Noise reduction with 300d images

[willg]

Just got my 300d and I love how I can shoot in iso 1600, but of course I don't like the noise...I have Neat Image and it seems to do a good job, but I am just curious as to what everyone else uses to reduce noise

[xdjoynerx]

neat image, and noise ninja are the best that i have used.

neat image is really the best

especially when configured properly, and using a good profile.

[willg]

using a good profile? i just let it do the image automatically...any tips??

[tim]

Have a read of this review (http://www.michaelalmond.com/Articles/noise_print.html). I'll be buying noise ninja as a photoshop plugin when I get around to it. Neat Image is pretty good but slow, Noiseware is much faster and they have a free version.

[Jesper]

I have Neat Image (the Pro+ version), and I use it as a plug-in in Photoshop CS. It can do amazing things, especially if you carefully tweak the filter settings.

I almost always make a custom profile for each photo I want to filter instead of using one of the canned profiles for my camera - in my experience, a custom profile gives better results.

There is not so much difference in the performance (I mean, the quality of the results) of the different noise removal programs - I chose Neat Image because at the time I bought it, it was the only program that could work as a Photoshop plug-in (I think the others can do that too now) and with Neat Image I had the feeling I had more control over the results than with Noise Ninja.

You can download try out versions of each of the programs and find out which one suits you best.

[robertwgross]

I use Neat Image, with a profile generated for each individual image.

---Bob Gross---

[JBillings]

I've been using neatimage too. I typically shoot my 20 D at ISO 3200 and the 300 D at 1600, when shooting in door basketball games (5th grade girls) with the 70-200 L IS. Granted the images are initially very grainy.

Neatimage is able to clean up the noise and sharpen the image, greatly. I just delivered some 13" x 19" prints off my Canon I9900 that showed very little, if any noise. Needless to say my niece thinks I'm a hero....plenty of reason to plop down the $$ for the L IS. And Neatimage is certainly priced right too.

[maderito]

Just got my 300d and I love how I can shoot in iso 1600, but of course I don't like the noise...I have Neat Image and it seems to do a good job, but I am just curious as to what everyone else uses to reduce noise

If you use the default output settings in Neat Image (NI), you get too much noise reduction IMO. At first you are impressed since the improvement is so dramatic. The more closely you look and the more you understand how noise reduction works, you realize that there is always a trade off between removing noise and retaining detail. I find the default settings remove too much detail.

Getting the noise profile right can be very important on some shots. Unfortunately, NI (and other similar software) doesn't give a clear explanation of how to develop a good profile for each image. Only after trial and error coupled with reading and re-reading the documentation, I finally figured out what's going on. Developing noise profiles can be painless and relatively automated or it can require some real understanding of what's going on under the hood. It depends on the image.

NI and NN have excellent and customizable sharpening functions. Again -- you have to figure out how to use them properly to get good results.

I agree with Jesper. All of the products work fairly well - especially NI and Noise Ninja (NN). If you handle a lot of high ISO images, it's worth learning the intricacies of either application. For casual work, it is perhaps easiest to use the defaul settings, perform the noise reduction in Photoshop on a separate layer, and then adjust the layer opacity to blend in the result with the background image so that you get an acceptable result. I don't like this approach since I see no reason for retaining any color noise (as opposed to luminance noise) which can be safely and efficiently removed by all the good programs.

I know people are inclined to recommend simpler and less expensive alternatives to NI and NN. These products do, in fact, work just fine if you don't want to dedicate your life to noise reduction perfection. In particular, a lot of satisfaction has been expressed for the product Noiseware by Imogenomic (http://www.imagenomic.com/) .