Best tool for noise reduction ...

FedEx

Hi ,
I was CS4 and can reduce noise (on RAW files) fairly well ...
was reading very good reviews on noise ninja , does it deal with noise
better then CS4 ?

is it worth it ?

oshead

Noise Ninja is good, though best in class IMO and many others is Noiseware Pro.

Borderfox

Best way to reduce noise is to shoot 2/3rds over and bring it back in PS, I shoot events at really high ISO and always shoot 2/3rds over and in jpeg they are clean as a whistle

FedEx

What would the best way to use it ? do my CS4 raw work and then apply noiseware pro or noise ninja on the finished JPG ? -

or work on the RAW (.cr2) on CS4 and then work on the same cr2 with NJ/NWP ?

oshead

Noiseware Pro is a plugin that runs inside Photoshop. There is a standalone version too. I use the plugin version and usually apply it as the first step when opening the file up in PS. You can download a trial version here.

FedEx

but if i use a standalone, i can edit the cr2 directly ?? and then do further modifcations on CS4 ?

oshead

You can't/don't edit the CR2 file. What would be the point in that? From Camera Raw or Lightroom you don't actually edit the RAW file. You just make adjustments to parameters that specify how the image is displayed in that program. You can then open up a copy of the parameterized image in Photoshop and make more changes, ie noise reduction etc. When finished save it off in whatever file format you like. All the while preserving the original CR2 file for posterity.

swingking

Borderfox wrote: »

Best way to reduce noise is to shoot 2/3rds over and bring it back in PS, I shoot events at really high ISO and always shoot 2/3rds over and in jpeg they are clean as a whistle

sorry when you say this do you mean that you shoot 2/3rds overexposed.

Would you not lose detail in that case?

oshead

swingking wrote: »

sorry when you say this do you mean that you shoot 2/3rds overexposed.

Would you not lose detail in that case?

It's all swings and roundabouts really. If you overexpose an image by a stop you'll generally have less noise to deal with. But, The question to this would be, if you are up in the high ISO levels and overexposing by a stop, would you not be better off dropping the ISO down a stop and exposing normally? On the face of it, it dosn't seem to make much sense but, apparently it works. The theory being something like this. By overexposing by one stop (exposing to the right on the histogram) you are maxmizing the data bandwidth of the camera and thus reducing the signal to noise ratio (S/N) of the image. Try it yourself to make your own mind up about it. Jury is still out IMO.

Borderfox

The proof is in the shots, try it yourself.

swingking

Thanks for the simple explanation. I'll definitely give that a try

FedEx

I was using noiseware pro on a pic i took ... and to be honest even with max strength i couldn't notice much of a difference between noise reductions....

i must post a before and after ...

kumate_champ07

nikon d3s

houseoffun14

As others have said Noiseware Pro in my opinion is the best

kumate_champ07

I dont use any on my 1d mk2 for iso1600, well a tiny bit of color noise reduction in lightroom, it just robs too much detail imo
I dont like the cartoony high iso photos, I'd rather have the noise and keep some detail