the cataloge

6 once lightroom restarted the catalog went back to the 2.1GB

Adobe needs to address this, as no other feature causes catalog bloat to this degree

[DdeGannes]

@gg100 , When this thread was started LrC was at v 14.4 since then it has upgraded to v 14.5.1.

What version of. LrC do you have installed on your computer (indicate the actual version number) ?

[gg100]

Yes, this thread started at 14.4, as I believe that was when the new denoise feature was added

I am currently running 14.5.1 and have duplicated the problem with this version.

[johnrellis]

@gg100: "My catalog went from 2.1GB to 8.4GB"

Are you referring to the size of the catalog folder or the catalog's .lrcat file inside the catalog folder? 

[gg100]

The .lrcat file

[C.Cella]

@gg100 you didn't need to do all the steps you did to slim down your .lrcat

You could simply have:

1. Deleted history for the files that don't need it

2. Trash the Virtual Copies you don't need anymore 

3. Optimise caralog to get rid of XMP data in the .lrcat

[johnrellis]

@gg100: "The .lrcat file"

Turn off the option Catalog Settings > Metadata > Automatically Write Changes Into XMP. It has a severe performance bug that copies the Denoise metadata into the .lrcat: file:https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-automatically-write-changes-to-xmp-can-t-be-... 

[robert36972564]

@johnrellis 

Will LR still read XMPs when you import RAWs+XMP?

Otherwise it will be really hard to work with multi-client or multi-application workflows (e.g. culling and metadata edits in Photo Mechanic or some on-site processing with ACR before importing them into LR, or import files from other LR instances on another machine).

(And it would also be an unpleasant workaround as XMPs are nice for some backup strategies.)

[C.Cella]

@robert36972564 LrC reads both the XMP and .acr

When saving LrC writes the "image" data such as Enahnce encoded as text into XMP, but this makes it 25% bigger than the same data saved as binary in the .acr or .lrcat-data blobs

ACR writes image data directly into .acr as it is best for performance but means a second sidecar. 

[robert36972564]

@gg100 

I would suggest that you support this feature proposal:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-ai-blob-storage-size-should-be-limited-and-... 

Might have more impact than an comment in this discussion thread.