Camera RAW with AI Denoise

[Robsnapper]

I had to upgrade the graphics card on my PC, to the Nvida RTX 3050 Ventus 2 8GB card and a new PSU to power it, after getting the latest update with AI features. Having said that, I think the new AI Denoise feature is just amazing to use as it changes RAW images taken at high ISOs into ones taken at lower ISOs. The one thing I don't like the processing from RAW to DNG. I do not want nor need DNG files and would like to know why Adobe cannot give users the option of chosing DNG or JPG file? I hope I am not missing anything here?!

[Conrad_C]

It might have to do with it being just the first version of the feature. Similar advanced AI features (Super Resolution, Enhance Details) also require generating a DNG copy at this time.

But in an Adobe article posted the day AI Denoise was released (Denoise Demystified), an Adobe engineer said they are looking at ways to streamline the workflow, including maybe not needing to generate the DNG copy. If Adobe can achieve that, then AI Denoise would be like conventional Noise Reduction in that it would just be a slider for the current image, and you would be able to export straight to JPEG from there.

We don’t know yet how far along Adobe is with those improvements, but hopefully it will come one day in an update.

[TheDigitalDog]

The DNG is partially processed (Linear DNG), which has to occur for this Denoise to work:

https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2023/04/18/denoise-demystified

From that DNG, which is more 'raw' than a JPEG, you can then save out a JPEG with of course, more data loss than before doing so. 

FWIW, it isn't high ISO that causes noise—the relative amount of noise changes with exposure. Underexposure leads to more noise, not ISO (in fact, a lower ISO can have less noise than a higher ISO again, depending on exposure).