Noise Reduction Software

Does anyone have any strong preferences for a 3rd-party noise reduction app? I have several images taken at ISO 1600 with way too much noise. I know that I can download trial versions of several apps & try them. But I thought I would inquire from those of you that have experience in this area. Thank you.

I have been a part time pro photographer for about 25 years with a lot of amateur clicking before that. I used Photoshop from version 3 to CS3. In the past few years I have moved exclusively to video. My needs for still photo editing have dropped a lot. I do pull out stills from videos on occasion, but I'm not doing anything very fancy to them.
I do still do noise reduction though. I do that in both my video editing app (Vegas Pro 9) and CS3. Well, I just upgraded to Windows 7 64 bit and Photoshop CS3 refuses to install. So, I just bought and installed PSE8. It works just fine in Win7-64.
I installed the exact same plugin from PictureCode to run Noise Ninja in PSE8. It works just the same as it did in CS3. It works very well too. Most of the reviews I've read over the years usually put Noise Ninja and Neat Image at the top. They both work well and better than the rest. Either should work well for you.
I never used Neat Image (other than a trial test) and liked Noise Ninja a tad better. (I found it easier to use.) However, I do use Neat Video with Vegas Pro. That's the same company's noise reduction for video editing. I'm very happy with it too.
Thanks,
Clyde
PS - The #1 tip in using any of these is to don't over do it. Things can start to look artificial very fast when these are cranked up too high. With really bad noise (like your 1600 iso pictures) you tend to want to get rid of all the noise. Doing so can often ruin what the picture is all about.

Similar Messages

Video noise reduction software?

Sorry... but I've asked this question in the Tiger OS forum about video noise reduction for iMovie HD 6 and/or QT files but haven't got far with it.
If anyone on this forum has any suggestions about what I could use to reduce visual noise - basically transferred film grain in digitisation, I'd really appreciate it
(better still a free software download or trial would be even more appreciated)?

I'm not aware of any free good denoiser.
Neat video has a trial, but I think it's either watermarked or limited to SD. But it is really good and the trial will give you an idea of what iyt can do and whether it's worth the outlay for your purposes.
Another option is Adobe After Effects. A bit of a learning curve, but they have a trial.
Good luck.
Russ

Anyone know of cheap/free noise reduction software?

Hello,
I am desperately looking for software to edit and reduce noise after I record on garage band. Namely low volume hisses and a constant buzzing.
Thanks.

The position of the guitar to electrical equipment picks up noise.
Before playing/recording turn up the volume and listen on headphones. If you hear noise turn your guitar in different positions and notice the noise reduces in certian positions.
Be sure to turn off all electrical equipment that you're not using for recording, TV, etc... Remember, they're all using the same AC power source, your wall outlet.
That's the cheap way.
Think about purchasing a line conditioner.
For recording guitar I use Line6's TonePort UX2 which has software that "Learns" about humming and reduces to nothing (well close to nothing). It's really that good.
MacMini Mac OS X (10.4.2)

Daydreaming - Noise reduction using iPhone mic

Wouldn't it be great if there was noise reduction software built-in in iPhone, which make use of the iPhone mic to monitor surrounding noise and do things like noise cancellation etc.?

Update: It turns out it isn't a 100% day dreaming -- Sony has announced the latest generation of walkman that features noise cancellation technology.
Ref: http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/16/video-l-sony-nw-a840-packs-oled-noise-cancell ation-and-64gb-of/

Why does PhotoShop CC 2014 crash my Windows 7 Professional 64-bit PC every time I try to use Sharpen/Blur Reduction and also Noise Reduction ??!!!???

Hi Adobe
You a have a really wonderful PhotoShop CC product. It's really great, and I know new versions such as 2014 have their teething problems.
But I am getting really sick of my Windows 7 Professional 64-bit PC being crashed whenever I try to use PhotoShop CC 2014 Sharpen / Blur Reduction and also Noise Reduction.
This happens both with JPG's and PSD's.
Please sort your **** out and get some patches out to address this quickly !!
Chris Tattersall

Chris,
It doesn't crash for everyone. A person could be forgiven for saying, in return, "Please sort out your **** system problems".
Trust me when I say many, many problems are caused by the computer system setup not being up to the needs of this cutting-edge graphics software. Photoshop is heavily dependent on the GPU, and GPU drivers are notorious for having bugs (they're primarily written to run games).
However, that being said, recent driver releases from both ATI and nVidia do actually work pretty well with Photoshop CC 2014.
What video card do you have?
What display driver version are you running?
If you're unsure how to tell these things, go into Photoshop, choose Help - System Info, copy the data, and post it here.
-Noel

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

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.

Noise reduction not working on Lightroom 5.4 MAC

I have experienced that the noise reduction that I apply to my pictures is only visible in the develop area of the software. As I switch to library it disappear and the same happen if I export the picture in any kind of format.
I post a screenshot where you can see a sample picture with the desired noise reduction applied (on the right) and the same picture as it shows in the library area (on the left). Switching between this two areas (library and develop) results like a noise reduction toggle.
Dropbox - example.tiff
Is there a way to solve this bug?
Thank you.

Usually Develop-Fit view is crispier than Library or Export, when there has been enough noise-reduction added to an image to make it seem smooth, and people complain that sharpening is not being applied; however, in this situation through extreme noise-reduction settings, an artificial coarse texture has replaced the fine-grained noise which seems to manifest differently in Develop Fit view, and the complaint is that Library has no NR applied.
In more detail, there are two issues, here, both of the user's doing, not LR's:
1) A user-expectation that the Develop non-1:1 zoom is accurate regarding Detail settings. It is not. For years there has been an exclamation-point warning on the Detail settings section that says to view things only at 1:1. If a user doesn't see or ignores this warning then their expectation is wrong, as in this situation.
2) The Luminance Noise-Reduction Detail slider has been increased from the default of 50 to the maximum of 100. This has the effect of converting the fine-grain noise into a course angular texture, which is easily visible at reduced sizes except in the inaccurate Develop Fit view.
In the following side-by-side at 1:1 zoom, the lefthand panel is as per the user settings with the Lum-NR-Detail slider set to 100, while the righthand side has the Lum-NR-Detail slider set at the default of 50, with all other user settings remaining the same:
I would summarize what is occurring not as a bug but a different response of the inaccurate Develop-Fit rendering to a different coarseness of noise that is caused by an extreme setting of the Lum-NR-Detail slider. Since there is no resizing and no sharpening in the Export settings, I don't think the 1/3 bug has anything to do with anything.
It would be nice for the original poster (OP) to describe exactly what is wrong, after knowing that the Develop view is in accurate if not viewed at 1:1.

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.

Lightroom 5 no noise reduction on file export

Here are the steps I'm using:
               color and luminance noise reduction
Export with these settings:
               jpeg ( same result with tiff}
               quality 100%
               resize to fit long edge 1000 px
    Lighroom screen--------------------------------------------------------Jpeg export
Any ideas?

JimHess wrote:
I think it's unfair to refer to people who can provide reasonable answers as fanboys.
Sadly Jim, we still haven't got the kind of "ignore whiney, flamebaiting troll" button that would allow us to shut the likes of him up. No, he doesn't come here for solutions, he comes here to flame. I'm baffled why he hasn't been banned.
Torsten,
Here's my favourite workaround. You could have done it too, and it's a simple, one-step solution:
Don't pay for software without thoroughly testing it yourself first.
If you've paid for Lr 5 before destruction-testing it and keeping a close eye on the forum (where this issue has been know about for ages), you've only yourself to blame.
Adobe will fix it when they're ready and able to: but it doesn't affect me in any "I paid for this, I expect it to work" way, because I won't be buying Lr 5 until it is fixed.
A really, really, really simple, inexpensive, trouble-free way to deal with all that stress...

RAW files very smoothed - not caused by noise reduction

Hi there. My Adobe RAW-converting software has just developed a really odd problem. I was editing files and all of a sudden all the RAW files have some kind of smoothing effect. It's like the noise reduction is up full (it's at the default settings), but even worse. This happens in both ACR and Lightroom.
I can see the blurring effect in Lightroom and ACR if I zoom in to 100%, but not otherwise. I trashed the preferences for Photoshop and ACR and I also re-downloaded Camera Raw 5.6 and reinstalled it. Nothing seems to help. I did not change any settings for this to happen; it just happened sponteneously as I was editing. Any ideas? Thanks!

By the way, here are two screen shots showing what the file looks like at full size in LR, followed by how it looks when opened into Photoshop.

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.

Noise Reduction in Photoshop Touch does not work

Noise reduction in Photoshop Touch does not work. Move slider and nothing happens.
I also have Photoshop Express, and noise reduction works fine with it.
Is it me or the software.
Used on iPad mini.

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

Noise reduction applied to high ISO .tif files in ACR 4.1?

Evidently ACR 4.1 applies noise reduction to high ISO raw files from Canon cameras, even when noise reduction is turned "off" in the plug-in (and this results in smeared detail). I have a 5D that I bought specifically for its lack of noise in high ISO files, and I don't want a software program forcing me into using noise reduction and ruining all those marvelous details in my high ISO raw files. Can someone tell me if there is a similar problem with ACR 4.1 if you open a .tif file with it? If not, I'm thinking I'm going to use Canon DPP 3.02 to convert my raw files to .tif, and then use ACR 4.1 to quickly adjust exposure, black point, etc., all of which is awkward and slow in DPP 3.02.
Rob

No, although ACR v4.1 does apply some baseline noise reduction to many raw files, I do not think that it applies any default NR to TIF files. Lightroom v1.1 does not apply any noise-reduction to TIF or JPG files by default, at least as far as I've noticed, so I believe this will likely carry over to ACR v4.1 as well. Of course you *can* turn the NR sliders up from zero and then it will! In any case, you'd be advised to test that theory yourself just to make sure, before designing a workflow around that assumption...

EARS ALMOST BLOWN OUT by Noise Reduction window

OK, I'm exaggerating a little here, but what just happened with STP could have caused some quite serious hearing damage, had I had the headphone volume turned a little higher.
Was listening to my mono 48khz 32-bit audio file for fine-tune detail... I set the noise print on a quiet section of noise, then opened the Reduce Noise window.
Now, I should say here that each time I played the mono audio it would play through both channels evenly, and show up in the master as bouncing around -20dB.
When I hit play in the Reduce Noise window, the left channel was playing at normal level, and the right channel began playing in my headphones at +6dB, causing my ears to ring for the past 5 minutes!!
Here are the settings I had in the Reduce noise window when this happened:
Noise Reduction: -60dB
Reduction: 100%
Tone control: middle
*anything I've done wrong here?*
I have had lots of issues with the stability of this application in the past, but this, to me, is completely unacceptable! I realize this is a discussion board and not a customer complaint board, however I would like to remind users who may check here frequently to be cautious when using this software that you don't damage your equipment or your precious ears!

Yes, this is very much a known issue. See the following posts:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9034765
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8646103
I was very close to losing my hearing last Christmas when I experienced this "feature" for the first time. I really do hope no one actually gets his/her ears blown because of this bug. It's been a known issue for at least a year, and still no word or fix from Apple. Please remember to leave a note at Apple's feedback area; this forum is not the best place to write bug reports: http://www.apple.com/feedback/soundtrackpro.html
HeiLei

Noise Reduction Software

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