Darktable's NEW AI Denoise: Better Than Lightroom?
Darktable 5.6 will add native AI denoising — and it's free.
In this video I walk through the new Neural Restore module (raw denoise + denoise tabs), how to set it up properly, the settings the community converged on after six weeks of testing, and a head-to-head against Lightroom's AI Denoise on the same shot.
If you've been paying for Lightroom denoise or considering DxO PureRAW, this changes the math.
📑 CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro: AI Denoising in Darktable 5.6
1:02 When to use AI Denoise vs. Standard Modules
1:49 Plugin vs. Module: How it works (DNG generation)
2:23 Raw Denoise vs. Denoise (Pipeline position)
4:05 Setting up AI: Models and Mac Acceleration (Core ML)
7:12 Generating Previews and Navigating the Picker
8:18 Strength Settings: Finding the Detail/Noise Balance
10:51 The Benefit of Cleaning Raw Sensor Data
11:51 Processing the Final DNG File
14:02 Denoise Parameters and Output Profiles
16:07 Comparison: Darktable AI vs. Lightroom AI vs. Standard Denoise
🔗 LINKS
Full testing thread on pixls.us: https://discuss.pixls.us/t/introducin...
Open models repo (darktable-ai): https://github.com/darktable-org/dark...
Neural Restore manual page: https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual...
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