Further attempts:
According to someone on the thread that Kevin linked, Topaz works better if you're using raw files instead of JPGs. Indeed, it does!
Not sure it's good enough that I'd actually want to use it. I'll think about it.
Looks like I did try de-noising in Lightroom already -- I cancelled my Adobe subscription so I can't redo it, but it's still on there when I open Lightroom. It's kind of impressive, but also still looks pretty unnatural in a lot of ways. (Some things too blurry, some things too crisp.) Looks like some poorly-stylized digital painting rather than a photo. (At least for the photo I tried. I can't share it because it's not a very flattering shot of the person pictured.)
AI noise removal is still not that good
I end up with a lot of super-noisy photos because I do social dance photography. The light in the room is dim, and I need a fast shutter speed because people are moving quickly, so I'm letting in even less light. This is terrible for noise.
Unfortunately, it seems that the best AI noise removal tools are still not that good! I am surprised.
I just played Duck Detective and I have a complaint
I am confused that it is SO well-rated. Like, it's 10/10 on Steam? The motivation behind the central crime doesn't really make sense and is barely explained. It's cute in a bunch of ways, but writing reasonable character motivations feels like a "bare minimum" thing for me. (At least in this kind of game, where you're supposed to deduce who did what and why.)
(I don't really like the photo I just shared -- it's just the most recent one I had up, & I'm testing all the features rn)
(I prefer the next photo in the set)
I did a dance shoot on Friday
Check out this edit I did. The more colorful one is the "after." It's more colorful than what it was like to really be there -- but the less colorful one also isn't what it looked like to really be there. It was so dim!
This kind of choice feels salient during photography post-processing. Should I make it look like how it looked to be there? Or how it FELT to be there? Or should I just do something cool?
The ideal probably depends on the purpose of the shoot. (Is it to remember a wonderful event? Is it to create a piece of art? Is it to give people photos to use for dating apps?)