There’s a lot to like about the Sony RX100 VII. But its small sensor is the thing that holds it back. It works well in good light, but it gets noisy quickly as you start climbing higher in the ISO range.
That’s exactly the issue that AI-based RAW processing is best at fixing, and it amounts to the biggest upgrade you can give a camera like this without replacing it (which is easier said than done anyway since, several years after the VII was released, Sony still hasn’t seen fit to come out with a new model).
The RAW optimization app that has found a regular place in my workflow is DxO PureRAW. I use it regularly in current shoots — especially shots at high ISOs — but I also find it extremely useful in reviving older images taken with older sensors.
I’ve gone back and run RAW files from a number of the cameras I’ve shot with through PureRAW, and I thought it was worth sharing some of them here in case they’re useful to someone.
So here’s what it actually does to Sony RX100 VII RAW files, on my own real-world photos, with before/after sliders and 100% crops.
The catch is that it only works on RAW files. That’s not a limitation of one app — it’s where the gains of this type of technology come from.
Tools like DxO PureRAW and Lightroom’s newer generation of denoise tools work on the sensor data before it has been demosaiced and baked into the pixels, and that’s where these newer machine-learning models have the advantage over the older generation. You can still run the older style of noise reduction on JPEGs and TIFFs (using other apps, not PureRAW), but you’re working with already-cooked data, and the results are a different league. So this is the payoff for deciding to keep all those RAW files from years ago.
You’ll see the most dramatic improvements in high-ISO frames and in shadow detail. That’s where older RAW files degrade most visibly. In many of today’s cameras, ISO 3200 looks fantastic. But in many older digital cameras, ISO 3200 was the bleeding edge and came with pretty heavy noise and graining.
But the improvements aren’t only limited to high ISOs. Even at the camera’s base ISO you can see useful improvements, albeit usually more subtle.
In my experience, more often than I might have expected, the improvements can be dramatic, making an old, noisy, unpublishable file into something much, much better. I’ve recovered a lot of old images this way.
So whether you’re trying to push the Sony RX100 VII further than its sensor was ever meant to go, or dig some old RAW files out of the archive, here’s what the results actually look like.
These are using my own photos, shot in ordinary real-world shooting conditions. You can slide each side-by-side comparison, and the 100% crops below give you a closer view. If you’d like an even closer look, you can also download the RAW/DNG files; I have more information on how you can get those at the bottom of the page.
The Sony RX100 VII: Sensor and ISO range
A quick look at what we’re working with here.
The RX100 VII has a 20.1-megapixel 1-inch Stacked CMOS sensor measuring 13.2 × 8.8 mm, recording 5472 × 3648-pixel images; that works out to a pixel pitch of about 2.4 µm. Its base ISO is 100, and the standard sensitivity range runs from ISO 100 to 12800, with extended settings down to ISO 64 and 80 (ISO 25600 is only available in the Multi Frame NR mode, which shoots JPEG). It came out in 2019, so plenty of RAW files from it are sitting in archives by now, including my own.
It’s worth knowing that the stacked design isn’t what makes these files noisy so much as what they were traded for. DxOMark measures the VII at 63 overall, a little below the older non-stacked 1-inch RX100 models, and its low-light score of ISO 418 sits slightly behind the RX100 V’s ISO 586. The DRAM layer that buys the blackout-free 20fps bursts and the tracking autofocus costs a small amount of image quality. Which is a big part of why processing the files better is worth the effort: there was never a newer RX100 to move up to that would have given you cleaner ones.
The examples below run from ISO 12800 down to ISO 100, highest first, since that’s where the differences are most obvious.
If you’d rather see how this camera’s files look without any of this processing, I’ve published a low-light test and a set of samples across the full ISO range separately.
| Sensor | 20.1 MP 1-inch Stacked CMOS 13.2 × 8.8 mm |
| Resolution | 5472 × 3648 pixels |
| Pixel pitch | ≈ 2.4 µm |
| Base ISO | 100 |
| Native ISO range | 100 – 12800 |
| Extended ISO (low) | 64 |
| Extended ISO (high) | 25600 |
| ISO in these examples | 12800 – 100 |
One thing worth knowing up front about the Sony RX100 VII: Lightroom has no lens profile for it, so Lightroom can’t correct this camera’s vignetting or distortion (it can still remove chromatic aberration). DxO’s optics module can, and does, on the PureRAW side. That matters for the comparisons below — the corners on the PureRAW side get corrections Lightroom has no way to match, so weigh the center crops more heavily — and it’s worth knowing for your own workflow with this camera regardless of PureRAW.
And a reminder that PureRAW and its competitors only work on RAW files. It won’t work with JPGs from the RX100 VII or any other camera.
On the RX100 VII there’s only one flavor of RAW to worry about, at least: it writes compressed ARW files and gives you no uncompressed or lossless option in the menu. PureRAW reads them fine, and there’s nothing you need to change on the camera before you shoot.
Before and after: 6 RX100 VII files through PureRAW
Shot 1: ISO 12800
Shot 2: ISO 6400
Shot 3: ISO 3200
Shot 4: ISO 800
Shot 5: ISO 400
Shot 6: ISO 100
Verdict
You don’t have to get far through the examples here to see some pretty dramatic recovery. It does some pretty impressive work on the image noise in high-ISO images without going too far into the waxy look that noise reduction can sometimes do (and if you do get that, you can dial back the Luminance slider, or nudge Force Details up.
As you’d expect, the results are much more subtle at the base ISO 100.
And at all ISOs, you also get useful distortion and vignetting corrections — which on this camera Lightroom can’t do at all, since there’s no lens profile for it.
I think the real-world examples here make the case pretty well: the RAW files from the RX100 VII can be significantly improved with PureRAW.
You can try it on your own images
I’ve found PureRAW to be very useful in my own workflow and have been a paying customer since version 3 in 2023.
But it’s all well and good to see how it works on a small sample of my images; the real test is what effect it’ll have on your images.
If you want to try it on your own files, DxO offers a free trial of PureRAW. Or, if you want a full RAW editor alternative to Lightroom, the same DeepPRIME engine is built into DxO PhotoLab.
How these examples were made
- Camera: Sony RX100 VII (firmware DSC-RX100M7 v1.00)
- Input image format: Sony ARW
- ISO range: 100 – 12800
- DxO PureRAW (v. 6.5) — DeepPRIME XD3 (Luminance 40, Force Details 0) · Lens softness: ON · Chromatic aberration, vignetting, distortion: ON · Dust removal: OFF · DNG output (uncompressed)
- Rendering: Adobe Lightroom Classic 15.5, identical develop settings for each before/after pair, with the lens corrections handled by each side’s own engine: Lightroom’s lens profile (distortion + vignetting at default) and chromatic-aberration removal on the Lightroom side, DxO’s on the PureRAW DNG (Lightroom’s lens corrections switched off there so nothing is corrected twice); Lightroom’s sharpening and noise reduction switched off on the DNG (PureRAW already did those); no output sharpening
- Lightroom lens profile: none available for this lens — Lightroom can only remove chromatic aberration on its side, so vignetting and distortion are corrected only on the PureRAW side (see the note in the camera section above)
These are all photos I shot myself, in ordinary shooting conditions, not test-chart frames.
Every before/after pair was rendered from the same file with the same settings; the only variable is whether the file went through PureRAW first.
PureRAW lets you dial each tool up or down. For the purposes here, I’m using my standardized settings that amount to sensible defaults rather than chasing extremes: DeepPRIME XD3 noise reduction at its default strength, lens softness, chromatic aberration, vignetting, and distortion corrections on, and dust removal off.
I’ve used the same settings for every frame, so the comparisons are apples-to-apples. And to keep it fair on the optics, the Lightroom side has Lightroom’s own lens profile switched on (distortion and vignetting corrections at their defaults) and chromatic aberration removal on in every comparison, so each side has its optics corrected by its own tools — with one wrinkle for this camera: Lightroom has no lens profile for it, so on that side only chromatic aberration could be corrected; more on that in the section on the camera just below. I’ve also tried to include a variety of different ISO settings and scenes.
Why I’ve chosen these settings here
PureRAW does more than noise reduction. Its tools fall into two groups.
The sensor corrections — DeepPRIME’s noise reduction and demosaicing — work on what the sensor recorded.
The optical corrections — lens softness, chromatic aberration, vignetting, and distortion — fix what the lens did to the light on its way in. The sensor corrections are the main event in this post, but I’ve left DxO’s optical corrections on as well. I can’t really think of a good reason not to fix chromatic aberration in every photo (we’re not doing lomography here!), and it’s a setting I always enable by default on my own photos. For my own photos, I am, however, more choosy about when to apply vignetting and distortion fixes, because to my own eye, those optical “flaws” are sometimes positives and something that I want to retain. But for the purposes here of using a standard set of settings to make comparison easier, and because these types of optical profiles and corrections are defining strengths of DxO’s software, I’m applying those fixes in these side-by-side examples.
Lens softness correction is such an integral part of how PureRAW’s output looks that turning it off would misrepresent the tool. And DxO’s optical corrections — built on the enormous body of lens and camera test data that was their original claim to fame — are a genuine strength that separates PureRAW from Lightroom’s built-in tools.
The images above
In the examples above, I’ve included two types of comparisons:
- My edit, upgraded: the before is my finished Lightroom edit, plus Lightroom’s own lens profile (distortion + vignetting at default) and chromatic-aberration removal, switched on for every comparison; the after is the same edit applied to the PureRAW DNG, with Lightroom’s sharpening and noise reduction — and its lens profile and chromatic-aberration removal — switched off on the DNG, because PureRAW has already done those jobs (leaving them on double-processes the file — the most common reason PureRAW output looks over-sharpened). So each side has its optics corrected by its own tools, and everything else is identical on both sides.
- Untouched: both files with no editing at all beyond those lens corrections, at Lightroom’s default settings, so you can see what PureRAW does on its own.
With distortion correction on both sides, each frame is shown as its engine renders it corrected — geometrically the same on both sides, so it doesn’t skew the comparison. Distortion correction stretches the corners most at the wide end of the zoom, so that’s where any residual difference between the two engines shows up — worth keeping in mind on the corner crops of the frames shot near 24mm.
There’s a technical note worth knowing: at identical settings, an unadjusted PureRAW DNG renders about 0.1 stop brighter than the original in Lightroom. That’s because PureRAW writes its own baseline exposure into the DNG (here PureRAW’s DNG carries -0.25 EV; the camera’s file has no such tag, and Lightroom applies its own hidden baseline for this camera). So rather than trust the tags, I measured the difference for each pair (central area, linear light) and offset the DNG’s exposure by exactly that amount (-0.08 EV) — you’re seeing PureRAW’s processing, not an exposure difference.
Colour shift: none worth mentioning. I also check whether PureRAW’s files come back with a different colour balance than the originals (some cameras do). Measured over the central 60% of each pair in linear light at identical Lightroom settings, the Sony RX100 VII DNGs stayed within 5% on the red-to-green and blue-to-green ratios (my threshold for “significant” is 4%), so what you see in the sliders is processing, not a colour cast.
How PureRAW fits into a real workflow
I’m using these with Lightroom Classic, but PureRAW isn’t limited to only Lightroom-centric workflows. You can use it as a standalone app, and the underlying DeepPRIME technology is also built into DxO’s own full-suite editor app PhotoLab (which is itself well worth a look if you’re after a Lightroom alternative).
In practice, PureRAW is a pre-processing step, not an editor. You can run it as a standalone app (just drop RAW files on it, pick a preset or adjust the settings, and run process) or straight from Lightroom Classic via its plug-in — select the photos, send them to PureRAW, and it hands back the processed versions reimported into Lightroom.
Either way, the output is a new DNG file for each RAW: PureRAW never touches your original. If you’re using Lightroom, the DNG is created next to the original with your existing edits carried across, so you’re not starting over — you just switch to the new file. (TIP: make sure to save any Lightroom develop settings to the file before sending it to PureRAW or the settings won’t be applied to the PureRAW version automatically.)
With this workflow, there are two key considerations to factor in:
- File storage: those DNGs are linear (already demosaiced) files, and they can be considerably larger than the RAWs they came from — the ones in this post average about 3.8× the size of the originals. If you run it across a whole archive, that adds up quickly. So I don’t run it across everything.
- Processing time. DeepPRIME is computationally heavy. So most of the time I’ll only apply it to selected images rather than everything. Running it across dozens or hundreds of images is entirely possible, and I’ll sometimes do that if I have the time, but it takes a while (depending on the speed of your computer) and eats storage space.
What PureRAW doesn’t do
It’s also worth being clear about what this isn’t, because the marketing can blur the lines:
- It doesn’t add resolution. The DNG has exactly the same pixel dimensions as the RAW. It cleans up and sharpens what’s there; it doesn’t upscale. (That’s a separate job for tools like Lightroom’s Super Resolution or Topaz Gigapixel.)
- It doesn’t fix blur. Camera shake, motion blur, and missed focus stay exactly as they were. The “lens softness” correction is a profile-based sharpening for the lens’s known optical softness, not a deblurring tool.
- It doesn’t recover what was never captured. Blown highlights are still blown, and a badly underexposed frame gets cleaner, not correctly exposed — that part is still done in your editor.
A note on the “AI” label
PureRAW and its rivals describe themselves as AI-powered. Which is the marketing buzzword of the day. But it’s worth being precise about what that means here, because “AI” can be a double-edged sword, and the kind of AI we’re talking about here is a different thing from the AI most people now have in mind.
This is more accurately referred to as machine learning. What that means is that DxO trained a model on a very large set of paired examples — noisy sensor data and what the clean version should look like — and the software uses that training to make a better-informed guess about what each pixel really was.
It works from the data in your file and nothing else. It doesn’t invent content, it doesn’t pull in imagery from anywhere else, and it can’t invent a detail out of nothing — where the noise has genuinely destroyed information, you get softness or waxy texture, not made-up content (a good reason to not push those sliders all the way to the right). Push it hard enough on a truly ruined frame and you get mush or waxy textures, not fabrication.
That’s different to how generative AI works. Think ChatGPT or Claude or SeaDance or Nano Banana. That’s a fundamentally different type of technology, one that synthesizes new pixels. And that isn’t what PureRAW uses and isn’t what’s happening in any of the comparisons above. Your photo is still your photo.
Download the RAW and DNG files
If you want to take an even closer look at the results here, I’ve posted the full-size original RAW files and PureRAW’s DNG output for the examples above for subscribers to my newsletter. The download index is here: RAW file downloads for subscribers. The page is password-protected; the password is in the newsletter’s welcome email.
