Lightroom tip: Lightroom’s Enhance feature just got a huge update – did you spot it?
Lightroom’s Enhance feature used to create a new (larger) DNG file alongside the original RAW file, but now it doesn’t! That’s huge news for anyone who uses Adobe’s AI denoising tool regularly. Here’s how the new setup works.
Adobe has done something I really hadn’t expected. I had assumed that Adobe’s Enhance denoising process had to create a new, processed DNG file, just like DxO PureRAW, and that was just the way it had to be. But in the latest Lightroom update, Adobe has merged the Enhance options into the Detail tab, so it’s no longer a separate process that creates a separate file. It now forms part of Lightroom’s regular non-destructive workflow and without any additional DNG files.
This means that if you decide an image needs AI denoising, you select the Denoise option in the Detail panel and Lightroom will then spend a few seconds processing the image – just as it would with the previous Enhance process. Now, though, there’s no separate DNG file (unless Adobe has hidden it somewhere in the catalog!), just the original RAW file with the denoising applied. You can even adjust the strength after it’s been applied, which you couldn’t do previously.
My sample image was shot in a museum at ISO 12800 on a Fujifilm X-T30 II and, as you would expect, it’s pretty noisy. Adobe’s AI Denoise process has cleaned it up nicely, just like the Enhance process would previously, but this time I’m still working on the original RAW file, not a new DNG.
It makes a huge difference. The process and the results are unchanged, but the way it’s now incorporated into the regular RAW workflow is a massive step forward. Even better, because Adobe has put this option in the Details panel, you can add some sharpening if you think the image needs it and balance this against the AI denoising.
8 responses to “Lightroom tip: Lightroom’s Enhance feature just got a huge update – did you spot it?”
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Ah, interesting. I’ll take a look…
OK, so the way I did this was to open two images in Develop mode, make sure Auto Sync is enabled the apply noise reduction to the first. I seemed to get two progress bars and when I checked the second image that had noise reduction applied too.
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Yes, you’re right. It’s possible this way. Previously I just selected more images and used denoise.
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It’s made things less complicated really because the Enhance feature no longer creates a new file. It just works on your original RAW file.
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Is there a way to reverse this ? Before this change if I lose my catalog for some reason, I had the enhanced file to work with, now do I have to start over from the original DNG file ? Thanks.
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That’s a good question. I don’t actually know because I haven’t yet found out where Lightroom stores the data about the new image. There is a new catalog file which seems to be specifically for AI adjustments, but I don’t know if this is where the AI denoised versions are kept. You make a good point, though – at least before you still had a separate Enhanced version that was visible externally to other applications.
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