How to Turn Off Noise Reduction When Processing RAW Files?

[StevenC2020]

I'm noticing that the TIFF files I export from Affinity after I develop the RAW files I import are extremely soft in comparison to the originals. Below are screenshots of the jpeg that came from the camera and the TIFF file I exported after developing the RAW file through Affinity.

I've turned off Develop Assistant and the noise reduction option in the Details tab while developing the RAW images, but the exports are still turning out really soft. Any thoughts on what else I can do?

[Jowday]

1 hour ago, StevenC2020 said:

I'm noticing that the TIFF files I export from Affinity after I develop the RAW files I import are extremely soft in comparison to the originals. Below are screenshots of the jpeg that came from the camera and the TIFF file I exported after developing the RAW file through Affinity.

I've turned off Develop Assistant and the noise reduction option in the Details tab while developing the RAW images, but the exports are still turning out really soft. Any thoughts on what else I can do?

If you select another RAW Engine? There should be an Apple engine.

It doesn't have to be caused by noise reduction. The RAW engine itself can be the culprit. Not much compares to the in-camera processing where the camera company applies algorithms made by their own engineers.

To get excellent RAW file development from especially dark images you need software with similar super algorithms; DxO Photolab with Prime or DeepPrime noise reduction and state of the art RAW development (sharpness/clarity). These programs are excellent Affinity Photo companions.

PSST: If possible could you provide us with a RAW file?

[lepr]

3 hours ago, StevenC2020 said:

but the exports are still turning out really soft. Any thoughts on what else I can do?

Affinity applies no sharpening when developing, by default, whereas the camera will be applying sharpening when producing a JPEG.

Sharpening controls are in the Details tab of Develop Persona, and Photo Persona has Unsharp Mask filter and live filter.

Develop Persona also has a Clarity control, and Photo Persona has Clarity filter and live filter.

There is also a High Pass filter and live filter in Photo Persona, which can be used for sharpening.

[StevenC2020]

Here's a RAW file, which is still sharper than the Affinity output. Let me look into a different RAW engine and see if that solves the problem. 

IMG_7426.CR2

[walt.farrell]

5 minutes ago, StevenC2020 said:

which is still sharper than the Affinity output.

Thanks for the file.

It is still sharper when viewed where?

[StevenC2020]

It's still sharper when viewed through Preview on my Mac and when processed on Lightroom. 

[walt.farrell]

6 minutes ago, StevenC2020 said:

It's still sharper when viewed through Preview on my Mac and when processed on Lightroom. 

Thanks. It is possible that both of those automatically apply some form of sharpening, and thus the image in Photo will be softer unless you apply similar sharpening.

Photo tends to leave such decisions to the user.

[StevenC2020]

I see. Based on this thread, it sounds like there's no more options to explore within Affinity for either turning off noise reduction or sharpening the RAW file. Is that correct?

[walt.farrell]

1 minute ago, StevenC2020 said:

, it sounds like there's no more options to explore within Affinity for ... sharpening the RAW file. Is that correct?

Have you tried the various options mentioned by @anon2 above? 

Nothing you've said indicates that you've tried them, that I can see.

[StevenC2020]

That's right, those are helpful sharpening tips. In terms of noise reduction, does it seem like I've gone through all the options for preventing noise reduction from happening during processing?

[JohnZeman]

Just for a point of comparison I downloaded the provided CR2 file and opened it in Affinity Photo, developed it, made some minor edits to it in Photo Persona, then I exported it as a TIF.

It looked ok to me.

Then without editing anything else I converted it to JPG format to reduce the file size and have uploaded it here.

[StevenC2020]

Thanks for doing all that, JohnZeman! Appreciate it. Just to clarify, are you saying you sharpened it after developing the RAW file?

[walt.farrell]

13 minutes ago, StevenC2020 said:

In terms of noise reduction, does it seem like I've gone through all the options for preventing noise reduction from happening during processing?

To stop noise reduction, you just turn it off (or don't turn it on) in the Develop Persona as far as I know. 

[JohnZeman]

11 minutes ago, StevenC2020 said:

Thanks for doing all that, JohnZeman! Appreciate it. Just to clarify, are you saying you sharpened it after developing the RAW file?

I applied a small amount of capture sharpening in the Develop Persona then in the Photo Personal I applied the final sharpening.

Most of my Affinity Photo settings are defaults including the raw engine (Serif).

[kirkt]

You can sharpen the image - just apply some capture sharpening, either during conversion or afterward, with whatever your favorite technique is.  Also, remember to turn off lens correction if you are trying to compare apples to apples, as it will distort and change the rendering of your image to a certain degree.  Remember to compare the output of your conversion at 100% zoom always, as some applications will render lower levels of magnification with different scaling algorithms that may increase the apparent sharpness of the image.

If NR is not disabled in the Develop persona by default, you can use the Develop Assistant to configure it so that it is disabled by default ("Take no action.").  See attached screenshot.

Kirk

[kirkt]

Also - I am not sure if that image you uploaded has some fancy star filter on it, or that lens just renders those point light sources that way, but that lens is not very well corrected and may be experiencing all sorts of diffraction effects, even at the relatively modest aperture (f/6.3) of that photo.  Some applications may also apply some diffraction correction with their built-in lens correction profile, another reason to disable the lens correction if you want to see the most stripped-down raw conversion.

Kirk

[harrym]

45 minutes ago, StevenC2020 said:

That's right, those are helpful sharpening tips. In terms of noise reduction, does it seem like I've gone through all the options for preventing noise reduction from happening during processing?

Try turning off in camera jpg sharpening and compare like for like.  Some cameras have strongly cooked jpg output

[StevenC2020]

Thanks, everyone! These are helpful tips. I'll try enabling Develop Assistant to take no action on the NR and try capture sharpening to see if that helps. 

@Kirk, yeah, the stars are intentional lol. I used a Hoya 8-point star filter for this effect.

[David in Яuislip]

@StevenC2020  Is IMG_7426.CR2 the same file that you showed in the original post because I get very different results?
Neither have been sharpened and all default settings were turned off except:
the one on the left has the Lensfun correction
the one on the right has DeepPRIME noise reduction

As a famous person once wrote

11 hours ago, Jowday said:

These programs are excellent Affinity Photo companions.

 

[StevenC2020]

No, I posted the Affinity export with NR and Develop Assistant disabled, alongside the jpeg in the original. The jpeg looks just like the .DNG I uploaded in Photos, though. Some of the feedback here is helpful, since I was mainly looking at Affinity's in-house sharpening tools or ways to disable its default NR tools while developing the RAW image, since I previously just used Photoshop to develop the RAW image before moving everything to Lightroom to do the rest.

[kirkt]

50 minutes ago, StevenC2020 said:

@Kirk, yeah, the stars are intentional lol. I used a Hoya 8-point star filter for this effect.

Phew!  That makes me feel better.  LOL.

Kirk

[NotMyFault]

Hi all,

The RAW file contains a good amount of sharpening, which was applied by the camera when it created the JPEG file. See scren capture below (sorry for german language).

The noise reduction was set to 1, allmost nothing.

With help of the (free for camera owners) Canon DPP software, you can always check those settings (and adjust them).

Comparing Affinity Photo vs. in-camera JPEG (or Canon DPP processed) is always apples to oranges:

All Canon HW + software adheres to the user-selected pre-sets like "picture style", which affects contrast, saturation, sharpening, filter effects like B&W, etc, plus the individual camera adjustments (exposure, white balance, noise reduction ...)

In total contrast, AP is unable to read these information from the CR2 RAW file, and will apply completely different settings based on "Develop Assistent" and user preferences.

This always leads to completely different results for JPEG files processed from the 100% identical RAW files, between the Canon HW/SW and Affinity SW.

Next, Affinity uses its own pre-sets for JPEG exports regarding quality, re-sampling etc.

To sum up:

The only way to get "Canon" like JPEG from CR2 files is to process them first with Canon DPP (its free), then export to TIFF16. You can then start your creative work in Affinity with opening the TIFF16., and later export as JPEG.

If you directly open the CR2 RAW, you might get good results, too, but never ever a results which is directly comparable to canon JPEGs.

One (remote) option would be to create a totally "flat" canon picture style (based on "neutral"), upload this to the camera with help of Canon picture style editor, and leave all camera settings to "0" like exposure, white balance etc. Nobody wants to work like this.

My intentions is not to blame anybody, only to explain why you cannot compare Canon out-of-camera JPEG with affinity Photo developed JPEG.

I have seen many threads lately, mostly assuming export issues with noise or sharpening. There is nothing wrong in Affinity.

The only "fault" of affinity is that it ignores the individual settings contained in the CR2 files.

 

[StevenC2020]

Thanks. I guess I should've just posted the .dng from the beginning, since that's what I typically look at. I usually ignore the .jpeg from the camera because the blues are always super oversaturated and not what I want my photos to look like. That said, the .jpeg and .dng files are equally sharp when I view them through Lightroom/Photoshop/Photos, which is why I just uploaded the file that was faster to screenshot lol. Anyways, I got some helpful things from this thread, and was never trying to replicate the EOS-60D's messy .jpegs to begin with. 

[Jowday]

@StevenC2020

Finally back home at the computer. Took only a few seconds to figure out what is wrong.

It is the chromatic aberration reduction that blurs the image. Try disabling it - then it should look a bit better - and possibly also disable the lens correction. It can also blur the image a bit but it is hardly a major factor in this image.

But still. Professional RAW developers like DxO Photolab use their own, superior and deeply specialized demosaic algorithms that pulls out most details of the RAW data.

Come to me for relevant advice 😄

[StevenC2020]

That seems to help. Thanks, Jowday!