Noise Reduction

[colinb]

 Anyone recommend a good programme for noise reduction ? I can't really get on with the noise reduction in CS6, thought I might look at a stand alone product.

[kev7d]

I use Topaz de noise Colin. I find it very good. Take a look at some of the video tutorials on the Topaz Labs web site to get an very good indication of its capabilities.

[Black Pearl]

What is causing your excessive level of noise?

 

[colinb]

What is causing your excessive level of noise?

 

not necessarily excessive BP... moon pictures due to poor light and some of todays Coningsby pictures due to not having time to test settings as I switch between aperture and shutter and the light varying depending on where / what direction the plane in going. 

[Black Pearl]

not necessarily excessive BP... moon pictures due to poor light and some of todays Coningsby pictures due to not having time to test settings as I switch between aperture and shutter and the light varying depending on where / what direction the plane in going. 

Give up on cleaning the moon shots - they are either noisy or a little soft. Not sure what it is about them but it seems standard.

Your others? 
Even at high ISO's if you expose correctly and do very minimal processing noise shouldn't be issue. If the shot has to be 'rescued' then yes you're going to have to deal with it. Personally I've never had PS/LR fail to do a decent job, especially if you output sharpen your file with care.

[FUJI]

TOPAZ DE-NOISE is the best.......it offers many level of noise reduction, it works beautifully every time......this together with an after push with the High Pass Filter works wonders.

FUJI

[Black Pearl]

TOPAZ DE-NOISE is the best.......it offers many level of noise reduction, it works beautifully every time......this together with an after push with the High Pass Filter works wonders.

FUJI

...if you have to rescue a shot.

I know it isn't always possible and a fall-back might be useful but get it right and you don't need any fancy noise reduction software.

[ChrisLumix]

I agree with BP. I think there's little needing to do on a well-exposed shot that's no higher than ISO 3200 (or even 6400 on occasion), where noise shouldn't be a problem.

Having said that, I would try to avoid noise under other circumstances unless it would otherwise mean missing a shot. That's because digital noise is so ugly compared to film grain. There may be a minority of cases where de-noising is necessary and the advice above seems sound.

[Craftysnapper]

Am I right in presuming that most of these plugins/standalone programs do not work on aw images so you are actually working on a  tiff or jpeg that has had the noise baked in.

So fine if you shoot jpeg but I have yet to come acrooss one that does a better job than noise reduction at the raw stage,even ACDSee Ultimate 9 I use deas well with ISO6400 on mft raw images.

Edited October 4, 2015 by OlympusPaul

[FUJI]

My cameras are set on Auto Aperture, most if the time now, this means I hardly ever lose a shot, I learned this from my ex pro pal after I ruined a whole set of indoor shots. This setting can cause noisy results, such as my recent post...In His Domain....the shopkeeper behind his counter.......Topaz De-Noise ....cleaned up the RAW original, then selective high Pass sharpening selectively brought out the detail.

FUJI

[Craftysnapper]

My cameras are set on Auto Aperture, most if the time now, this means I hardly ever lose a shot, I learned this from my ex pro pal after I ruined a whole set of indoor shots. This setting can cause noisy results, such as my recent post...In His Domain....the shopkeeper behind his counter.......Topaz De-Noise ....cleaned up the RAW original, then selective high Pass sharpening selectively brought out the detail.

FUJI

Don't you mean auto ISO Fuji?

[Phil]

You asked for recommendations and you're certainly getting plenty to keep you going

For my two penneth it has to be ACR. I've tried all the plug-ins mentioned above and have yet to find anything that comes close, complete control and you already own it.
That said, if an image is need of excessive noise reduction no matter what software you use you will always be left with an image that's soft. So if it's minimal reduction you're after then any stand alone / plug-in will get the results.

[FUJI]

Don't you mean auto ISO Fuji?

No!

I set my camera mainly to Auto ISO and Auto Aperture, this garauntees a result in almost any light conditions, a real bonus for my type of almost..... shoot from the hip .......photography.

If I faffed about with settings, I would miss many of my more successful shots.......we all work differently , to achieve the results that please us.

Should noise be an issue, then I have excellent means of dealing with it.

FUJI

[kev7d]

I agree with both arguments and I would agree that is right to go for the best you can in camera.

But sometimes it just does not work out for me. I may have been careless or I cannot manage to take the  shot without noise.

I then find that the Topaz product works best for my needs, I am not saying it is the best product, but I understand how to use it. I am often shooting above iso 4000 and i find Topaz can be a real help when I need it. I find it very good at isolating noise in different parts of the image, removing noise from the dark areas and allowing me to pull back the noise reduction on lighter areas.  It does not suit everyone, but its my tool of choice when I have picked up unwanted noise.

[FUJI]

Just to clarify just how I used TOPAZ De-Noise, then the High Pass Sharpen to give my original RAW files a bit of punch, here is an example.

Using the untouched (probably un-dusted) items on my window seat, I deliberately shot this in very poor light, thereby creating noise, my GX7 was set on my usual Auto Aperture and Auto ISO.

So....What have I done..................I have only processed the Right Hand Side of the shot, just the wooden soldier, the bowl of apples and the surrounding area on that side only....compare this directly with the totally untouched  as-shot half, the horse and things above, below it.

The noise is very obvious....look at the soldier and apples and their immediate area ......... no noise exists.......thanks to TOPAZ....it gets full marks from me.

Please note that this pic was taken purely for this exercise:

 

FUJI

[Black Pearl]

No noise exists but neither is there any fine detail left.

There is no reason why you should need such a heavy handed and blunt approach to dealing with noise from a 2000iso file - particularly as this example has been massively down sampled for web presentation.

 

For example:
Half of this is straight out of Lightroom with no adjustments - half has had a very slight tweak (one slider pushed from 0 to 15) to reduce noise.
I haven't done any more as I have down sampled it to 1024 pixels wide (same as above) for displaying on the web so the noise that was visible in the full sized file has mostly been sampled out.
By the way this was shot at 12,800iso.

Yes if I was dealing with the 16MP file with the intention of trying to print it at a reasonable size I would have to be a little more careful with the noise reduction and I would output sharpen it very carefully but for the web you really don't need any fancy software.

[Craftysnapper]

Fuji has BP said at web size noise is reduced ay way. I'd be more impressed if you posteed a 100% crop of the original like this so we can see the real result. of noise reduction

Olympus E-M5 at ISO 3200 just a straight raw conversion in Capture One 8 using it's noise reduction.

100% crop so you can see detail and also plain area  where noise shows the most.

Edited October 6, 2015 by OlympusPaul

[colinb]

Interesting thread and I appreciate all the replies but there is one comment from Uncle Phil that got me thinking...

For my two penneth it has to be ACR. I've tried all the plug-ins mentioned above and have yet to find anything that comes close, complete control and you already own it.
 

This was never about excessive noise, just away of improving those shots where noise for whatever reason is evident and after reading Phil's comment I went back to looking at ACR. Previously I would 'develop' the raw file then try to solve noise in Photoshop with the jpeg file with poor results not realising the tool I needed was always there and in sense I was doing the cart and horse thing. So after going back and reprocessing many of my Spitfire and other aircraft pictures I am starting to learn a better way and I have to thank Phil for that  so a BIG thank you to Phil but I have read all the replies so don't feel your posting was wasted.

and in my own defence I used Nikon view NX to convert RAW files previous to having CS6 and with Nikons software there is no noise reduction facility prior to conversion so sorting noise before-hand wasn't feasible.