prick then ? not drawing any blood 
I found DxO noise reduction better than Topaz DeNoise, I have stopped using DeNoise. In fact the only reason I use PureRaw3 is for the noise reduction.
Sharpen, yes can be done later but Denoise was the first thing, I did in my processing anyway.
Topaz is not developing DeNoise or Sharpen anymore, they have gone down the PhotoAI path, a mistake in my opinion and some other users are not happy about it.
I don’t do many night photos, I did test DxO PR3 v Topaz on some very noisy night images and DxO did a better job. I do a lot daytime long exposures, which in some ways is similar, there is some noise, especially on underexposed images, DxO was generally better than DeNoise AI, I found, although the results were close on many.
As I’ve opined earlier, the NR options in PureRaw have not been suitable for what I do. In fact, any batch NR (one of two sizes fits all) is UNSAT. I’m usually satisfied with the PureRaw demosaicing and the lens/camera corrections. In my workflow that gives me the second stage “survivors” that will be subject to individual editing with PhotoLab. But too often I have to revisit the original RAW file in Photolab with its NR and sharpening controls turned off. This is pretty often in the case of night work that have grid/geometric shapes in them. Topaz products are the only ones that have given me the ability to fine tune the results and see the image full frame or zoomed in (instead of the silly little rectangle thingy in PhotoLab that you have to push all over the screen.
Photo AI is aimed at the masses…“Post-processing for Dummies”. That’s a different market from the one they started with. I wouldn’t be surprised if the company tanks within two or three years, but maybe someone else will buy up their IP. At some point, even in the Photo AI context, AI offered by others will improve. Right now a lot of the AI is seems to be geared towards solving consumer level problems.
It may turn out that I’ll ditch PureRaw for anything other than the most pedestrian projects and go back to Iridient for my X-Trans files. It offers much more meaningful options for its batches.
Still, all the more reason to opt out of PureRaw’s NR when you run a batch.
It is a pity you can’t do everything on one software. If Photolab had layers that may work for me. Now I do PureRaw3, then Photoshop, then Topaz plugins or other plugins.
Thanks, Larry, for your helpful reply.
David