Noise reduction - where in your workflow?

For images that require noise reduction some sources advocate applying the NR as the very first step (prior to brightness/color adjustments) in the PP workflow, others say to do it just before (or even after) final output sharpening. There's also the issue of whether its preferable to reduce noise while still in the RAW converter (ACR/Lightroom/DPP etc.), or whether to perform it after conversion - in Photoshop CSx/Elements/ or whatever.

Thoughts or observations from those well experienced in addressing noise reduction would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Pete

First, I should say that my workflow is virtually exclusively Raw -- the great majority of my images that I put out for the Web, printing, sharing, etc go straight from my Raw converter (Lightroom, although I also have Photoshop/ACR and DPP) to a "finished" jpeg (I also print from LR).

So, I've done my Noise Reduction and Sharpening in Lightroom for a long time. It may not be the very best, but for my needs it is almost always sufficient, and with LR3/CS5 it only gets better.

I should say that I shoot a lot at ISO 1600 and even though I have two bodies that perform well in high ISOs I still do apply a touch of NR at that level and above -- ISO 800 and below not so much (although there have been occasions where I needed to amp up a shot and some noise showed).

I don't have anything against the specialized noise reduction programs -- in fact I've owned Noise Ninja for some time and I've also been interested in the results people have been getting from other apps, but my Raw workflow is just flat-out efficient for me without resorting to outside editors and the resulting extra files you have to work with.

Of course, Your (and others') mileage "may vary"!

Like Tony, I'm a fan of Raw noise reduction, and I think some people overlook it too readily. For raw files, I always use that as my first, and often only, noise reduction method.

But a lot of my work is jpeg-based, so for times that I need noise reduction thereon, I use the free "Community Edition" of Noiseware, and it suits my needs adequately.

To answer your question ... when I'm a good boy, and use a correct "non-destructive" (I hate that term) layer-based workflow, it doesn't matter when I use noise reduction. Maybe I'll run it at the beginning, then go ahead and edit with adjustment layers; or maybe I'll do my editing with all my adjustment layers, then decide it needs NR, so return to the Background layer and run the NR. Either way, it's performed at the bottom of the layer stack, and is easily adjustable or reversible.

Thank you both for your comments. Given the local adjustment tools (adjustment brush, graduated filter, etc.) now in ACR 5.x, I find myself spending less (if any) time in Photoshop CS4 proper. Apparently I'm not alone in that regard, and can add noise reduction to those tasks to be done in Raw.

I don't have Lightroom at this time, but in trying out the LR3 beta I found the NR adjustments in the beta to be much more powerful than any other RAW NR tools I have on hand. Hopefully Adobe will include the upgraded NR tools in the next ACR update that can be used in CS4 - but I won't hold my breath.

When NR is still needed on a JPEG the tip about doing so at the bottom of the layer stack is a good one - thanks Damien.

I understand many photographers prefer to do noise reduction but I prefer to do it somewhere in my workforce, usually after raw adjustment. This is mainly due to the fact that I rarely sharpen or noise adjust the whole image but prefer to do so in layers. This allows me to control the amount of sharpening and noise reduction depending on the needs of the image. For instance, I may not sharpen the sky thus avoiding those sharpening artifacts and apply heavy noise reduction smoothing out that area of the pic. Trees, grass, naturally noisy objects dont need noise reduction but might look better of sharpened. So much depends on the image itself and the subject matter.