Noise reduction plug in

[Alex]

Which plug in would you recommend: Noise Ninja or Neat Image?

Thanks
Alex

[robw25]

i havent used noise ninja but... i know neat image works if you dont "overdo" it ..... like i used to

cheers rob

[Alex]

Thanks for this, Rob. I use NN at the moment and I am not very happy with the plastic look it sometimes gives me.

Will try neat image next time.

Alex

[robw25]

yes thats what i meant when i said "if you dont overdo it " i got that plasticy look...

cheers rob

[KerryPierce]

FWIW, I use and like both Noise Ninja and Noiseware Pro. Both are very fast and give excellent results if you don't go overboard. Noiseware is kinda cool in that it also puts the ISO in the proper EXIF tag when it's done processing the file too.

[Alex]

Thanks Kerri,

Never seen Noiseware. Do you use Autoprofile in NN?

Alex

[KerryPierce]

Thanks Kerri,

Never seen Noiseware. Do you use Autoprofile in NN?

Alex

Hi Alex,

Noiseware can be found here.

I don't use noise reduction very often, so can't recall precisely what I do with NN. It has the d70 profiles that you can use and I think the auto profile works okay, IIRC. You just can't overdo it.

The nice thing about a plugin is that you can use layers to control the noise reduction, which is what I would normally do. If you goof the exposure by underexposing a lot, the noise will likely be severe. In such cases, I'd use layers with heavy NR on the background and, depending on the subject, lighter NR in layers on the subject.

By using layers to do this, you can vary the opacity of the layer and/or erase different parts of the layer to achieve the results you want.

[MattC]

I know that this is taking the thread a little sideways, but thought I would mention it anyway.

ACR3 has a fairly reasonable noise reduction ability. PSCS2 also has a new noise reduction filter which allows per channel noise reduction and operates in a 16 bit enviornment. First impressions have been quite favourable as I have been able to clean up a couple of images (by adjusting the red channel in my cases) that I considered a total loss without losing too much detail.

Cheers

Matt

[Alex]

Matt and Kerry - Thank you.

Kerry - never thought of doing it with layers with changing opacity - very good idea. Will try it next time. I only use NR when I go over ISO800 or when I heavily crop.

Alex