Better noise reduction-LR3 or Topaz DeNoise 5?

TheCheesehead

Hi,
Which do you think is better?

Thanks!

Richard

I can't speak to Topaz--I use Noiseware--but I think the question probably applies to all of the specialized NR plugins. For moderate noise that is present all over the frame, LR/ACR does a very good job and is likely all you need. If you customize your defaults based on ISO (stronger reduction as the ISO rises), you may not need to touch the NR section at all in your normal workflow, which saves you time. OTOH, the plugins offer many more controls you can tweak to confine the effect by color, tonal range, channel, etc. It is also a little faster to use a separate layer (which you can mask) with a plugin than opening two virtual copies from LR and combining them in PS. So the plugins make it easier to fine tune the process, which comes in handy at times.

Since I started using ACR 6.x, I use Noiseware far less often than I used to. But for difficult images, I would not want do without it. I imagine the same would be true with Topaz. Sometime better means faster, sometimes it means accuracy.

pathfinder

NoiseWare still reigns supreme in my hands, but it is only available in a 32bit plug in, hence not available for 64bit versions of CS5 and LR3 which is annoying.

The built in noise reduction in LR3/ACR6.+ is pretty good. Good enough that I rarely step out to NW any longer.

DeNoise 5 can really kill noise powerfully, but in my hands it can also really blur images if I use it more than a light touch. Maybe I am not sophisticated enough in it's use, but when I try to use more than light noise reduction with DN5, I find I begin to lose image detail. I still prefer to do serious noise reduction on a selection on an adjustment layer in PS, rather than globally in LR.

pathfinder

I think more important than which is better, is who is using it, and precisely how they use it.

Richard

pathfinder wrote: »

NoiseWare still reigns supreme in my hands, but it is only available in a 32bit plug in, hence not available for 64bit versions of CS5 and LR3 which is annoying.

Just to clarify, this is true for Mac, but not for Vista or Win7. You do need the professional version, not the standard.

sean000

One program does noise removal, and I'm sure does noise removal well... but I haven't tried it. I believe all of their plugins are available on a free-trial basis. This is also true for LR3. The other program, LR3, does much more (but also costs much more I suppose).

Definitely try out the demos of everything you are interested in and see what works best for you. Don't just go by sample images, because you never know how much time and expertise is required to get the same results. You might find that you like what a product can do, but hate the interface or workflow requirements. I've been using Noiseware with Photoshop CS4 and purchased Lightroom 3. Personally I find that it is faster and easier to get better results with LR3 than with Noiseware, but I'm sure that I'm not as good with Noiseware as some are. Noiseware has more options than LR3's details and noise reduction panel, but I'm just finding it easier to get more detail with less noise (and fewer noise reduction or sharpening artifacts) using LR3. And compared to Adobe Camera RAW for CS4 (Camera RAW 5.6 I believe) the newer Camera RAW engine (6.3?) for LR3 is easily a stop cleaner noise-wise just using the default settings. With the older version of Camera RAW I have a lot more chroma noise to clean up (at least with my Panasonic GF1 files shot at ISO 1600 or 3200). I can open the same file in LR3 and there is almost no chroma noise, but still plenty of detail. I sometimes leave luminance noise alone (or even add a little grain to make it look less digital), or I apply just a bit of luminance noise reduction until I get the balance of detail and noise reduction that I want. Your mileage may vary with the camera, but using LR3 on my GF1 RAW files is practically like getting a camera upgrade. The difference isn't as dramatic with my Nikon D200 files, because those have very little chroma noise anyway. I used to consider my D200 to be about a stop or so better at high ISO than my GF1, but LR3 has elevated my GF1 to be much closer to my D200. But again I probably could get similar results with other NR software. I just know the LR3 default settings are a dramatic improvement, which is great from a workflow perspective.

But by all means download the demos before you decide. There is no point in purchasing LR3 unless you plan to use it for organizing and developing your photos, and for that purpose I have never tried better software. If you do want LR3 for organization, then see how things go using its built-in noise reduction before spending more on a 3rd party product.

MarkR

Whatever you choose, remember that nr is most effective as close to the beginning of your workflow as you can put it. For me, that means in raw, whenever possible. Any competent raw converter (LR, Aperture, etc.) will put the noise reduction in the proper order in the pipeline. If you need to use a 3rd party solution, you will probably want to turn off sharpening, (you don't want to sharpen noise!) export to tiff, apply noise reduction, then apply the rest of your editing flow to the tiff. See this post from TopazLabs for more information.

Of course, the advantage of a 3rd party solution is that you can do the work on a second layer and apply selective noise reduction through a mask.

A few raw converters (Bibble, Aperture, Lightzone) allow you to apply noise reduction to the raw file based on specified regions, or in the case of LightZone, by color and tonal area as well.

colourbox

MarkR wrote: »

Whatever you choose, remember that nr is most effective as close to the beginning of your workflow as you can put it. For me, that means in raw, whenever possible. Any competent raw converter (LR, Aperture, etc.) will put the noise reduction in the proper order in the pipeline. If you need to use a 3rd party solution, you will probably want to turn off sharpening, (you don't want to sharpen noise!) export to tiff, apply noise reduction, then apply the rest of your editing flow to the tiff.

This to me is why Lightroom (or ACR6) is a better solution for most images. When you use Lightroom/ACR noise reduction, you get two advantages: It's in the raw pipeline, and the file size penalty is zero. If you chose not to get Lightroom and you want to noise-reduce every photo with a plug-in, then they all have to be diverted out of the raw workflow through the extra TIFF step, which affects the workflow negatively by adding complexity in the form of extra steps, and uses up an astronomically higher amount of disk space and processing time if you have shoots of 250 20-megapixel frames all getting converted to 16-bit TIFF just to get at the noise reduction.

The best solution, if you can afford it, is to use Lightroom for as many images as possible, and on the few images that have bigger noise problems than Lightroom can handle, take them aside and use a plug-in like Topaz or manual NR techniques in Photoshop. That would be the best balance of workflow efficiency and NR power.

sean000

MarkR wrote: »

Of course, the advantage of a 3rd party solution is that you can do the work on a second layer and apply selective noise reduction through a mask.

A few raw converters (Bibble, Aperture, Lightzone) allow you to apply noise reduction to the raw file based on specified regions, or in the case of LightZone, by color and tonal area as well.

That's one advantage to other products I forgot to mention. When I use Noiseware with Photoshop I can use a mask to apply noise reduction only where it is needed, but I'm only going to give that much attention to a small percentage of photos. For the rest it's just easier to rely on LR3. It would be nice if LR3 let you apply noise reduction selectively. Hopefully they will add some kind of option to the adjustment brush tool. I would also like to be able to adjust HSL selectively using the tool (instead of just overall saturation).

TheCheesehead

Thanks for the replies! I have both programs, but not sure how to conduct a fair test on both programs...say outputing a jpeg for comparison sake.

pathfinder

colourbox wrote: »

This to me is why Lightroom (or ACR6) is a better solution for most images. When you use Lightroom/ACR noise reduction, you get two advantages: It's in the raw pipeline, and the file size penalty is zero. If you chose not to get Lightroom and you want to noise-reduce every photo with a plug-in, then they all have to be diverted out of the raw workflow through the extra TIFF step, which affects the workflow negatively by adding complexity in the form of extra steps, and uses up an astronomically higher amount of disk space and processing time if you have shoots of 250 20-megapixel frames all getting converted to 16-bit TIFF just to get at the noise reduction.

The best solution, if you can afford it, is to use Lightroom for as many images as possible, and on the few images that have bigger noise problems than Lightroom can handle, take them aside and use a plug-in like Topaz or manual NR techniques in Photoshop. That would be the best balance of workflow efficiency and NR power.

Yup, I agree.

All my images flow through LR3 first ( except for HDRs via Photomatix ) and hence all get a taste of noise reduction in LR3 early in the Raw conversion. Only after that is done, would I consider additional noise remedies like NW or DeNoise5, etc.

The question is not either/or, but LR3, or LR3 + a second shot at noise reduction in Photoshop via NW or DeNoise5.

MarkR

TheCheesehead wrote: »

Thanks for the replies! I have both programs, but not sure how to conduct a fair test on both programs...say outputing a jpeg for comparison sake.

If you have both, why do you need to compare them? Just use each to maximum effect, such as the workflow described by Colourbox earlier in this thread.

Richard

pathfinder wrote: »

The question is not either/or, but LR3, or LR3 + a second shot at noise reduction in Photoshop via NW or DeNoise5.

Usually true for me as well, but one exception is when I get desperate and push the ISO up to 6400 or 12800 on my 50D. At that point, there is usually so much noise that I need a more finely targeted approach if I'm going to preserve any detail at all. In that case, a first pass through ACR NR can complicate the problem.

TheCheesehead

MarkR wrote: »

If you have both, why do you need to compare them? Just use each to maximum effect, such as the workflow described by Colourbox earlier in this thread.

Ok, I guess I should use a shot, one of my hockey shots, export a tiff file (0 luminance, 0 color, and 0 sharpening) then run it through PSE 9 with DeN 5. Then run the same pic through LR 3, but first adjust color, then lum, then sharpen, then export a jpeg and post both here. I'll see if I can do that tomorrow.

Eddy

Topaz 5.
Well i tired Topaz before i bought worked fine on Win7 32 bit, so i purchased it after the trial, that's when i ran into hellish problems . I have CS5 and downloaded the 64 bit version which they say works but , mmm but whne i went to use it whether it was in 32 or 64 bit i kept getting a corrupt error, the installer was not installing the program properly Long story short gave up on it until they finally bough out the proper installer.I still get that error. and still have some outstanding issues for them to work . waiting in vain

pathfinder

Richard wrote: »

Usually true for me as well, but one exception is when I get desperate and push the ISO up to 6400 or 12800 on my 50D. At that point, there is usually so much noise that I need a more finely targeted approach if I'm going to preserve any detail at all. In that case, a first pass through ACR NR can complicate the problem.

In my understanding, Richard, the noise reduction technology in LR3, and ACR 6.+ are the same. I guess I don't completely grasp what you are saying.
I do agree that ISO 6400 and 12800 are entirely in another world, that I very rarely visit, so I have little experience dealing with noise at those places. I was shooting ISO 1600 last night with just a dollop of flash, and it is astounding how nice they can look with modern cameras ( DSLRs, not P&Ss )

Do most of those image end up as B&W's perhaps? There is not usually much real color when it is that dark out, is there?

Richard

pathfinder wrote: »

In my understanding, Richard, the noise reduction technology in LR3, and ACR 6.+ are the same. I guess I don't completely grasp what you are saying.
I do agree that ISO 6400 and 12800 are entirely in another world, that I very rarely visit, so I have little experience dealing with noise at those places. I was shooting ISO 1600 last night with just a dollop of flash, and it is astounding how nice they can look with modern cameras ( DSLRs, not P&Ss )

Do most of those image end up as B&W's perhaps? There is not usually much real color when it is that dark out, is there?

I rarely shoot above ISO 3200 and try not go beyond 1600, but sometimes a noisy shot is better than no shot at all. And yes, many of those shots end up B&W, where noise (bug) can be considered grain (feature) .

ACR and LR use the same core software for raw conversion, and both work very well when noise is limited. At very high ISO, most of the noise appears in the red and/or blue channels, so I like to focus on those with the hope that detail from the green channel will not be degraded too much. I haven't studied the matter with any rigor, but my impression is that Adobe's raw NR does not make these distinctions as well as Noiseware, which lets you fine tune by channel, tonal range and frequency. I believe that doing two passes--one in ACR/LR and another in Noiseware--gives inferior results to a single Noiseware pass because the detail you lose in the first pass is gone forever and you might have been able to save some of it. So I have configured my ACR defaults to turn off all NR and sharpening when the ISO goes above 3200, with the understanding that I will have to deal with it manually. I do occasionally use two passes, but only when I discover noise late in the game and don't feel like starting over.

Clear as mud?

pathfinder

I agree that the noise is frequently greatest in the blue channel, and if you are going to B&W you may not even want/need the blue channel. So I see the wisdom of your approach via NoiseWare and its ability to work channel by channel, as opposed to global noise reduction in ACR/LR. Interesting idea.

Have you tried shooting in camera B&W with RAW + jpg, and compared your results to those from the in camera jpg. I never have, but I wonder how Canon approaches noise at those rarified ISOs with B&W images.

Richard

pathfinder wrote: »

Have you tried shooting in camera B&W with RAW + jpg, and compared your results to those from the in camera jpg. I never have, but I wonder how Canon approaches noise at those rarified ISOs with B&W images.

No, I haven't tried it and frankly, I don't see much reason to. We already know that camera produced B&W is rarely as successful as what we can do ourselves in post even with low noise images. So it's hard to imagine that the algorithms will be more successful when there's lots of noise. Maybe someday the software will be smarter than we are, but I think we're going to have to wait a good long time for that.

colourbox

Richard wrote: »

I rarely shoot above ISO 3200 and try not go beyond 1600, but sometimes a noisy shot is better than no shot at all. And yes, many of those shots end up B&W, where noise (bug) can be considered grain (feature) .

Absolutely. I converted some mid-ISO (800-1600) 7D shots to B&W in Lightroom and was surprised to find that I did not want to apply any Luminance noise reduction at all. I actually liked the B&W texture better with the noise, instead of smoothing it out to a digital gloss.

TheCheesehead

TheCheesehead wrote: »

Ok, I guess I should use a shot, one of my hockey shots, export a tiff file (0 luminance, 0 color, and 0 sharpening) then run it through PSE 9 with DeN 5. Then run the same pic through LR 3, but first adjust color, then lum, then sharpen, then export a jpeg and post both here. I'll see if I can do that tomorrow.

OK, here are my two shots. This was shot with an EOS1D Mark IIN, with a 70-200 2.8LIS @ 78MM, 2.8, 1/50, ISO 800.

Here's the Topaz 5 version, which I like better. This is at 100%. I exported a Tiff to PSE 9 with 0 sharpening, 0 luminence, and 0 color. The Denoise setting was at the Jpeg Strong preset (there isn't a tiff preset). After I applied the DeNoise, I sharpened with the unsharp mask 140%, radius 2, threshold 8. I watched the helmet cage for haloing and stopped.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5044/5330921297_7fb72695e7_o.jpg

Heres the LR 3.3 version. Luminance 22, Color 34, sharpening 97, radius 1.1
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5205/5331532454_220c3cb57d_o.jpg

Probably not a very scientific comparison, but magnified I like the Topaz version a bit better. Your thoughts/comments are appreciated.

MarkR

The first one seems to have better/more sharpening, but in terms of NR, I don't see much difference between the two.

TheCheesehead

MarkR wrote: »

The first one seems to have better/more sharpening, but in terms of NR, I don't see much difference between the two.

Yeah, I agree. Seems to be more haloing in the LR sharpening. I wonder if the sharpening tool (unsharp mask) in PSE is better than using the sharpening in LR3, which is essentially camera raw sharpening...

catspaw

bumping this over here since a friend did an excellent blog post about LR's, Nik software and Topaz for noise reduction. check it out!

http://www.daviddanielsphotography.com/blog/2011/05/noise-reduction-software-showdown-moab-edition/

ps. Topaz won that round

NormanPCN

I have used Neat Image (for many years), ACR6 (same engine as LR3) and Topaz DeNoise 5 (recently).

DeNoise 5 is the best at getting the strongest noise reduction while still preserving low contrast details. I typically don't noise reduce quite that far. DeNoise 5 is seriously slow. I use the 64-bit version on Windows 7. It does work as a smart filter for non-destructive use should you so desire.

The Adobe engine (ACR6, LR3) is frighteningly good for almost no speed penalty. This is what I normally use, given it fits into the RAW workflow so trivially and non-destructively and is friggin fast. DeNoise usually only gets dusted off for really noisy shots like 7D ISO 3200/6400 shots.

NeatImage I just don't use anymore with the above two options.