Workflow and Noise Reduction Software

[Jonny]

Guys,

Quick question....at which point in your workflow do you apply noise reduction such as 'Noise Ninja' or 'Neat Image'?

Justy wondering when is the best time to apply it.

Thanks

[KennyG]

First, otherwise you are processing noise.

[EricKonieczny]

I have been shooting a lot of low light events in dance clubs and needed this. I tried Neatimage, Noise ninja, and Noiseware, and found Noiseware the best. If you do not know about it , check it out.

The pro Plug-in is nice but the action set that is a free download is awesome.

http://www.imagenomic.com/download.asp


It is much faster than Noise Ninja and Neat Image, more user friendly, and like you can build profiles.

[Scottes]

I do NR as the very first step - as KennyG said, otherwise you are processing noise. I also believe that one should present the NR software with the "purest" noise possible, so another reason to do it first.

However, others here - post-processers that I trust implicitly - have done tests and say that it doesn't matter. I haven't taken a noisy image in a while so I have not run any tests since this was said.

I'd probably still do it first, unless that final goal was a simple web image - then I might try it near the end, right before sharpening.