Noise Reduction Software

joeinmiami · April 4, 2008

Hello there!

I have been looking for a good noise redution software, and I have found three that seems to be popular with photographers: Noisewear, Neat Image, and Noise Ninja. The prices for all three are about the same. I also have Adober Elements 5.0.

Which noise reduction software should I use? I shoot in raw and jpeg.
:clap
Thanks all of you for you help.

Joe

www.jlm-photos.com

ziggy53 · April 4, 2008

I purchased Neat Image partly from reviews, partly for the interface (which i like) and partly because I think it does a better job with scanned film images.

On digital images they are all decent software and produce tremendous improvement against high-ISO noise.

Don't base your decision on the output from the demo version of Neat Image because it's based on a much older engine. The new engine is really amazing.

luc · April 4, 2008

I have both Neat Image and Noise Ninja. However, today I would be purchasing Noisewear. Although NW is the priciest option, the user interface is ten times better than Neat Image and at least twice as good as NoiseNinja. It is my impression that one of these will work better in a particular image and another denoiser on another image. Choose your poison.

Some people have recommended the new Nik Dfine (very pricey) as the new king of the hill - I have not tried it.

joeinmiami · April 4, 2008

Thanks

Thanks

I did not know about the last one, I need to get intot their web site and take a look at it.

Joe

www.jlm-photos.com

rwells · April 4, 2008

I've only used NoiseNinja, so I can't comment on the others. But my suspect is like already posted. "Pick your poison"

They are all reported to do a good job.

NoiseNinja does have a lot of free camera/noise profiles on their website for download. These are a good starting point, you'll probably wind up tweaking them to your liking though.

I bought the Pro version that includes a stand-alone unit and a PS plugin. The stand-alone unit is useful for batch work, although you can do that also through a PS action.

Good luck

Duffy Pratt · April 5, 2008

I've seen alot of these threads now, and everyone seems to like the one that they have. And when someone has more than one of the three, the preference seems to be fairly random. I don't think you can make a bad choice, and I believe you can try all three for free. So why not make your own test? My guess is that you will like the results from all of them, but will probably prefer one of them for your own reasons.

Duffy

KED · April 6, 2008

joeinmiami wrote:

Hello there!

I have been looking for a good noise redution software, and I have found three that seems to be popular with photographers: Noisewear, Neat Image, and Noise Ninja. The prices for all three are about the same. I also have Adober Elements 5.0.

Which noise reduction software should I use? I shoot in raw and jpeg.

Thanks all of you for you help.

Joe

www.jlm-photos.com

I started with Ninja and switched to Noiseware. Why? Because I can use NW without having to use my brain -- it has an automatic function that is absolutely adequate (and very powerful) for my needs; if ever I need to tweak I still can, but for now it's just a matter of a quick round trip and I'm noise-free.

You have to be a little careful if you are using a Mac - Noiseware standalone is not supported so you need to use it as a PS plug-in. There's actually a whole host of combinations and permutations between Mac/PC and Noiseware Standard vs Pro, but if you can find the right one for you I think you will be happy.

PS -- Randy is right about the camera-specific downloads available from Ninja; Noiseware supposedly "learns" via some AI engine with each image that it processes from a particular camera. Fascinating concept, but al I care about is that it works.

You definitely can't go wrong, and should take advantage of the free trials that all of them offer. Good luck!

pathfinder · April 6, 2008

FWIW, I use Noisewear also, because it gives good results without having to mess with profiles, identifying which camera I shot the file with, what the ISO was etc.

I have Neat Image as well, but rarely use it since installing NoiseWear as a plug in for PSCS 3 on my Mac OS 10.4.11

No matter which software you choose, I strongly suggest doing noise reduction on a copy of the image on an adjustment layer. That way you can mask out areas where you may not want or need noise reduction, and maximize it where you do.

dadwtwins · April 7, 2008

No matter which software you choose, I strongly suggest doing noise reduction on a copy of the image on an adjustment layer. That way you can mask out areas where you may not want or need noise reduction, and maximize it where you do.

What great advice. This helps not to loss the sharpness in eyes, hair and other areas where noise reduction may blur areas you really do not want.

BinaryFx · April 7, 2008

dadwtwins wrote:

What great advice. This helps not to loss the sharpness in eyes, hair and other areas where noise reduction may blur areas you really do not want.

For portraits, using the red channel data for a layer mask and increasing contrast is often a good start before manually painting black/white/gray tones, as half the work is done for you (Elements users may have to use a third party option to access channel data for use as a layer mask, or use a gray version of the colour image instead of the red channel or another creative work around).

While on the general topic, some older links to grain and noise can be found here:

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/links.html#G

Some more recent software that has caught my attention:

http://cimg.sourceforge.net/greycstoration/demonstration.shtml (Freeware)

http://www.topazlabs.com/topazlabs/03products/topaz_vivacity/ (Commercial)

http://www.topazlabs.com/topazlabs/04download/ (Scroll to the foot of the page for a free JPEG repair plug for MS Win, part of Vivacity)

Regards,

Stephen Marsh
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/

claudermilk · April 7, 2008

You have seen that all three have demos available, right? They are all excellent apps that get the job done, the main differences being in the details & UI. I'd suggest downloading all three deoms, and use them--then pick the one that you find to be most comfortable to use.

KED · April 9, 2008

pathfinder wrote:

FWIW, I use Noisewear also, because it gives good results without having to mess with profiles, identifying which camera I shot the file with, what the ISO was etc.

I have Neat Image as well, but rarely use it since installing NoiseWear as a plug in for PSCS 3 on my Mac OS 10.4.11

No matter which software you choose, I strongly suggest doing noise reduction on a copy of the image on an adjustment layer. That way you can mask out areas where you may not want or need noise reduction, and maximize it where you do.

May I ask, where do you use Noiseware in your workflow? They advise right up front (otherwise auto may not work), but I don't like to make a permanent conversion to tiff or psd until I've done all my RAW adjustments in Lightroom. I had no problem with Noiseware adjustments after LR adjustments for a very difficult night shoot recently, except that many of the shots may have come out over-sharpened.

pathfinder · April 9, 2008

NoiseWear, or any of the other de noising software, is used after the image has popped out of the RAW converter. My workflow is via Bridge and ARC to Photoshop. I have not fully embraced LR yet - I have it, but at this point still use Bridge.

I set B&W points in the jpg, and make sure I have no significant edits remaining, and then run Noisewear on a copy of the image in an adjustment layer, so that I can mask out areas that do not need de-noising. Frequently, I limit to sky or other large smooth areas where noise is more apparent due to lack of image detail. Or skin, but not facial features

I definitely do this prior to output sharpening - ( but after capture sharpening in Adobe ARC converter )

At a guess, I use NoiseWear on less than 10% of my images, excluding P&S shots.

Duffy Pratt · April 9, 2008

I would only take care if there were some visible amplification of noise during the RAW processing. Then I would see what steps did the mischief, and get rid of those steps before moving to PS and applying Noiseware.

Duffy

claudermilk · April 10, 2008

That would be part of why I really like Bibble. They have Noise Ninja integrated--a cut-down version for most customers & a more advanced one if you have a NN license (any will work). The noise reduction is aparently done very early in their adjustment pipeline. 99.9% of the time it does an excellent job for me on the no-NN-license version (I really need to get one for more control).

Noise Reduction Software

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