I want to clean the source a bit and I only know of 2 good denoisers that I have actually liked.

I usually use deen at a weaker than default setting like deen("c3d", 0, 3, 2) and it looks great on animation without the harmful effects of its strong default settings, but its ruining far too much detail and smearing even at that low setting and getting rid of lines.

When deen is too strong or causes obvious banding to appear and I need a bit weaker denoiser I usually use Convolution3D(0, 3, 4, 3, 2, 2.8, 0)

its doing alot less damage than deen but its also thinning lines more than I would like. Not nearly as much as deen but its still noticeable. I would accept it since its alot less but its not cleaning the picture as much as I would like.


I tried replacing my denoiser with hqdering(smoother=deen("a3d",1,9,9,2)) and it not only reduced noise but it didn't do the obvious damage to the lines either, it would be perfect for what I want if it wasn't causing something else I didn't like. For some reason this is always another way to use deen without it being as strong and damaging as the deen filter by itself and it gives you the effect of deen without doing the strong damage, that's why I tried this.

When I tried this method, it was taking whites or lighter colors and removing or dimming them as if it were thinking they are halos or ringing. I can understand that since its a halo/ringing removing filter. I don't like that its doing that though because its filtering things that aren't halos and are supposed to be there.


Is there an alternative method or setting with these 3 filters where I can get a bit stronger of a clean without thinning the detailed lines such as ones you would find on wood for example? I understand there will be some detail loss, but its the lines I don't want being thinned or messed with.