Topaz DeNoise

cmason

Anyone use Topaz Denoise? I used to use Noise Ninja inside another tool, but that was ages ago. this looks very interesting, and there is a new version out, with great promo pricing.

http://www.topazlabs.com/denoise/

Is this any better/easier than the controls in Lightroom?

divamum

I'd like to hear any user reports of this, too. I have the free edition of Noiseware but could really use something that lets me do batches, and also selective reduction. That promotional price is a great deal!

malch

Topaz Denoise does a great job. I think it's the best of the bunch.

HOWEVER, be aware that is it very resource intensive. It's slow even on a fast machine.

I strongly recommend you try before you buy so you know what to expect. But it's a really good filter if you can accept the significant processing time.

MarkR

Topaz Denoise is definitely a top tier product.

I am finding that all my modest noise reduction needs are more than met by the Lightroom 3 beta. However, Denoise would be useful if you wanted to selectively apply the NR on a separate layer. For example, to only reduce shadow noise.

cmason

MarkR wrote: »

Topaz Denoise is definitely a top tier product.

I am finding that all my modest noise reduction needs are more than met by the Lightroom 3 beta. However, Denoise would be useful if you wanted to selectively apply the NR on a separate layer. For example, to only reduce shadow noise.

So Topaz Denoise works only with Photoshop? Their website seems to say it is a LR plugin...but I am not sure how. Are you suggesting I would be better off paying Adobe yet more $#$%! money for yet another upgrade instead of something like Topaz? Does LR3 have camera noise profiles etc?

MarkR

You can use Topaz either as a Photoshop plugin (there are also other host programs that can be used as well) or as a stand alone external editor from Lightroom, Aperture, or iPhoto using the Topaz Fusion tool.

The advantage of using Photoshop or another host program is you can do the NR on a separate layer and brush in/brush out the noise. Whether you use it as a host plugin or a standalone editor, you still have to render a TIF/PSD. I'd rather reduce noise in raw whenever possible.

As to LR3, it's still in beta and not feature complete. However, it's luminance and color noise reduction are quite good without camera profiling. One thing I learned from visiting the Adobe forums is that their NR scales -- so 20 Color NR is applied differently at 200 ISO than it is at 3200 ISO.

I just did a quick test with an ISO 3200 image. I'd tentatively say that LR3 does slightly better in color noise, and Topaz does slightly better in flat smooth regions. But there's enough sliders in both programs that I might not have optimized one or the other program.

thegridrunner

Just installed Denoise today, I am blown away by the results. What a great little plug-in. I'm shooting with a cropped sensor (nikon d80) and I wanted to upgrade to a full sensor soon. One of the reasons for this is that smaller, less sensitive sensors show more noise. This little program makes it easier to wait for my new camera.