How to sharpen after Noise Ninja

DodgeV83

Ok, just bought Noise Ninja and I'm trying to figure out when to use it when I'm sharpening.

Here are some samples I'm working with (close crop of a bigger file)

1. The original


2. The picture after Noise Ninja


3. The original picture sharpened (no Noise Ninja)


4. The picture after Noise Ninja and same sharpening settings



The picture after Noise Ninja (#2) looks very good to me, not much different than the original but good. The sharpened picture (#3) looks alittle over sharpened, but in print it looks much better than the original. There is an issue with noise though, the area to the left of the head shows this clearly.

My problem is with #4. Even though the Noise Ninja'd photo doesn't look MUCH different than the original, after sharpening there is a HUGE difference. It looks sharp and there is no noise...but there is a PLASTICY feel to it (especially around the noise and lips). Did I just sharpen it too much, or is there something more I need to know about sharpening pictures after Noise Ninja?

Andy

DodgeV83 wrote:

Ok, just bought Noise Ninja and I'm trying to figure out when to use it when I'm sharpening.

Here are some samples I'm working with (close crop of a bigger file)

1. The original


2. The picture after Noise Ninja


3. The original picture sharpened (no Noise Ninja)


4. The picture after Noise Ninja and same sharpening settings



The picture after Noise Ninja (#2) looks very good to me, not much different than the original but good. The sharpened picture (#3) looks alittle over sharpened, but in print it looks much better than the original. There is an issue with noise though, the area to the left of the head shows this clearly.

My problem is with #4. Even though the Noise Ninja'd photo doesn't look MUCH different than the original, after sharpening there is a HUGE difference. It looks sharp and there is no noise...but there is a PLASTICY feel to it (especially around the noise and lips). Did I just sharpen it too much, or is there something more I need to know about sharpening pictures after Noise Ninja?

I have to tell you that I stopped using Noise Ninja et. al. about a year ago. In order to work, they have to wreck pixels. Wreck the file. You shoot Canon, that noise is rarely objectionable, and in most cases equal to what you have from film in the "old days" of SLR and 35mm film.

My advice? Don't use NN or any.

DodgeV83

I probably did not need to Noise Ninja the photo. The program has a default for the Rebel XT at ISO 400 and I wanted to test it out. After I shoot a few hundred pictures I want to just batch process all of them in Noise Ninja, without having to go through and pick and choose only the high ISO ones. I thought I could do that with Noise Ninja, since it'll only apply alittle filtering to the ISO 400 pics...your saying my assumption is wrong? How do you correct the noisy ISO 1600 pictures then?

About the sharpening...I may have sharpened too much. The picture printed at 4x6 came out well though, excluding the very slight plasticy feel, if I didn't know to look for it I might not have seen it...i dunno. Here is the zoomed out picture both before and after Noise Ninja and Sharpening.





Does it still look oversharpened here?

DodgeV83

BTW: I used the Edge Mask Detailed sharpening method from this site

http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/sharpen5/sharpen5.htm

Andy

DodgeV83 wrote:

your saying my assumption is wrong? How do you correct the noisy ISO 1600 pictures then?

When I shoot ISO 1600, 3200, I rarely will try and remove the noise. Properly exposed, ISO1600 on a newish Canon, won't need it, IMO.

ISO 3200, no noise reduction. And you can look at the 100% crop in the caption.
http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1134620/1/53163544/Large

ginger_55

if I screw up and don't expose right on, or something. if for any reason I use noise ninja, it never occurred to me to sharpen afterwards. In fact, I have been known to turn off the sharpen thing on noise ninja. (I work the entire photo up before using NN, I save that, too.) So I have both and can use whichever one I want. That means I have already sharpened it, not a lot, but enough, and any more sharpening is terrible. That last photo of yours, the plastic example, it looks over sharpened on top of everything else.

I also use the noise ninja "third step" where I erase the NN from areas that I want to. Definitely the eyes, and you could try erasing it from the whole face.

I use it about once every two months, smile. Some here use it, some don't. Sometimes it serves my purpose to use it, but with a very light hand. And it never occurred to me to sharpen afterwards.

ginger

Mark Horn

DodgeV83 wrote:

BTW: I used the Edge Mask Detailed sharpening method from this site

http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/sharpen5/sharpen5.htm

I read this article and whilst I agree with most of it there is a bit about large images requiring more sharpening than small. This needs to be treated carefully! The image will need to be resampled (up or down) to the output size for this to be the case. Bruce Fraser in his article described basically the same technique and suggests that sharpening halo's of between 1/50 and 1/100 of an inch are appropriate. I have found this to be the case. If you work on the file at full size and then print to a smaller size then more sharpening may be required for a smaller image than a large image because the smaller size print reduces the halo width. This, therefore, means that the amount or radius for the sharpening in a large out put of an image is actually less not more, otherwise the halos become to wide and the image will look over sharpened. A large image does need to be sharper (better focus and better lens) but USM - whatever the method should be treated carefully. Sharpening in LAB on the L channel with variation as per Rutt's thread for seperate control over the light and dark halo's is possibly a better method than the above. In addition Hiraloam sharpening per Dan Margulis (another LAB mode sharpening method) can achieve amazing results for the right image

Khaos

I use noise ninja primarily on people shots, mostly in low lighting with no flash. People tend to prefer the softer look and at times the shot even looks sharper after noise ninja. It's worked great for dance competition shooting. Other than that, I rely on proper exposure.

Ric Grupe

Andy wrote:

My advice? Don't use NN or any.

No need for it! (post 828 days )

I used to use it on a mask of the sky....now I prefer a little gaussian blur instead.