Denoise - Develop vs Photo Persona

[nater973]

Hello, I'm wondering if there's any way to get the same quality of denoise in the Photo Persona as in the Develop Persona. Using the sample photos attached, I prefer to wait and do a live denoise in the Photo Persona so I can selectively denoise and leave parts of the hummingbird 'noisy' (allows more detail in the feathers). I recently noticed that when I denoise non-selectively in the Develop Persona, the denoise is much much smoother. If I develop a RAW file and then denoise in the Photo Persona, it's a 'chunkier' denoise, as seen in my samples.

1. Is it possible to denoise selectively in the Develop Persona (I haven't figured out a way do a mask there)?

2. Is there any way to get the same smooth quality of denoise in the Photo Persona.

Both attached examples only had mild exposure increase, Colors denoise 20%, Luminance Details 50%, and Luminance denoise 35%

Running Affinity Photo 1.10.0.1127 on Windows 10.

Thanks,

Nathaniel

[Lisbon]

2. Is there any way to get the same smooth quality of denoise in the Photo Persona.

You could try Dfine 2 from the old Google Nik Collection.

1) Method: Manual
2) Add rectangles in areas with no transitions
3) Press Measure Noise
4) Ok

But for better results, before pressing ok, play with the "reduce" option.

You can even add control points to your hummingbird for better control.

There are some youtube videos about Dfine 2.

[Ron P.]

I don't know why they relegated the first tutorials to "Legacy" and didn't allow them to stick. Some of them are far better then the current ones. Here's a video tutorial by James Ritson on Channels, but he uses the Channels for De-noising.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/205022192

[nater973]

Fantastic. Thanks to you both, Lisbon and Ron.

[MEB]

Hi @nater973,
Regarding your first question:
1. Is it possible to denoise selectively in the Develop Persona (I haven't figured out a way do a mask there)?
No, for denoise. You can however use Brush and Gradients Overlays (check the Overlays panel in Develop Persona) to mask/limit the editing to certain areas of the image however they only work for the controls in the Basic tab (not Lens, Details and Tones). The Photo Persona is better suited for localized editing through live adjustments/filters and (built-in) masking.