Denoise and SuperResolution on the same image - Adobe Broke my old trick to do this - Here’s a New Method!
A while ago, I shared a video on YouTube on how to do SuperResolution and Denoise on the same image using Lightroom and Photoshop. The trick was to do Denoise first, then send the image to Photoshop, save it and send it back, and then you would be able to do SuperResolution. Unfortunately, in a recent update, Adobe has broken this workflow.
I’ve been working on finding another workaround for this, and after a bit of experimentation, I think I’ve found the solution.
The problem seems to be that Adobe is embedding something in the metadata that tells Lightroom that the image has already gone through one AI Enhance process and that metadata is being maintained when editing in Photoshop. So Instead, I tried exporting as a Tiff and reimporting. At first, this didn’t work either, but when I set Lightroom to strip the metadata from the exported file, it worked like a charm.
The next issue to solve was the workflow. It would be messy to have to manually export and then manually re-import a tiff, but luckily Lightroom can do all of this in one go for you and even stack it with your original image. So here’s what to do:
We’re going to need to make an Export template, but first let’s pick an image to work with and run Denoise on the image. Select your image, and then right click and choose enhance:
As with the previous version of this tip, you have to do Denoise first, because currently, Denoise will only work on a RAW file. You should also do this process at the end of your editing, as once we export it to a Tiff, you’ll be baking in the edits.
In the enhance window, choose Denoise, and set your chosen parameters and click ok, and let Lightroom do its processing. Once it’s finished, select the newly created DNG, and we’ll use this to work with.
Now we’re going to create our export template.
With the DNG selected, go to File > Export. Then from the Export window, set the following parameters:
- Export To: Set this to “Hard Drive”
- Export Location: Set this to “Same Folder as the Original Photo”
- Check the “Add to This Catalog” checkbox and then Check “Add to Stack” and set the following pop-up to “Above Original”
- Leave file naming alone unless you want to set something specific
- Under File Settings, Set Image format to TIFF. Do not use JPEG, as Lightroom may ignore this file, especially if you have a RAW + JPEG workflow.
- Set compression to Zip and Leave Colour Space set to ProPhoto RGB
- Set bit depth to 16 Bits
- Do not set anything for image sizing or output sharpening (make sure they’re disabled)
- Under Metadata, set it to “Copyright and Contact Info Only”. This is critical.
- Leave watermarking and After Export set to do nothing.
Once you have set these parameters, click the “Add” button on the left panel to create a preset. Call it “Reimport Tiff” or something like that.
Then click done to save this preset. Note that this won’t export anything yet.
Now that we’ve saved this, you can use it at any time by going to File > Export with Preset > Reimport Tiff (or whatever you called it)
This should export the file as a tiff, reimport it and then stack it with the original. Now that this is done, you can select the newly reimported Tiff file and choose enhance again, and this time, Super Resolution should now work!
And that’s pretty much all there is to it. Until, of course, Adobe breaks this functionality again. To be honest, I don’t understand why they don’t just let you do this anyway. You shouldn’t have to resort to these workarounds, as there’s no reason not to let you run both Super Resolution and Denoise.
Anyway, thanks to everyone who wrote to me about this and letting me know it was a problem. Hopefully, this will solve the issue (for a while). Just remember the two key things are, run Denoise First, and Make sure you strip the Metadata.
