Feature request: local noise reduction...

I love the local corrections in LR2, and I'm using especially the local sharpening feature a lot. But I'm really missing a local noise correction feature (at least for luminance noise). It's such a shame to be able to do about any correction that I need inside Lightroom, but still having to make a round trip to an external noise editor to remove local noise. Especially since doing noise reduction as the last step doesn't seem to be very efficient at all.
Local noise reduction would make this already great program so much better (at least, to me).
Richard

>My understanding is that sharpening does not add noise, but emphasizes the noise that's already there, making it appear from being insignificant to noticeable.
We're being overly semantic here of course, but it just depends on how you define it. If you define noise as for example the root-mean square deviation from the "real" image (a very common definition but it ignores the noise's spectral distribution), than absolutely sharpening a noisy image adds more noise. Sharpening operates as a high frequency amplifier, amplifying edges that are just noise instead of real edges, so it basically amplifies the noise that is there, leading to an increase in apparent noisiness. The same is true for clarity. Clarity is basically a sharpening operation at a very high radius. If your source image is noisy (especially if it has a lot of low-frequency noise - i.e. "grain"), it will also amplify it. Conversely, negative sharpening results in reducing high frequency noise. as it is just a small radius blur effectively.
>Moreover, sharpening in LR develop is considered capture sharpening, where the small loss in sharpness form the RAW format is regained.
The sharpening brush is different as it is meant to be a creative sharpener. It definitely amplifies noise if you push it. And even so, using Develop's capture sharpening, it is indeed possible to amplify (=add) the noise using the capture sharpening if you use the controls wrong. The capture sharpening has the superb mask generator that can be used to protect areas that are not edges, limiting its tendency to amplify noisiness. However, it will amplify noise near edges, sometimes making them appear as if you have a waterpainting. This is also an example of amplifying noise. Remember, even if these tools are meant to do a certain thing, it doesn't mean they cannot be made to do something else.
>To just regain lost RAW sharpness at the expense of noise would seem almost like defeating its own purpose.
Sharpness and noise go hand in hand. There are smarter and less smart algorithms but fundamentally, sharpening always amplifies noise, and noise reduction always reduces sharpness. As I said some algorithms are better and limit the effect, but the bottom line is that there really is no way around this.
>Or, is it more correct to say that applying -ve clarity/sharpening will make the noise "Appear" less obvious, but not actually get rid of it.
Appear less obvious is exactly the same as reducing it. Your eye is very good in judging noisyness as it is very good at recognizing patterns and so you can easily see what is noise and what isn't. If an image appears less noisy, it is less noisy. Computers are not that smart yet and if you call a tool clarity, it does not magically know how to not amplify noise or how to not reduce noise when using it negative. Same with sharpening.
Conclusion: negative sharpness & negative clarity == noise reduction. They are just not as good as some dedicated noise reduction algorithms as they are not primarily coded to do noise reduction. They do have that effect however.

Similar Messages

LR4 Feature request: Add local noise reduction

Hello,
I wish to apply noise reduction localy. On the backgroud apply a lot of and in forgroud (where the object/personn ist) a little.
See this example.
The current local noise reduction ist NOT the same as the one in the detail panel. It is a lof f less efficient.
Thanks

martin-s wrote:
...I had no idea there was a cut-off point...
The only people who know about it are the one's who hang out on this forum .
martin-s wrote:
I use negative sharpness combined with negative clarity and/or contrast for blur effects. It's not unusual that I stack multiple brushes when -100 isn't enough
Thanks for the tip. My problem with blurring in Lr is that the blurred region ends up "too clean" (the rest of the photo has at least a bit of noise in it). I have dealt with it in the past by applying grain to the blurred region using an external editor - but that takes a lot of the fun out of doing the blur in Lightroom.
Rob

Localized noise reduction

I know this has been requested before, but this would be my highest priority in the develop module. I would like to be able to dial up a level of noise reduction, and then paint it out (remove it) in specific parts of the image. Ideally it would work like the sharpen brush, with multiple incremental applications possible.
My question: is this feasible in the current lightroom develop architecture or are we just barking up the wrong tree?

function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}
areohbee wrote:
Hi Rory,
I assume you already know the de-sharpener (negative sharpening) can act as a local (luminance) noise reducer in the mean time...
PS - I sometimes entertain the fantasy that Adobe is busy working on the develop module to support more (or all) adjustments local (for Lr4) ;-}
Rob
Yep, and yep .

Local noise reduction too weak

I often need to add a touch of additional noise reduction to some image areas such as the sky and use to apply the adjustment brush (can't say how much Lightroom lacks a layers feature). In some cases, even increasing the noise lever to 100% will still not give me enough noise reduction. I currently don't know any other way to get what I want than to escape to Photoshop with its masks, layers and filters. I'd prefer to stay in Lightroom for noise reduction, is there something I could try or would the developers need to make the effect of the slider stronger?
Andreas

Andreas: the solution is simple, even if it isn't intuitive. Just click on the "new" button next to the adjustment brush to start a new adjustment in a new location. Now start painting in another location in the sky. (Don't get to close to the original pin you started with your you'll reselect it and continue that adjustment.) Now you can paint 100% noise reduction over the sky a second time for a total of 200%. If that's still not enough, lather, rinse and repeat.
I first learned about this technique from Matt Kloskowski's Lightroom Killer Tips blog. Here's a video he created that shows this technique in action: http://lightroomkillertips.com/2010/video-stacking-multiple-adjustment-brush-settings/
Brad

Noise reduction on PS touch doesn't work

Hi, I have just purchased the Photoshop Touch app for iPhone, mainly for the noise reduction feature but the noise reduction in it does not work. I move the slider and nothing happens.
I also have Photoshop Express, and the noise reduction works fine with it (it just asks for more money to Implement it).
Please advise

I've tried but the resolute is the same.
This is the only feature that doesn't work and the main reason the I've bought this app.
it's kind of Disappointing.

Missing noise reduction feature in iMac 2012, Do you all know if that feature was available in previous iMacs??

I have been having some issues in my iMac 2012, with the noise reduction feature. I have a MBP retina display that in system preferences has the noise reduction feature. However, in the new iMac 2012, I don't see that feature. Plus, I have been having issues with facetime, people that I call are telling me that they hear feedback whenever I talk to them. Does any of you know if the new iMac is supposed to have the noise reduction feature?

I was trying to find the "use ambient noise reduction" option in my new iMac, but in the new iMac I don't have that option. I was wondering if in previous iMacs versions had the "use ambient noise reduction" option available because I have an issue with facetime, people that I am calling are telling me that they hear feedback or static sound and they can't hear me well. I believe that with the "noise reduction" option, that problem will be solved. However, in my iMac, I don't have that option only in my MacBook pro. The reason that I am asking if in previous iMacs versions had that option is because I believe that there might be a bug that Apple needs to fix in order to have that option available in iMac.

Noise reduction feature

Hi,
I am working with Soundtrack Pro 1.1 and was wondering about the noise reduction feature. Is it useful? I shot a feature film that contains a lot of unwanted background noise like moving cars, chain saws and so forth. Will this built-in feature be able to bring some of the audio up to spec?
Chris

It is good for removing consistent, perpetual background noise. This means room noise from an air conditioner, and other kinds of consistent ambience. It doesn't help much with things that happen in the background at certain times, but not throughout, such as cars and bird chirps.
For things like cars and incidental background noises that are not perpetual, carefull EQ, Compression and Adaptive Limiting and Noise Gating are your best option. And, of course using your sound levels on the offending tracks helps.
The best way to deal with them is with careful mic positioning in the first place. Shotgun mics help with this as well as the use of lav mics. The closer your mic is to the person, the louder they will be in relation to the other noise in the room (which includes the person's echo off the walls).

Noise reduction in v.2.0.2 may be broken feature

Since using this update, noise reduction feature does not seem to function. Setting a noise print and running noise reduction does not result in reduced noise. The timeline waveform does not redraw, and noise is still audible regardless of db setting. However, low db settings do introduce the familiar gurgle noises. Does anyone know if this can be fixed, is there a workaround, or do we need to wait for another dot release?

I am having the same problem plus I get an "Uncaught Exception" error when I try to use it and then it crashes.

PV2010 Color Noise Reduction Robs Dark Tones

No pun intended.
I thought at first it was the raw-conversion/de-mosaicing, but its turned out to be the color noise reduction.
Here is a the latest example of a picture that looks better in PV2003 than PV2010 no matter what I do, because of loss of clarity / contrast / dark-tones resulting from the new Color Noise Reduction algorithm. Note: This loss can not be restored using clarity or contrast sliders.
This probably ought to be a feature request: A slider that controls the coarser aspects of color noise reduction (color waves or clarity/contrast) versus the most localized aspects (color specs). In this instance, just getting rid of the specs without trying to reduce the waves might leave the dark tones(?) - Something like that. In any case, there is room to improve color noise reduction so that it leaves the dark tones / contrast / clarity in certain cases like this.
(Its a 100% crop of a section of a fish under water)
PV2003:
PV2010:
The difference is striking when viewing the whole photo from afar...
PS - I just discovered that minimizing noise reduction will maintain the dark tones better - I've therefore added down-throttling of color noise reduction to my PV2003 -> PV2010 practice.
Rob

dorin_nicolaescu wrote:
Luminosity Contrast slider also helps maintain some darker tones.
Indeed it do.
And, last but maybe (or maybe not) least, one can cheat a bit at the end and add some grain, to give the illusion of greater detail / texture. So, if you really want to preserve full detail when converting high ISO shots from PV2003 to PV2010, you need to:
1. Crank up the luminance noise reduction detail slider pretty darn high (if not all the way up).
2. Crank up the luminance noise reduction contrast slider pretty darn high (if not all the way up).
3. Minimize color noise reduction amount.
4. Crank up the color noise reduction detail slider fairly darn high (not all the way up! - color artefacts - bleh).
5. Maybe add a touch of grain (pretty darn low).
(I've left out the luminance NR amount slider and sharpening because they are the more obvious ones).
I'm guessing I'm not the first person to fall into the trap of trying to recover detail lost by noise reduction by decreasing luminance noise reduction amount and increasing sharpening detail (and maybe amount too), and winding up right back where you started - too much noise. The detail/contrast sliders of the noise reduction controls really work a lot better for that, and minimizing color noise reduction is also a hot tip for you detail junkies.
I hope I'm not the last person on this forum to realize what is now seeming sort of obvious to me, whilst everyone has a good laugh...
(I had previous just left color noise reduction and detail, plus luminance NR contrast at their defaults (I discovered the importance of the lum.NR detail slider long ago...) - but not anymore. It has helped me to articulate all this - hope it helps somebody else too..........
Rob

Feature Request - better croping, focus patterns,focal length selections?

Tool specific Keyboard shortcuts: It would be helpful to have popup clues about keyboard shortcuts. For example, when using the crop tool, it is not obvious that typing an "X" will change the crop tool from a portrait to landscape mode or repeatedly pressing "O" will cycle through a number of grids. (Thank you Matt!)
Crop at other than "Fit" setting: Other crop tool request - allow crop to work on image at settings other than "fit" I may be able to get a more accurate crop at 1:2, etc. Otherwise I have to crop an image roughly, make a virtual copy and then crop again. Is there a better way to do this?
Show Focus Points on request: If you shoot wildlife with a long lens, a slight error in focus can ruin the shot. I review my bad shots to determine patterns of error in focusing. It would be helpful to see the focus points that were used in Lightroom, (e.g. killer whales move differently than an egret....) I assume this is stored in the metadata. I'd love to be able to do this in Lightroom.
Add Focal Length to filterable metadata fields: It would help to be able to see the various focal lengths used during a shoot, just like you can look at apertures (i.e. select folder for shoot, turn on filters, select aperture in the metadata and wallah! you can see the distribution of apertures used during a shoot.) This reminds you to mix it up and/or helps with lens selection. Is there a way to do this now?
My apologies if these features are available and I just haven't found them yet.
-TAB, a lightroom fan
P.S. Thank you for the wonderful new features. I can't wait to convert my existing catalogs. I love the new import dialog. Now I can organize my backup copy in a logical fashion. When I'm in the field on a multi-day shoot, I don't want to risk reorganizing the backup. Now I don't need to. Enough has been said about noise reduction and better rendition. Thank you!!!

There is a corresponding idea at the feedback forum: http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/add_image_direction_in_map_module
Anyone who wants this feature should also vote over there...
BTW: +1
Edit: P.S. I think it is generally a better idea to post feature wishes in the feedback forum (or comment on existing ones there) because it's regularly monitored by Adobe employees, while that is not necessarily the case for the user-to-user-forum here.

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.

Feature requests for LR4 beta from a wedding photographer

I would love to see some more auto white balance algorithms. There are many other algorithms that do an outstanding job that could be implemented to speed up workflow for busy photographers for when the lightroom autobalance doesn't work. Some of these include: i2e (colour science), perfectly clear, and xe847.
These 3 algorithms also apply an auto-toning feature which, when the Lightroom version doesn't work, these might give excellent results quickly. Photoperfect is a program that implements these 3 technologies into its interface and is excellent for quickly tweaking jpegs and tiffs. I would love to see this same capability married to Lightroom's excellent raw conversion engine and outstanding new highlight and shadow sliders.
A skin-tone white balance would be most welcome. Silkypix has this feature. When there is no neutral coloured object, you can click on a skin-tone and this will often white balance the image correctly.
More profiles would be welcome. To use Silkypix 5 Pro as an example again, it has 6 portrait profiles--these are most useful for achieving the perfect look for your photograph. Some are good for single light sources, while others excel at providing pleasing colour under mixed light sources.
Sliders to fine tune noise reduction based on tone (ie. shadow, midtone, and highlight) would truly make Lightroom's noise reduction the gold standard.

As these requests may not make the final release, and we wouldn't want the request to get lost in beta land, might I suggest adding it as a suggestion on the Feature Request forum http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family where it can easily be tracked? If you post the link to your request here, others can also vote on your request. You may even find a few of them already requested over there, so you could add your vote.

Noise reduction issue

Is anyone having issues with exporting the noise reduction adjustments from Lightroom 3?
After I make the changes and export a new jpg file I notice that the image does not appear
as it does in Lightroom development stage. I also noticed that the image looks different
in the library and develope modes. Not sure what I am missing here or do I just need new
contact lenses

There is a fair amount of discussion about this and I find it a bit of a pain as well, particilarly when dealing with very high ISO images - I find my self having to go back and forth to the Library module to see the effect overall on the image. So, but as best I can tell:
1.     The Develop module in 3.3 does not show effects of NR unless it is zoomed significantly, probably around 1:1 or higher.
2.     The Library previews are generated after development changes are made/finalized and thus have NR included though maybe just a very good approximation.
3.     Some have requested an option to show NR effects in Develop module regardless of the zoom level (which I think was the default for a while in at least one version of LR3).
4.     The reason for the current feature is primarily to improve performance in the Develop module, particularly when the visual effect of NR is sometimes very difficult to see at anything less than 1:1 zoom.
I am on the list of those hoping for the option to show NR at any zoom level. If the hit to performance is too great we can always then opt to turn it off.
Hope this helps.
Jeff

BUGS and FEATURES REQUESTED. Please add to it.

I've been using the z10 for the past couple weeks and wanted to start a thread of comprehensive Bugs and Features Requested.
I've labeled Bugs by letters (A,B,C...) and Features Requested by numbers (1, 2, 3...) so that others can add sequentially.
BUGS
(Not listed in any particular order)
(A.) Contact App adds current date as birthday. When I edit my contact, the current date gets listed as the birthday in local contact.
(B.) Duplicate telephone numbers listed. Telephone numbers show up twice in my Contacts (e.g.., if I have the contact's cell saved in (000) 123-4567 format and the person has the number listed in Facebook, I get a duplicate entry of +10001234567).
(C.) Telephone numbers and emails are not actionable in Web pages. In webpages, I can't click on telephone number to call (e.g., I look up a phone number for a restaurant). I should be able to easily call or copy into the Phone App or E-mail App.
(D.) Auto capitulation for words on the word substitution list is wrong. For example, when the word substitution contains more than one word. I have "ru" change to "are you" but if the first letter is capitalized (R) then both words become capitalized words (Are You). I used to have shortcuts like "mysig" to create email signatures with legal disclaimers but I can't do that now.
(E.) Backspace delete doesn't work consistently. The Shift+Delete function seems only to work after moving the cursor. This feature is the Alt+Del action to delete words after the cursor.
(F.) All Emoticons do not list. Emoticons do not all fit on the the two screens (lists) of emoticons. I.e., two columns are missing from view and can be seen when sliding (swiping) between the lists. Also, sometimes when I select an emoticon, it doesn't correspond with the picture of the one I intended. I believe this error is related. As a separate note, there should be a way to see the underlying symbols of the emoticon. (Often times, other people don't have BlackBerrys so I'd like to know what symbols would be sent--my prior 9800 would show the characters as i scrolled through them).
(G.) BlackBerry keyboard doesn't always work in input fields. E.g., certain Web pages. (I found a work around; two finger swipe up from the bottom makes the keyboard appear)
(H.) Sent messages stay unread. This seems to be an issue when an app sends an email (e.g., share article). The email with the sent indicator (checkmark) stays bold and I have listed 1 unread email. I can't mark as read/unread but if I delete the sent email, my unread message gets cleared.
(I.) Contact already added but I get the option to add instead of view contact. For some contacts, I get the option to add to contacts in the action menu cascade when that person is already in my address book. This bug is for emails and text messages.
(J.) Cannot call from text message. When I hold a text message and select call under the action menu cascade, the OS opens up the phone app but doesn't call.
(K.) Composing messages by name. When composting messages, the input must be by first, middle and last name. It should be, instead, by string and include nickname. E.g., if the person's name is "Andrew B. Cameron" I must type the name in as such. I can't type in "Andrew Cameron" or "Andy Cameron."
Features Requested and Suggestions for Improved User Experience
(In no particular order)
1)      Option to reply in different ways from the Call List. Be able to select a name in a call list and have options to call, text or email the person. The action menu allows calls to other numbers but I can't choose to text or email the contact instead. Sometimes, I missed a call and want to reply via text because I’m not able to talk. (Long hold on the Torch 9800 trackpad button brought up the action menu allowing me to call, text, view history, add to speed dial, e-mail, delete, etc.)
2)      Option to reply in different ways from the Hub. Related to above, when selecting an item in the hub, have the option to contact the sender or caller with multiple different ways.
3)      Only show number once in contacts application. Tap on the number to bring up the "action" cascade menu with options to call or text the number. Why is the same number listed twice (once to call and below again to text it)?
4)      Timestamps for individual text messages. I can't tell exact time on individual text message if it comes in near the time of another text. All messages are in one "bubble."
5)      Ability to select MMS or text for a message. Sometimes I write a text longer than 160 characters and I prefer it to be sent in one message (i.e., MMS mode) rather than being broken into one or more standard text messages. I had this ability with my 9800.
6)      Send button should be moved for text messages!!! Why the heck is it right underneath the delete button?!? Or next to the period button? I often times have accidentally hit send when composing text. It's very annoying and embarrassing. (Also, what happened to the ability to hit enter for a return carriage to next line?)
7)      Bigger magnifying glass. My finger is often over the area I need to place the cursor. I find it difficult and erratic to place the cursor.
8)      Select all option. Add the option to select all text in action menu cascade.
9)      E-mail recipients and message headers. Difficult to tell if you are one of many email recipients. Can we have a way to pull the email down to see the list of recipients rather than have to click to expand the header info? I know this request is a little picky, but that's how it was done in the previous BlackBerry OS which I preferred; it is easier and faster to pull the e-mail down and 'peek' to see which e-mail box received the message, message status, from and to fields. This change would be consistent with BB's flow/peek rather than click.
10)   Browser navigation. Hold down back arrow to get a list of recently visited websites similar to a desktop browser.
11)   Dark/Night mode. A night mode (maybe in the drop down menu) to change all the white and bright backgrounds to black or dark which would be helpful when reading/viewing things at night in bed/etc.
12)   Number of contacts. Ability to see how many contacts I have.
13)   What happened to groups or categories? I'd like to have back the ability to filter or see categories and also a way to contact everyone in a category. E.g., family or friends or coworkers, etc.
14)   Shutter sound mute. I was at a wedding and wanted to take pictures during the ceremony but the shutter would was too loud.
15)   East Asian Language Input. I bought my parents two Samsung Galaxy S3 phones over the weekend because they need Korean input (and the Kakao talk app). (BTW, S3 is a great phone but I prefer the Z10 after having the weekend to use the Android phones).
16)   Ability to freely place icons on the homesreen. Currently, icons are forced top left-right-to-bottom. I prefer to space my icons out.
17)   Add a contact to the homescreen. I'd like to place a shortcut (similar to a Webpage) to the homescreen for a contact which will open up the contact. Android allows this feature and so did my previous 9800.
18)   Search Contacts by nickname. The contacts app doesn't allow me to search by, e.g., Andy, even if I have that as my contact's nickname. The previous OS allowed this type of search which was very helpful.
Finally, as a note, I've been using the BlackBerry Z10 for the past 2 weeks and it's a great platform. I just bought two Samsung Galaxy S3 phones over the weekend for my parents so they could use the Korean language input and related features so I spent a lot of time with the Android platform, setting it up and teaching them how to use it. The S3 is a great phone too.
I prefer, however, the way BlackBerry has done their OS 10 and the integrated management of messages.
It's too bad that BB doesn't have Korean input and apps like Kakao Talk or I would have considered it for them.
The BlackBerry 10 is a great platform and I look forward to the continual improvements that will only make the experience better.

This is a great post.
I couldn't have written it myself better.
I'm also in dying need of Korean input as I can't communicate with my Korean friends.
But I second every point.
I hope the tech teams are reading this.

Lost & Found iPhone with Find My iPhone - Feature Request

Yes I found the lost phone and I'm very very grateful for the existing feature which works flawlessly once you get a hold of it but from a real life use case, there are things that can be improved that will make it more efficient and effective. This is a summary of feature requests that I figure from the real-life use case of Find My iPhone.
Earlier this week my friend dropped his iPhone on a cab and realize at the end of the day (he initially thought he left it at home) that it must have fell off his pocket in the cab where he can hardly remember the color of the cab let alone the license plate. Having said that I asked him if he had iCloud turned on (basically Find My iPhone in recent iOS) and so we checked. So here is where all the difficulties begin and please keep in mind that in a situation like this we're always in a hurry if not panicking.....
1. You typically have more than 1 mobile phones:
a.) Where its most likely different brand, model, or OS (you don't buy two identical phones) so in this case he has a Samsung Android where iCloud page can not be rendered - it throws an error. So this didn't work
b.) You need to borrow your friend's "iPhone" to find it and not many people find it obvious that you need to download the Find my iPhone app in addition to just activating iCloud to track a phone. Thats another long step considering in some countries u have a really crappy 3G or sometimes on Edge
c.) If you are lucky your friend have an iPhone or an iPad, you go to www.icloud.com it doesn't do anything except tell you "how to turn on icloud", download Find my Friends, and Find my iPhone.....you need a laptop browser to be able to use the tracking feature....why????? I understand that it won't work with other brands of mobile phones but these are both Apple's!!!
2. When you realize that you have lost your phone, you don't always have your laptop or an iPad - but you always have mobile phones let it be your secondary one or your friend's. Moreover, your laptop rarely have cellular connection so even if you have it, aside from the fact that it takes you 15 minutes to boot up your laptop, you also have to find yet ANOTHER phone to tether or find a 3G card to plug in to it so it can use cellular as oppose to just wifi, and then walk around with a laptop looking for the lost phone. And laptop don't have GPS, you don't know where you are relative to your lost phone.
3. You are trying to look for your iPhone from another iPhone (the most convenient way) but you only see ONE dot that shows your lost iPhone but not "you" who are walking around looking for it so you have to:
1.) Open the Find My Iphone app and then see where your phone is located
2.) Open up Google Map (sad but true, Google map is currently the preferable map) to find where you are. Why Google map? In a less developed country, google maps works a lot better in detail.
3.) Try to find where you are relative to where the lost phone is across 2 maps and 2 different apps. But even if it was Apple map, its still 2 different apps switching back and forth.
Yes, the idealistic case which would disregard all this is that you have 2 Apple devices logged on to the same iCloud account then you can see 2 dots but not everyone have enough of that to make it useful :-)
4. You use to have a send message button, lock the phone, make noise, and erase the phone. Now you need to first lock the phone before you can send a message. Understand that you should always lock the phone first but when you're panicking, making the feature obvious would help
5. Would be nice to know the "percentage" of the battery and being able to shut down all the apps, dim the screen, and etc. to maximize the battery time before the phone goes dead might be helpful.
It was almost a miracle to get the phone back in a place like this where people tend to immediately shut down your phone and throw away the sim card once they get a hold of it. My friend was very lucky that the phone was in silent and fell into the crack of the backseat and the cab was parked outside the garage so the GPS location was absolutely precise.
Having mentioned that, iOS7 new security feature that requires your Apple login credentials to erase or turn off Find my iPhone. My question here being it says, find my iphone can continue to display message even after erased - if that is the case will I still be able to track it as well? What if I'm the person who erased it remotely, will I still be able to display message as well as track it?

This is a user to user community, Apple are unlikely to read your comments, if you have any suggestions that you think might enhance iCloud you can send Apple your feedback here.
We also can't speculate on what exactly iOS 7's new security features will actually do, all that's available is what has been said so far by Apple, anyone using a developer version is forbidden to discuss it anywhere but in the developers community.

Feature request: local noise reduction...

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