What noise removal do you use, and why?

[jaymrobinson]

What noise removal do you use, and why?

[lostdoggy]

Neat Image, cause it's easier for me to use then Noise Ninja. Presently testng out DxO.

[jfrancho]

I use noise ninja, but I create surface masks to protect the details.

[tim]

I use the same one I said the last ten times this question was asked, for the same reasons I outlined, with links to the same reviews.

[cmM]

none, cause I like noise :D

I do have NeatImage however ;)

[cataclysmcow]

Noise Ninja. A large part of my shots are long exposures (rarely use high ISOs) and I find that the custom profiling with Noise Ninja works very well with what I shoot. It's even taken out the hot pixels very reliably which I've never seen advertised by NN. I've used others and I know they've received better reviews, but NN works great for me.

[goatee]

I use Noise Ninja and use layer masks in Photoshop to mask off areas rather than the masks offered in Noise Ninja. It's easy to use once you get used to the interface, and is pretty good - plus their pricing is competetive, and should you want to upgrade to a more expensive version, you only ever pay the difference in price between your version and the one you want to upgrade to - even though I have the most expensive one, it's reassuring.

[TimothyFarrar]

The best form of noise removal is to avoid it in the first place. Develop a high dynamic range blended exposure. Say you are tring to shoot this scene,

http://www.farrarfocus.com/m/20050920-002T.jpg

There is no way even at ISO 100 to capture this shot without too much noise. Either you get noise or you loose all your highlights. Look at the 100% crop below, can noise reduction fix this problem?

http://www.farrarfocus.com/ffdd/img/example4d.jpg

Nope! But use some type of high dynamic range blending (HDR without HDR artifacts) and look, natural noise removal,

http://www.farrarfocus.com/ffdd/img/example4c.jpg

[jfrancho]

HDR doesn't work real well for sports and event photography.

[Pete]

Imagenomic Noiseware for me. Quick and easy and gives good enough results for the web.

[goatee]

Timothy - that's not altogether helpful - it's true for situations where your subject is still. If you are shooting people or animals, or you don't / can't use a tripod, then you will get noise.

[cfcRebel]

I shoot mostly birdlife, wildlife. I don't use any noise reduction program. I try my best to expose it right, use flash whenever i can. When i shoot at ISO800 or higher, i notice some noise but not enough to require noise reduction, so far. :) Canon has done a great job minimizing noise in their dSLR.

[TimothyFarrar]

Timothy - that's not altogether helpful - it's true for situations where your subject is still. If you are shooting people or animals, or you don't / can't use a tripod, then you will get noise.

Exactly, it is only helpfull for those who can bracket on a tripod!

You would have to be nuts to try and bracket at a football game!

For single shots, I just add film grain to mask the noise. Digital noise looks bad, reducing noise on a high noise digital shot can look worse (detail gets smudged, etc), while high ISO film grain has a really nice feel to it.

[JMHPhotography]

Actually, if you shoot RAW format the exposure lattitude expands quite a bit. When they say that you're in danger of blowing highlights using digital capture, they are referring only to JPEG. I've found that I get the BEST results if I make the image appear a little too bright on my LCD... pushing the histogram to the right of center... but not so far as to burn out the highlights completely. Then using my RAW conversion software, I back off the exposure to where it should be normally, and I notice that MOST of the noise I normally saw in the shadows dissapear, and it looks great. When I do need noise reduction, I use Neat Image... the reason is that it has so many GREAT canned profiles so it makes it really easy to use.

[red hot sheep]

I use the same one I said the last ten times this question was asked, for the same reasons I outlined, with links to the same reviews.

Not helpful. It would have taken you no longer to actually telling the OP which software you used and why. This took just as long and is no help.

[jfrancho]

Not helpful. It would have taken you no longer to actually telling the OP which software you used and why. This took just as long and is no help.You're no help either :) Which one do you use?

[red hot sheep]

At least I wasn't rude :)

I use neat image. You can download the basic version for free - so why not give it a go? It seems to work very well for me, producing some very clean ISO 3200 shots.

[Screamer]

Not helpful. It would have taken you no longer to actually telling the OP which software you used and why. This took just as long and is no help.

I think the point was to expose this thing called "Search". One seach instance is a single transaction on a SQL server (what this forum runs on). Having everybody spew out their preference for the umpteenth time, only creates more transactions, for the information that was already there.

[learjet035]

I use the same one I said the last ten times this question was asked, for the same reasons I outlined, with links to the same reviews.
NICE!!!! How bout a link, without the comments.....

[Double Negative]

I used to use ACR, but have recently made the switch to Noise Ninja. In my (thus far) limited experience with it, it works wonders. Once you download/install the profiles for your particular camera it gets even better. The price is reasonable, too. Highly recommended!

http://www.picturecode.com/

[jfrancho]

I still use the NR in ACR, but with very conservative settings - smoothing at 5-12, noise at 2-5. If you zoom into 400%, you can see the benefit of the settings, though impact on the final image is probably negligible. I still try to add quality at every step of the workflow, even if that one thing isn't much; sum the parts.....

[Sarouk]

I have Noise Ninja and Noiseware. Both with standalone and the PS CS1 plug-in. I'm using Noiseware more often. I like the result better.

[joayne]

A simple search of the forum brought up several threads asking the same question.....I use Noise Ninja or Neat Image. Here is a very well written tutorial (found on this forum, using search) by Scottes

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=48929

[Green-Bowler]

How? high dynamic range blending (HDR without HDR artifacts) an explanation for us dummies would be great, many thanks

John