High ISO work no longer ruins detail or color. With current sensors and AI denoising, you can push exposure in dim scenes and still keep texture intact.
Coming to you from Jason Row Photography, this detailed video compares Lightroom’s Denoise with DxO PureRAW using two challenging files. One is a Bangkok night scene from a 61-megapixel Sony a7R V at 12,800 ISO. The other is a 2007 ship image from a 12-megapixel Nikon D2X at high ISO. Row runs each raw through Lightroom’s Enhance and Denoise and then through PureRAW using DeepPRIME 3, exporting DNGs and viewing both at 100% and 200%. The test makes clear how each app handles shadow grit, color noise, and edge preservation.
PureRAW generally pulls ahead when it comes to noise texture in flat areas and darker tones, especially on the older D2X file. It keeps edge detail while smoothing away harsh luminance noise. Lightroom often appears sharper, but that crispness can come from residual noise rather than real detail. On the Bangkok shot, the license plate and metal textures retain definition while noise recedes. The older Nikon frame transforms from blotchy and rough to something tighter and more natural, which makes it easier to color grade later.
The video also exposes workflow realities. PureRAW adds an extra step because you must process files to DNG before editing. Row notes that PureRAW runs faster on the large Sony file than Lightroom’s Denoise on his system, which could save real time on big shoots.
Row’s side-by-side view highlights how modern software can revive older archives. Early DSLR files, travel archives, or low-light work from years ago can now look fresh again. Recovering detail from those older raws means you can re-edit legacy images with confidence and even print them at larger sizes than before.
The test keeps processing simple to show what denoising alone does. You see noise reduction, demosaicing, and sharpening behavior without stylistic grading hiding the effects. It becomes clear when to denoise in your own pipeline, how each program balances grain versus detail, and which approach better fits your editing rhythm. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Row.
3 Comments
A little bit of a pointless comparison as neither PureRAW 5 or Lightroom Denoise perform at their best at default setting. In fact both perform poorly on their default settings as they lose a lot of fine detail. Both need to be adjusted differently to get the best out of them. The aim should have been to get the best quality out of each piece of software. On default settings PureRAW applies sharpening, Lightroom does not. Performance varies on the model of camera you are using as well as well as subject. So just because it might work well on a Sony a7RV does not mean it will be the same on a Canon or Nikon. For example PureRAW 5 performs worse on a Canon R6 than it does on a R5, which is not what you would expect. Basically you should not purchase PureRAW 5 until you test it thoroughly in demo mode with the camera model you are going to use. Also make sure it supports your old camera models as well as support for old cameras is not as good as Lightroom.
Neither piece of software are consistently better than the other with lens corrections either because both can be better than each other depending on the lens model. At times lens correction needs to be turned off in PureRaw as Lightroom does a better job. At other times it is the other way around.
The advantage that you did not appear to mention is with Lightroom you can easily readjust the noise reduction afterwards at any time in the grading and retouching process and that cannot be done with PureRAW. PureRAW is slightly more prone to making mistakes with its AI but it is still vastly better than Topaz AI which is by the worse AI software for noise reduction now.
LR and DxO must/can be adjusted. And PureRaw can also be adjusted at any time. You can use the retouched file to call PureRaw at any time as the processed DxO file is imported again in LR and all development from LR appears in the dng file. If you don't delete the former processed DxO files from LR you can keep all DxO files for comparisson. And I get them automatically imported in a subdirectory of the original directory. I use it with Nikon Z9, Sony A1, A7RV and Canon R3 and it does a better job with my single tweak for all my cams. At the end it's like everything a matter of individual liking I guess.
I am well aware what both Lightroom and DxO can and cannot do. I have both of them and shoot theatre production photography. The point is to get the best out of both pieces of software for a comparison test, which your review fails to do. It uses default settings which are dreadful on both pieces of software as it loses too much fine detail. At the same time DxO applies too much sharpening on default which on closer inspection looks unnatural and needs reducing whilst Denoise apples no sharpening at all in Lightroom as that still needs to be applied separately. It's not the way to use either of them and it does not show the viewer what either are truly capable of or their shortfalls. As DxO state you should do the noise reduction before making your adjustments in Lightoom. If you make adjustments in Lightroom, particularly any masking and then apply noise reduction later in PureRaw the software is known for causing errors at times when the file comes back into Lightroom. At times is does not even remember the exposure adjustments you have made to a file and brings them back in a little darker even though the setting adjustment in the Lightroom panel looks the same as it did before it was exported.