Comparing noise reduction (again)

I did some testing today with Bibble 5.0.3 (on a friend's machine), Lightroom 3b2 (out today) and Aperture 3.0.1.
To my great surprise, Aperture RAW's engine produced better results than Bibble with NoiseNinja. I tested with Canon 7D, Nikon D90 and Nikon D50 files. 18, 12 and 6MP cameras, from 2005 to 2009. I did some tests from ISO 200 to 6400.
I consider LR and Aperture results to be the bests. Bibble's were pretty good, but I just can't stand its interface (though it is the fasts of the 3 engines, it's like looking at jpegs in terms of speed!).
As for my definition of best:
LR produces the most "regular" results. Noise really looks like film grain, with a very consistent pattern and good details restitution.
AP produces more variable patterns, though detail restitution is pretty good too.
Bibble really reduces the noise, but I've found detail restitution a bit poor, especially at ISO 3200 and 6400 on the D90. It's like it doesn't interpreted the camera's raw data properly, whereas ACR and DCR do.
However, I've read that NoiseNinja's magic is about calibration. Maybe I just miss the thing, but I couldn't get it better.
Any thoughts or observations on that?

I think you are posting in the wrong Forum.
http://forums.adobe.com/community/photoshop/touchapps

Similar Messages

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.

Exporting JPEG = loosing Noise reduction and sharpening, poor quality compare to RAW

Hi guys,
I bought LR 5.0 not even a month ago and I was so excited to use it.
Now that I am done working on my projects I exported them as JPEG into my hard drive. This is a disaster. My pictures are amazing in my lightroom as RAW now you should see what they look like in JPEG. I can't believe it. I obviously did something wrong but I can't figure what it is. My JPEG pictures looks extremely grainy. I did shoot at a High ISO for most of them. It is probably the real problem here but there's certainly a way to make it work in JPEG since it looks good in RAW. Please tell me what to do from there. How can I keep the same quality in JPEG than I already have in RAW? I choose JPEG - quality 80% or 100% (tried both) - sRGB. Should I resize the image too?

Are you applying export sharpening, which would exacerbate any remaining noise-grain? Are you judging the sharpening and noise-reduction at 100% 1:1 zoom? You have to, otherwise, the resampling-for-display algorithms in LR and your OS viewer might be doing something completely different.

In-camera noise reduction

This question is directed to the technically knowledgeable out there and has to do with in-camera noise reduction settings. Although I'm shooting with a 1D4, I would guess the same would apply to all models. In a nutshell, is in-camera noise reduction (assuming it's enabled) applied to RAW files or just to JPEGs? If it's applied to RAW files (which is all I shoot), have any of you shot RAW with noise reduction disabled, and if so, how were the results? I tried to do a search here on this topic but was unable to find any information. Thanks.

hsbn wrote:
No, with all due respects, it is Long Exposure NR. Why would it make it worst with High ISO if it is "High ISO Noise Reduction".
6D Manual page: 128 - 129
5D Mark III manual page 144-145
"Images taken at ISO 1600 or higher may look grainier with the [Enable] setting than with the [Disable] and [Auto] setting"
With Auto setting, camera will not do LENR if the ISO is higher than 1600.
I've tested this and it's give many kind of artifact with high ISO from time to time. Others it just gives more noise.
Hi,
- Great to know, thanks! It's very surprising indeed.
LENR is supposed to remove hot pixels and noise due to long exposure. It's (sadly) surprising the in-cameras LENR may be worse than in post...
We'll take a review about it , since shooting long exposure at higher than ISO 1600 is not uncommon for astro photography.
I think 5D Mark 2 didn't have this "problem". Will check that too.
- The manual tells that in-camera High ISO NR applied is lower at high ISO than the NR that can be applied in post, not "worse", sorry, my mistake.
Thanks once again.
EDIT: The User manual of 5D Mark 2 doesn't tell anything about this matter. The manual of 7D does, as well as 6D and 5D3 as you mentioned.
Since I used to work with 5D2 I didn't realize the 5D3 could be different. Or at least the manual of 5D2 doesn't say the final result of LENR at 1600 or higher could be worse. Good thing to keep in mind.
Sitll doesn't understand why the result "may" be worse, the 5D3 has enormous computing potential with the Digic 5+
This seems to only affect if LENR is set to "ON" / "Enabled", not to "Auto". Very likely a more agressive NR is applied in such case.
We'll carry some test indeed.
EDIT 2:
In just brief tests with the 5D Mark 3 we found some inconsistency on the results between setting Long Exposure NR to "OFF", "Auto" & "On".
We set High ISO NR, Peripheral Illumination Correction and Chromatic Aberrations to OFF, to see only the effect of LENR in JPG (not RAW yet).
This camera (5D3) applies High ISO NR even when you set it to OFF (very noticeable in video mode).
At ISO 6400 we didn't see a hot /stuck pixel (even when LENR set to "OFF") that appears at ISO 3200 when setting LENR to OFF or Auto. Of course "ON" deletes all hot /stuck pixels, but also increaed grain.
We all already know that the more the sensor heats up (shooting and shooting long exposure stills - or using Live View for stills or video), the more noise we'll get in the pictures (and video).
So far we couldn't get a "rule". Sometimes the "Auto" works better than "ON", it seems it depends on the selected ISO value and how hot is the sensor too.
I pesonally don't understand WHY the LENR delivers more grainy images when set to "ON", if the NR is more agressive the grain should be finer than in "OFF" or "Auto", so it doesn't make sense...
We'll test the 5D Mark 2 to compare with 5D3 in this regard
HD Cam Team
Group of photographers and filmmakers using Canon cameras for serious purposes.
www.hdcamteam.com | www.twitter.com/HDCamTeam | www.facebook.com/HDCamTeam

Noise reduction - RAW fine tuning and the Noise Reduction tool

Hi,
1- If I get it right, Aperture's RAW fine tuning "Automatic noise compensation" (translated from French) option uses the camera's information to adjust the noise. Is that correct?
2- The Noise Reduction tool is there to provide additional noise reduction, but this makes you lose some details. Is that correct?
3- How do you use them? I often find the Noise Reduction tool a bit overkill, but that's me.
4- This one is just out of curiosity. How does A3 compare to LR3 beta for you in that regard? In my testing, LR3 did a slightly better job (but A3 totally beats the crap out of LR2 for noise). BUT I have an old D50, and newer cameras handle noise better (especially Nikon), so does it really make a difference for a 2008 or newer camera?
Thanks!
Manu

Manusnake wrote:
pilotguy74 wrote:
I don't even have this option/checkbox in my Raw Fine Tuning brick.
I wonder if it's due to the type of files (Canon 7D). Do you still have those 7D files I sent you? Does the checkbox appear in Raw Fine Tuning for you with them?
I noticed this option in the manual the other day, but forgot about it until now.
True, it doesn't have the checkbox with the 7D files. However, it as a slider "noise suppression" (again translated) in the RAW fine tuning options (and still has the Noise suppression brick).
If you don't have this one too, have you reprocessed your images with Aperture 3? Since it has a new raw engine, it may be the cause of it.
I find it strange that Apple didn't tout the new RAW engine on Aperture 3 new feature, it clearly is an improvement over Digital Camera RAW 2, especially in noise suppression.
I agree the built-in noise suppression is much better than A2, but IMHO it pales in comparison with the Noise Ninja plugin from Picturecode. The key is that you calibrate a profile for Noise Ninja by shooting a color chart full screen on your computer at varying iso settings with each of your cameras. You then feed the images back in to Aperture, and tell Noise Ninja to create a noise profile for each setting. The results are amazingly good.
Now with a lot of new cameras, noise processing is getting less important because the high iso performance is so good....but this is what makes Noise Ninja special...even when the noise adjustment is subtle, because it is working from a profile created with your camera, at the iso the shot was made at, its effects are seamless. They just announced a 64 bit plugin for Aperture 3, so no bouncing into 32 like other plugins at the moment...
Sincerely,
K.J. Doyle

Export of noise reduction does not look like Develop preview

Hi,
I have a photo that has noise reduction applied, however, after export, it looks as if NO noise reduction has been applied. Other photos look like they have the noise reduction applied. Not sure why this one would refuse to export the noise reduction filter. In the Develop preview, it looks great, no noise. After export, noise.
Different but possibly related, On all photos, I noticed that the noise reduction preview in Develop doesn't update unless I zoom-in/zoom-out, then it updates it. But if I make any adjustments to the slider it doesn't update until I zoom-in/zoom-out again. This seems like a bug.
Lightroom version: 3.0 [677000]
Operating system: Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (Build 2600)
Version: 5.1 [2600]
Application architecture: x86
System architecture: x86
Physical processor count: 2
Processor speed: 1.8 GHz
Built-in memory: 2047.2 MB
Real memory available to Lightroom: 716.8 MB
Real memory used by Lightroom: 252.1 MB (35.1%)
Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 400.0 MB
Memory cache size: 51.7 MB
System DPI setting: 96 DPI
Displays: 1) 1680x1050, 2) 1440x900
Thanks in advance for any help, and sorry if this has already been reported.
tek

function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}
Lee Jay wrote:
danpancamo wrote:
Here's the CR2 file
https://rcpt.yousendit.com/1005742637/a865add0e167c8fdfac02211e4345a60
TO recreate the problem
1. import the CR2 into LR3.3
2. In the Develop Module change Noise Reduction Luminance and Detail to 100
3. In the Library Module export to Hard Drive with 100% Quality no Sharpening
4. View the JPG and compare to the LR3 views...
The two are virtually the same, as far as I can tell.
It looks like the 1:1 issue in Develop view biting me again... If you view the image in develop view in less thatn 1:1 it looks great.
Man the 1:1 view issue is annoying! I want the image to look the way it does in Fit/Fill mode.... Is there a way to do this?
If I export th CR2 to JPG then Import the JPG then appy NR to the JPG and export, I get the results im after.... there's got to be a better way?

Noise reduction doesn't work?

Hi All,
New user here (testing the demo). I have a moderately loud
air conditioner system, and as a result there is a constant hum.
I'm trying to get the noise reduction to work, but to no avail.
Here's what I do.
I record a clip. then select Edit Timing. Then Adjust Volume.
Then check "Dynamics (boost quiet sections), then I play with the
Noise Threshold and Ratio sliders (primarily Noise Threshold).
These don't seem to do anything, though I *can* adjust the volume
of the clip successfully.
What am I doing wrong here? Thanks!

Hi carloshl
Welcome to the world of Captivate!
Seriously, the audio editing bundled inside Captivate is
always reported as being rather anemic. I compare it to the jack in
the trunk of a new car. Enough to change the tire once in a while,
but if I'm gonna do it more often than that, I should probably
invest in a different tool.
The really super good news here is that your investment need
not be cash! There is a wonderful and totally free audio editor out
there called Audacity. You may download it by
clicking this magickal
link.
Oh, and you should probably also find a quieter room to
record in.
Any possibility of turning off the air for a brief
period?
Cheers... Rick

Noise reduction did nothing - no instructions for the process

I entered noise reducer in the help menu and "what's new in imovie comes up" - I am looking for info on the process to apply noise reduction and nothing applied even two layers down in what came up in "what's new in imovie".
I have bought the book iMovie HD 6 & iDVD 6 and it does not give direction on how to apply. It does say page on 157, "this effect minimizes white noise, crowd noise, and hum - but nothing else - no directions on how to apply!
My audio clip is selected in the time line and if it is as simple as selecting the apply button in audiofx, then select noise reduction, then select apply - IT DID NOTHING.
Is this how it works for application and out come?
Can anyone help,
jim

No, but the Help menu in iMovie does:
To add an audio effect:
Click the Timeline Viewer button (shown above).
Select the audio clip or clips you want to add an effect to.
Tip: To learn how to select multiple clips, see "Selecting clips" below.
Click the Editing button, and then click Audio FX at the top of the Editing pane.
Select the audio effect you want from the effects list.
Adjust the settings for the effect.
Different controls appear depending on the effect you select. For example, if you select Reverb, you can adjust the intensity of the reverberation by choosing a reverb style and dragging the Less/More slider.
Click Preview to hear the effect.
To stop previewing the effect, click Preview again.
If necessary, repeat any of the above steps until you have the effect the way you want it.
To add the effect to your selected clips, click Apply.
When you add an audio effect to a video clip, iMovie automatically extracts the audio from the clip. The extracted audio with the applied effect appears as a separate clip in one of the audio tracks in the timeline viewer. If you want to add multiple audio effects to the same portion of video, be sure to select the extracted audio clip to add the additional effects to.

RAW conversion bug with Noise Reduction

Hello,
I have found a serious bug in the RAW conversion when noise reduction is applied. When converting from two types of Canon RAW files (a CRW from a Powershot G6 and a CR2 from a 20d) I found that if you apply Noise Reduction to a RAW file on very low settings (the default setting in the NR function will produce this reliably) single-pixel lines appear at regular intervals throughout the image. Here is an example:
You can see several lines in this image:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/140/3821480263171e76604b.jpg
A 100% detail of which is here:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/179/382148021af6586d27eo.jpg
Has anyone else had this problem? Can someone from the Aperture dev team fix this?
-Steve G

Well I find this filter is quite good in 'masking' block artifact that codec like xvid, or other low compression codec have. I only apply it if I find the block artifact is too much and I find this filter is less offending to my eyes than the block artifact.
In manual it said that if you have noisy video and want to lower the size then you can use this filter. It also blur the video a bit. But I suspect it is more than blur as I try gaussian blur in time line and the result is not as good. You can see the result as well. There is the tab between source and target and you can compare the result by togling between source and target tab.
BTW, anyone with 1 core, dual, or quad core, can you tried to encode with it? Just cancel it after few minutes as I want to see what is your processor utilization with this filter on. Also you can see how long does it take to process this video from the 'estimation time left'.

In-camera high ISO noise reduction & ACR

I've been involved in a discussion over on DPReview where someone believes that, when shooting with a Nikon dSLR (in this case a D7000, but the model isn't really important) high ISO NR is automatically applied in-camera directly to the raw file, and this will be carried over to any raw conversion software, including third-party software such as ACR/LR.
Now I do agree that even with NR switched off, Nikon do automatically apply some limited NR to high ISO images in-camera, but I'm pretty much 100% certain that this is not something that ACR would interpret, and so it would not actually have any effect on the appearance of the raw file when it's processed. In fact, if the high ISO NR is somehow embedded into the raw file, that would go against my whole concept of how a raw file works in a convertor such as ACR! Surely any "default" high ISO NR is just added to the proprietry part of the EXIF, and is therefore only factored in when using Nikon conversion software (ViewNX, etc)? Otherwise, the file could not truly be considered to be 'raw'.
I think I'm right, but wanted confirmation from some of the experts on here! And of course, I'm also quite happy to be proven wrong!
M

Noel Carboni wrote:
By the way, the reference I found for D7000 shows that the High ISO NR can be disabled. See this page: http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/D7000/D7000A7.HTM
What camera do YOU have, Molly?
-Noel
Hi Noel,
Wow, I'm impressed with your efforts here! Your point about blurring being a potential sign of whether or not NR has been applied to the high ISO raw files is a good one, and I agree that, based on that thinking, the examples you've found don't really seem to show much evidence of that, particularly the shots of the focus/resolution target.
I do have a D7000; I replied as such back in post three ("yes I do" in response to your question "do you have such a camera?"), but I can see how that may not have been as clear as it should have been! I'm going to try some test shots myself to see if I can pick out any evidence of softening/blurring that may indicate NR being applied during the processing of the raw data. However, unfortunately my PC is currently being fixed as I've been having some hardware issues, so that testing won't be happening until I get it back (hoping within a week, missing it already).
Regarding your reference that indicates that high ISO NR can be switched off, yes it can, but apparently only up to a point - here's what it states in the Nikon manual (and what has in turn sparked off this discussion over on DPR):
"High ISO NR - option: off - Noise reduction is only performed at ISO sensitivities of ISO 1600 and higher. The amount of noise reduction is less than the amount performed when low is selected for High ISO NR" (as the article indicates, there are three options apart from off: high, normal, and low).
As I've said previously, my understanding was that all of that had zero bearing on the raw file once it was loaded into ACR: regardless of any NR settings applied in-camera, either by the user or by Nikon bypassing the user, they were all thrown away by the Adobe raw processing algorithms, as are things like picture controls, sharpening, contrast, etc. But following my recent discussion, I started to wonder if my understanding of the raw capture process was incorrect, hence this thread.
Thanks again for your work here. Above and beyond the call of duty!
M

Noise reduction and sharpening in LR4

Am I the only one that feels that the LR4 NR is inferior to that of LR3? I swear the only slider that does anything is the luminance and it is not as precise or powerful as LR3. The detail and contrast slders don't seem to do anything?? And as for the sharpening, the radius and detail seem to not do much as compared to LR3. Is it just that it is slower than LR3? I just feel as if I can't dial in things as precise. I am using RC1 with 5D3 files. Should I go for RC2? I heard is was even slower. Thanks

As far as I know, nothing was changed in the sharpening and noise redution between LR 3 and LR4, so I think you are "seeing things" that aren't there...and yes, PV 2012 takes more processing than PV 2010 but the image detail (sharpening and noise reduction) should be the same...

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.

Adjustment brush with exposure setting cancels noise reduction

Hello,
I just noticed the following problem:
1) Camera Raw 6.5; Bridge CS5 (4.0.5.11); Mac OS X 10.6.8; Mac Pro 3,1; Dual Quad-Core Xeon; 8GB RAM.
2) Start with a noisy raw file (mine is from a Canon 5D II).
3) Apply Noise Reduction (Luminance:30; Lum Detail:75; Lum Contrast:0; Color:25; Color Detail:50).
4) Go to Adjustment Brush and set a non-zero Exposure value.
5) Apply brush to image and notice the Noise Reduction effects disappear (noise returns).
6) Click Clear All button to clear Adjustment Brush and Noise Reduction works again.
This seems to only happen with Adjustment Brushes with a non-zero Exposure value (applying brightness or other settings don't seem to produce the problem).
Anyone else seeing this?
Thanks!

Richard (and others),
Yes, very good idea to check that. The problem does indeed get applied to the full sized, opened image as well as to the display previews. After working with this more, I now notice that I was wrong to say that the entire noise reduction is cancelled - rather it "changes", sometimes subtly, sometimes more dramatically depending on what the noise reduction settings are set to. Further, how dramatic the "changes" appear depend greatly on the preview zoom (the changes are more subtle at 100%, but it can look like the noise reduction is completely turned off at 50% and 66%).
Now I realize that the noise reduction does not ordinarily display at all preview sizes (especially smaller ones), but this is different. At preview sizes where it does normally get applied, applying an adjustment brush with any non-zero exposure value (even just +0.05) can have the appearance that the NR is completely turned off for the whole image. Simply nudging the exposure value back to zero brings all the noise reduction back.
Also, to be clearer and avoid confusion for others, the change in noise I'm seeing is not localized to just the brushed spot. Obviously if one increases exposure, you'd expect to potentially see more noise. Instead, what I'm seeing happens to the entire image, even if I simply paint a single small brush dot, say in a far corner. Having the image change globally in response to painting a small spot with the adjustment brush cannot be a correct result. Further, this does not happen with any of the other adjustment brush settings like brightness, contrast or saturation. There must be something unique about the exposure setting that perhaps introduces a new step into the processing pipeline, and this step is affecting the entire image.
In any case, the problem only seems to be an issue in somewhat extreme cases and is less noticeable at 100% (and the finally opened image). It's more just annoying when previews are generated for viewing in Bridge, for example.
I suppose one alternative might be to rob a bank and go buy one of those new 1D X's. Then maybe I wouldn't have to worry about noise anymore.
Thanks for the responses!

Returning to ACR for noise reduction, while in Photoshop

Is there a shortcut back to noise reduction in ACR ~ while working on an image in Photoshop?
Of course if it's opened as a smart object you can return to raw but there are heaps of things you can't do to a smart object...
The onlty way I can think of is to save and close the file and then open it (again) in RAW. And that's a bit of a round about way to do it.

NanceeArt wrote:
The onlty way I can think of is to save and close the file and then open it (again) in RAW. And that's a bit of a round about way to do it.
That's the only way and also note that going noise reduction on a rendered image vs a raw image is suboptimal...you really want to be doing the noise reduction BEFORE you render the file. A raw Smart Object would be useful in this situation.

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.

Comparing noise reduction (again)

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