Best noise reduction?

mac 10.5.8 - FCP studio best noise reduction technique and/or plug in?
thanks!
A

Assuming you're asking about audio noise and not video noise, SoundTrack Pro has a nice noise reduction feature. You have to set a 'noise print' of just the offending noise, then apply that print to the rest of the track.
-DH

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How do PS CS3 Noise Reduction Filters compare with dedicated third-party plug-ins?

Am I missing something by not installing a dedicated Noise Reduction application into my PS CS3? Can Neat Image, Noise Ninja, Noiseware Pro, etc. do something that the PS CS3 Noise Filters can't do? Do these third-party aplications do it better?
Since I like flashless photography, and I generally carry with me small-sensor compacts when I travel, I'm frequently confronted with the problem of digital noise. I've always wondered how the third-party noise reduction applications perform in comparison with the Photoshop Noise Filters. I hope someone in this Forum has been able to acquire direct experience on this topic and will be kind enough to share this experience with us.
Kindest Regards,
Conrad

Conrad,
ACR 4.3 has better NR (noise reduction) than previous versions and can handle NR in most normal situations. However, available light photography with a small pixel sensor may require more NR and the specialized plugins such as Noise Ninja, NeatImage, and NoiseWare Pro can do a better job. I have all three and they do an excellent job, but I currently use NoiseWare most of the time.
Here is a demonstration of NoiseWare vs ACR NR, using 100% crops of an image taken with the Nikon D200, 1/320 sec at f/2.8. The image is reasonably sharp at normal viewing conditions, but has quite a lot of luminance noise. It was rendered with ACR and the settings were exposure +0.85, brightness +60. One thing you learn early in this type of shooting is to expose to the right to reduce noise, but this may conflict with stopping action and reducing camera shake. More exposure would have helped this image, and one should try to avoid exposures requiring this amount of positive exposure adjustment.
The results are shown below, followed by some discussion. Other comments are welcome. Color noise is not prominent in this image and I left color NR at its default.
ACR, No sharpening, no NR
ACR, Luminance NR 53, no sharpening
ACR, No NR, No sharpening, NoiseWare default, no sharpening
Noise reduction and sharpening are antagonistic processes. It is important that NR is applied before sharpening--you don't want to sharpen noise. Following NR there is an inevitable loss of detail, and some sharpening is necessary to restore the detail, but this also brings back the noise. One can use masks and blend if sliders in Photoshop in both NR and sharpening to mitigate some of these effects, and Bruce Fraser discusses the details in his excellent book on sharpening.
If you use an add on such as NoiseWare, you should turn off luminance sharpening in ACR. In doing so, you lose all those nifty sharpening features that have recently been added to ACR. I leave color NR at the default. It has a minimal effect on detail.
In adjusting the NR in ACR at 100% viewing, I estimated that a luminance setting of +53 was optimal. Beyond that, blotchy artifacts appear in the image.
For NoiseWarePro, I used the default settings with no sharpening. The NR effect is dramatic, but detail is lost and some sharpening is needed. This could be applied in NoiseWare or in Photoshop, perhaps with a plugin such as PhotoKit Sharpener. Personally, I have found that PK does not work well with this type of image because it bring back noise and produces artifacts.
In all of these examples, sharpening is needed following the NR. One could try to use surface masks to keep sharpening in Photoshop with the unsharp mask away from the edges. However, I find it is difficult to get a good surface mask, and I don't take the trouble.
For now, I use the sharpening built into NoiseWare. I don't know how it works internally, but it does have a slider for detail protection, and you can play with this to get the best result. It would be best to have the robust NR of the add ons built into ACR much like NoiseNinja is built into Bibble Pro. However, this is an ACR forum and I would expect that ACR is the preferred raw converter of those who frequent this forum.
After expending this much effort on the post, I hope to get some helpful feedback.

Upscaling and noise reduction in ACR

I've been thinking about upscaling images and the best time to do so (if I need to of course) in my workflow. As I understand it, it's always best to carry out any noise reduction prior to upsampling an image, as this helps avoid increasing the size of any noise that may be apparent in the image.
However, I'm thinking that in ACR, this in theory would not be neccessary as ACR would carry out any noise reduction and upsampling in a pre-defined processing order. So put simply, I could increase the image size and then carry out any NR as required after upscaling. This would allow me to tailor the NR to fit the increased image dimensions (and of course I could then carry out capture sharpening for the larger image as well).
Is my thinking correct here - does it not really matter in terms of image quality if I don't do any NR before changing the image dimensions in ACR?
M

I did a lot of experimentation with upsampling during conversion.
I found that - in my opinion - upsampling during Camera Raw operation yields superior results to doing it later. I also believe that dialing in some noise reduction during Camera Raw is needed, as even low ISO images get pretty grainy otherwise.
Every camera is different, but what I ended up saving for defaults is this, keeping in mind that I do my conversions to the largest possible image size, then downsample later for specific uses.
Only you know what your goals are and what you like in your images, so I encourage you to experiment as I did with different combinations of settings to try to find the right balance.
-Noel

Noise reduction for 32bit images acting totally different

The noise reduction behaves totally different when used for 32bit images in ACR.
It appears like it is applying some kind of strange blur or glow effect instead of working like expected from 8/16bit material.
Can anybody confirm this and is this intended behaviour?

Joe_Mulleta wrote:
The noise reduction behaves totally different when used for 32bit images in ACR.
How did you get your raws into HDR?
Did you use raw files in ACR? Did you set the sharpening and noise reduction to optimal parameters in ACR on the raw files BEFORE going into HDR Pro?
You should...I've found that it's important to optimize the raw files in ACR/LR before actually processing the raw files into HDR Pro...you need to realize that once the raw files are demosaiced, the best place to apply sharpening and noise reduction has been bypassed?
Yes, a 32-bit TIFF opened in ACR 7.1 will not have the same sharpening and noise reduction opportunities once the original raw files have been processed. I've found it's useful to apply all ACR image optimizations (including tone, color and sharpening/noise reduction) to the raw files BEFORE doing a conversion to HDR Pro...
And yes, the noise reduction settings in 32-bit in ACR 7.1 are _VERY_ tweaky (meaning you need to be very careful on the settings).

Any chance Photoshop itself will get Camera Raw's noise reduction and sharpening?

I would love to have the noise reduction and sharpening from ACR 6 in Photoshop itself for JPEG, TIFF, and PSD files. Yes, I know I can open those files in ACR, apply noise reduction and sharpening, and then have it then open the files to Photoshop. But it would be so nice if we could do that without having to go through Camera Raw.

Matt Howell wrote:
Yes, I am absolutely saying that the noise reduction and sharpening of ACR 6 is vastly superior to any filters in Photoshop CS5.
For those who only work only with RAW files this is a non-issue, but I sometimes prefer to use TIFF files generated by CANON DPP software or occasionally even JPEG's straight out of Canon DSLR's. Going through ACR just for noise reduction causes unnecessary color space conversions, as well as just a needlessly complex workflow.
Perhaps you should ask Canon to make DPP noise reduction better. I also do not think is a good idea to get too aggressive with noise reduction and sharpening when you first bring a image into Photoshop unless you only use the image single use for a particular output device. Your better off working with a somewhat soft image till you ready for output and then sharpen for the output devive being used. If you use strong sharpening and NR up front sharpeing again for your output device may produce unwanted sharpening and NR artifacts... There are several third party noise reduction and sharpening plug-ins that are better then Adobe Photoshop built in ones. Noise reduction has to be balanced too much will loose detail masking detail is important. ACR noise reduction provides masking adjustments and works well. Third party plug-ins offer offer advanced masking features also. Photoshop noise reduction filter has a basic preserve detail slider which I presumes does some kind of masking but this is not as good at ACR masking and third paty masking. You can of course add you own masking before using photoshop noise reduction filter. Sharpening also needs masking for sarpening will sharpen noise as well as detail.
IMO your better off with third party plug-ins that are designed to be the best. They keep getting better there is no clear winner for all images. I'm been satisfied with NeatImage and I have only had to pay for two upgrades. I had to pay for the addition the 32 bit plugin then and for the addition a 64 bit plugin. All other updates to NeatImage has been free of charge even the lates version 7 of the 64 bit plugin was no charge for me.

Lightroom, Photoshop, RAW Presharpening, Noise Reduction Workflow Help

I'm tying to determine a best practices route using Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop and Nik Software Sharpener and Dfine (Noise Management Software).
I shoot only RAW with a Canon EOS 30D with good quality lenses.
I import the RAW files from the CF card directly (DNG and save) into LR, add keywords, organize, etc.
However, I am now at the point where I need to determine a sensible workflow that includes these steps:
Import RAW into LR as DNG.
Edit, as needed, in PS.
Apply RAW Presharpening (as provided in Nik Sharpener).
Manage Noise (with Nik Dfine (2.0 available in next 24 hours).
Apply usage-based sharpening prior to printing or saving final file version.
Maintain organization in LR.
My original plan was:
1. Import RAW in LR.
2. Open in PS.
3. Apply noise reduction.
4. Apply RAW presharpening.
5. Save (with new version being an "Edit" copy back in LR.
6. Maintain organization in LR.
I'm wondering, though, if I wouldn't be better off doing the basics to the files prior to LR import. Note that the Nik tools work in 16-bit mode.
This is theoretically what I'm thinking, and would appreciate other user's input:
1. Save RAW files to location on Mac.
2. Apply Noise reduction to RAW files with Nik software within PS (perhaps automated, perhaps batched).
3. Apply RAW presharpening to RAW files with Nik software within PS (perhaps automated, perhaps batched).
4. Import noise- and presharpening-adjusted files into LR, with metadata additions, etc.
5. Open files in PS as needed, with files becoming edit versions within LR.
Any thoughts?

To summarize, then:
First time opening a RAW file from Lightroom, LR automatically creates a copy and appends "-Edit" to the filename. If it's a RAW file, only available option is the third option in the dialog box: "Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments."
Once opened in Photoshop, any number of adjustments can be made and saved. All adjustments are reflected in the -Edit copy when previewed in back in LR.
If, later, I want to perform further PS edits on the -Edit version, I have 3 options as presented in the dialog box.
1. "Edit Original (LR adjustments will not be visible)"
2. "Edit a Copy (LR adjustments will not be visible)"
3. "Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments"
Option 1 will open -Edit version #1 (but it will not show any changes made in LR to the -Edit file when opened in PS)
Option 2 will create a copy of -Edit version #1 and open that new file, -Edit-2 (but it will not contain any changes made in LR to the -Edit file)
Option 3 will create a copy of -Edit version #1 and open that new file, -Edit-2 and it will contain any changes made in LR to the -Edit file
So, a typical workflow would be:
1. Import RAW file in LR.
2. Make adjustments in LR.
3. If needed, open a copy (by default) in PS via LR (command-E).
4. Adjust in PS, save.
5. Adjusted file is stacked with original RAW file in LR.
6A. Assuming no additional edits in LR, further PS adjustments can be made to -Edit version original, keeping just 1 stacked version in LR.
6B. If additional adjustments are made to the saved -Edit version in LR, and further PS adjustments are needed, I must edit a copy of the -Edit file, ultimately resulting in a second stacked file.

Poor quality noise reduction for Canon G10

I recently bought a Canon G10, and I am disappointed at the quality of RAW conversions done by ACR/LR at anything approaching a high ISO. The out-of-camera JPEGs show much superior noise reduction to what I can get from RAW files, no matter how I tweak the noise reduction settings.
At ISO 80-100 both look essentially identical.
At ISO200 JPEGs show less and tighter grain than I can manage with RAW (unless I nuke the details with luminance reduction), but both are still very good.
At ISO400 ACR/LR's RAW conversion starts to fall apart. Chroma NR in RAW is still handled well, the grain size in RAW is much larger than the camera's JPEGs. I need to apply a lot of luminance NR to reduce the RAW grain to match the JPEGs, and when I do that I lose a lot of detail. And even then, the larger grain isn't as attractive as the JPEG.
At ISO800 this problem is even worse. Big ugly blobs abound in the RAW conversion. The JPEGs don't look great, but they're very usable, especially if you're willing to dip the shadows a bit to hide the worst of the noise.
ISO1600 is interesting. The JPEGs don't look great; there's a healthy amount of noise, and NR kills a lot of fine details. But the image is usable for 4x6's or sometimes even an 8x10. But the RAW files are awful! Even cranking chroma NR to 100, there's color noise to be seen. And even with very careful use of luminance NR and sharpening I can't results that are anywhere close to JPEG's level of detail and noise.
I understand that P&S cameras like the G10 are very noisy by DSLR standards and so this might not be a focal point of ACR/LR development, but I'm surprised and disappointed that the JPEG engine in the G10 can do a better job handling noise than ACR/LR. I guess my hope is that ACR/LR will at some point offer improved NR so I can create photos using RAW that look as good as JPEGs straight out of the camera. As it is right now I'm in the unfortunate position of shooting JPEG at high ISO to get usable noise performance. My dilemma is whether to even bother shooting RAW+JPEG when this IQ might be the best I ever get from ACR/LR for the G10.
I suppose my favored solution would be to either implement or license NR technology that matches NeatImage/NoiseNinja/NoiseWare. That feature alone would be worthy of justifying a 3.0 version for me. :)

Jeff, I won't debate that the output from the G10 at ISO800+ is poor. It most certainly is! And I know that simply eliminating the scads of noise in a G10 high ISO shot won't restore the detail the noise killed in the first place. But with every other camera I've used with ACR and LR, the color noise slider eliminates all color noise at or before the "100" setting. So I was surprised when that wasn't possible with the G10.
I don't currently own a camera that puts out an image quite as noisy as the G10 at ISO1600, but what about the A900 at ISO6400?
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/AA900/AA900hLL6407XNR.HTM
Or the 50D at ISO12800?
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/E50D/E50DLL12807XNR.HTM
Both of those are horrifically noisy. Worse than the G10 at ISO1600, I'd say. But those cameras certainly aren't crap. They just offer ISO settings higher than some consider acceptable. But then again, some people consider anything higher than ISO200 on a 5D unacceptable, so it's obviously all relative. Point being, I would expect ACR to do the best job it could for any camera it supports, not just the best job it can do for only some of the cameras it supports.
In any case, I want ACR to be able to remove the color noise from my G10's images, just like it can with my other cameras. I know the images are sub-standard when measured against a DSLR, but at least to my eyes, even very noisy images can look decent in small prints so long as there aren't big color blobs all over the place.
As for the luminance noise, I'm happier to live with that. I'd be happy to eventually pay for a LR upgrade that gives me NR similar to what the high-end third-party apps do, because that feature would make each of my cameras geniunely more useful--and retroactively! But a simpler request it seems is to recalibrate what "100" means for the G10. At least then I could dispense with the JPEGs and still make an 8x10.

Lightroom Noise reduction versus DPP

I have been playing with DPP for al little while because the EOS 50d wasn't supported until a few days ago. DPP has some kind of intelligent support of NR depending on the ISO of the photo. If I analyzed it whell it is supporting the NR level of the camera itself.
Is it possible to do this kind of NR in Lightroom also?
I know I can make defaults for an ISO level, but it would be very nice if Lightroom is able to get this kind of information from te RAW file. The same accounts for the sharpening, but this might be tricky.
Regards,
Olaf.

>I read on the internet that Canon and Nikon don't want to share that kind of information. Stupid! They don't sell software, so it shouldn't matter to open the information of their RAW files.
Well Nikon sells their Capture NX software. They don't give it away with their cameras (except for some short running promotions) like Canon does.I do believe Canon charges for updates. You would think that it would be in the camera maker's best interest to make their files as readible by anybody as possible as it makes their cameras more attractive to buyers, but they have a very strange worldview in which the RAW files are their files instead of the photographer's and that their software is by definition better in processing their files than any third party because they know all the secrets. They actually say stuff like that! Quite astonishing. The only thing we can do is to tell them what we think of that bull.
>Lightroom doesn't apply any luminance nr by default. This also accounts for the higher ISO levels?
Even at zero there is some luminance NR I think. There is also noise reduction and sharpening inherent to the tuning of the demosaicing algorithm. I think the tuning between more sharpness and less noise is dependent on ISO.
>Are there any more options which are depending on the ISO of the photo by default?
Where do you get this kind of information? I can't find any about this in the online help of Lightroom.
I think some intricacies in the color rendering also respond to this but that's probably the extent of it. Thomas Knoll (check the credits in Lightroom to see who that is) and others on the Lightroom/ACR teams have posted on this forum about these things as well as some people in the know. So I 'm giving you second-hand info here but you should be able to look back on this by searching for posts by Thomas and others. Doing this is very instructive anyway regardless of the subject.

Is There A Noise Reduction Plug-in For FCP?

Wondering if I could find a plug-in for FCP5 or Color that will reduce the noise shot with high ISO in low light. Does anyone have a suggestion. Thanks!
Message was edited by: sburst7

I have found the 'Noise Reduction' in the CHV repair collection for FCP to be the best out of anything that I have ever tried. The noise reduction is fantastic and the sharpness loss is the best out everything I have seen.
http://www.chv-plugins.com/cms/Fx-Script/Repair-collection/Repair-collection.php
The default settings can be a little excessive, I almost always end up with a setting of 10 and 15 regardless of the footage.
Also, you can try grain reduction inside of colour - pair it with a vignette and alpha blend to limit it to specific areas.
Cheers,
Liam.

Need help with the noise reduction settings

Hi,
After som experimenting I need some help with the settings for noise reduction.
I just edited and converted a few pictures from RAW (D200) til 8-bit TIFF. Opend the file up in photoshop and was shocked to see the amount of noise in the pictures. I then exported the RAW-files and did the same conversion in Capture One 3.7.3 - The result is a lot better regarding noise. In capture One I'm using the noise reduction step before "High".
Can you share your experience with the optimal settings for best noise removal ?
Thanks in advance,
fbrose

i use it once in a while, but i play around with the sliders in full screen mode and at 100% and then see what the sliders do. I don't have a definite procedure that I can suggest though.

Noise Reduction Programs as External Editor

Can anyone tell me if I can set up a noise reduction program (Noiseware, Noise Ninja, Neat Image, etc) as an external editor to LR and use the "round trip" feature used with PS/PSE? I don't currently have either PS or PSE, since LR has been able to handle my editing needs with the exception of noise reduction. Hence my research into free-standing programs.
Thanks in advance.
Adam

From the Noise Ninja web site:
http://www.picturecode.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
"It is usually best to apply noise reduction as early as is practical in the workflow. Post-processing adjustments like sharpening, contrast stretching, and color balancing can alter pixel values and noise levels in unpredictable ways. Depending on the amount of adjustment, this can make it more difficult for Noise Ninja to estimate noise levels. Sharpening, for instance, is a nonlinear operation that can significantly distort the distribution of noise values.
If your workflow requires that you use Noise Ninja after some other operations, then try to create noise profiles using calibration images that have been put through the same operations.
Running Noise Ninja early in the workflow is a good rule of thumb, but Noise Ninja can be applied at any time. Sometimes it may not be possible or practical to run Noise Ninja at an earlier point in the workflow. For example, most users are not using a RAW processor with plug-in that allows Noise Ninja to be run before other adjustments in the RAW processor."

Workflow using a PS noise reduction action with LR???

OK, I've taken maybe 1200 pictures at a Volleyball tournament. I import them into LR and delete the OOF shots and keyword them with the players numbers. Then I filter for just one player's number and assign the ten best as picks...I need to do it by player number so each player ends up with the about the same number of pictures on the website. I repeat for the other nine players and now I have a a total of 100 picked photos.
Now I want to use a PS action for Noiseware to reduce the noise because LR's noise reduction isn't enough at ISO 3200. How can I get all of these to run as a "batch" in PS.
What I have been doing is to export these and then batch that folder in PS, but then I lose any keywords that went with the individual pictures.
Help...Thanks,
Bill

Bill-
You shouldn't be losing keywords just by virtue of running a batch in PS- double check the image's info after Export and before batch operation.
Next, make a PS action to do this. Then, from that have it make a droplet. Place droplet in LR folder for such, then make a custom Export preset in LR that calls in the droplet at the end of the choices. (Choose sRGB for your color space)

Encore 2.0 Noise Reduction Filter Information

Adobe Staff and Forum Members,
Would somebody please explain how changes in the noise reduction filter change video quality. It seems the standard setting is 30% and I don't have a manual with the trial version to understand what changes to make on order to best transcode older video. I'm waiting for my hard copy of Encore 2.0 now but in the mean time any information would be greatly appreciated. Have a great day!
Thank you,
Don

> How much time does a change in the noise reduction filter have on transcoding time?
I don't have any hard data to quote, but it's significant (and also depends on whether you use CBR vs. VBR 2-pass). But offhand, I'd say the filter will at least double your transcode time. You may find the results worth the wait...the output preview should help you to decide this.
-Joe

Noise reduction in Premiere Pro CS5

Hi,
what is the best way to reduce noise in Premiere Pro CS5 (64bit Windows 7)? I have learned that many people thinks the Neat Video plug-in is the best choice for noise reduction. Is it so or does Premiere CS5 or AE CS5 itself include some special tricks for noise reduction? In the Neat Video's download page
http://www.neatvideo.com/download.html
one can select between Premiere or AE plug-ins. Is it wiser to do noise reduction in Premiere or in After Effects?
Any help and tips are welcomed.

Stahlberg wrote:
Is it wiser to do noise reduction in Premiere or in After Effects?
In my experience, NeatVideo in PPro is the better choice. I get around a 10x improvement in export speed if I use Neat Video in PPro, vs using the Remove Grain effect in AE. And I like the results from Neat Video better.
Now, NV isn't perfect. It's not intuitive. It's difficult to control. I find that looking at what it does to a single frame isn't representative of what the resulting moving video looks like, which makes it hard to judge and decided how much is too much (when in doubt, use less). It seems to be sensitive to other effects in the stack above it too -- if you use the three way color corrector, for example, you should nail that down first before you even set up NV, because tweeking the TWCC after the fact can throw off NV. And if you try to sharpen with NV it tends to increase contrast and extend shadows down and highlights up (not subtle: you see this visually and can verify with a waveform monitor).
I had to buy the pro version just because I'm working with 1080 sources, but I feel like it's a good value for what it does. Saved my bacon on a couple of low light interviews.

Noise reduction profiles?

any methods of creating profile sets similar to Neat Image or NN?
I love NN but it's not 64bit yet, and NI is great but the UI is a little rusty. It would be great to have lens profiles and noise profiles all in ACR. Anyone stumble upon a method for creating noise profiles efficiently as in NN or NI? Or have I overlooked it and it's already in CS5?
thanks
j

Baseline noise reduction levels are already set on a per-model basis in ACR. You can customize the settings on a per-ISO basis if you want, by (1) enabling that option in the Preferences, (2) setting your preferred NR settings in the Detail panel, and (3) choose "Save New Camera Raw Defaults" from the flyout menu.
There is not a method of providing an image of a photographed chart and feeding that to ACR to build profiles. However, you can use such a chart to evaluate noise reduction settings as you experiment with which values work best for your camera (and your personal preference).

Best noise reduction?

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