My workflow

[soumya63]

Everyone has his/her workflow and probably no two of them are exactly alike. Let me share mine.

0) Take of CF from Camera and put it into my USB CF reader.

1) Use BreezeBrowser to preview and delete unwanted images from the CF.

2) Use Breezebrowser to convert into non liner 16 bit tiff (In my opinion, it gives me most realistic color).

3) Use Photoshop to do the levels and curves.

4) Crop the picture.

5) Save the cropped tif.

6) Convert it into 8 bit.

7) Use Ultra Sharpen Pro 5.0 to sharp it.

8) Save it using Genuin Fractal 2.0.

9) Reopen the Genuin Fractal file and scale up to compensate the cropping.

10) if some reason I dislike the result, I restart from step 6 by loading the saved tif at 5.

11) Save enlarged image into finished tif folder.

12) Using Breezebrowser, I copy the EXIF information to this finished tif from the original CRW.

13) Also create thumbnail jpg by using Breezebrowser.

14) Burn the tif and thumbnail jpg into CD into catagorized folders.

15) Use Irfanview to browse the thumbnails real quick.

16) Use Arcsoft Photoprint to print images for maximizing Print paper utilization.

[soumya63]

I forgot to add that for removing high ISO noise, I use Neat Image. I bought Fred Miranda's ISO 800 action, but that is incapable of removing all the noise. Moreover, Neat Image is based on more complex technology, where you first provide it a portion of your image containing noise, and it analyses it to figure out the noise level and pattern in different channels, then it uses that information to de-noise your picture. It is a fantastic piece of tool, and that too is free.

The only down side is, it performs complex computations which can be time consuming in slow computers. In my 1.4 GHz Athlon Thunderbird it generally takes 2 minutes to de-noise a picture. But the result is so good that it certainly worth that wait.

[pinfante]

Would it be possible for someone to send me a photo (or direct me to a site) with and without "noise" ? I'm new to this and not really sure what to look for.

Thanks.

-Pat

[soumya63]

This is a closeup of my picture with high ISO noise. Look at the dark region.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/p0742955f9009032800799ddca94fbe99/fdeb415d.jpg

here, the noise is removed by Neat Image

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/pae8665d44bbaafe754fef46323b13a8d/fdeb415a.jpg

Some details gone also. :D