Just wondering what you folks are doing about noise in your images. At the moment I'm using the noise reduction in Lightroom. Are the alternatives better? If so how.

For proofs we use the noise reduction in Aperture as needed. When further treatment is needed, such as for prints, we turn that off and use Noise Ninja instead.

Noise reduction in Lightroom? Gotta find that one...

How is noise ninja better?

I don't use LR's noise reduction - I cannot see much of an improvement with it. I will edit the image in CS3 and use my Noise Ninja plugin and then save it back to LR. Works great.

LAPhotoPro.com wrote:
How is noise ninja better?

Noise ninja does a far better job at retaining detail and sharpness when removing noise. The built-in ones tend to just smooth everything.

nikongirl wrote:
I don't use LR's noise reduction - I cannot see much of an improvement with it. I will edit the image in CS3 and use my Noise Ninja plugin and then save it back to LR. Works great.

I notice a big improvement with lightroom's noise reduction. It does tend to smooth everything out like Ryan mentioned. It would be great if you could use noise ninja as a lightroom plugin.

LAPhotoPro.com wrote:
Just wondering what you folks are doing about noise in your images. At the moment I'm using the noise reduction in Lightroom. Are the alternatives better? If so how.

I use the Nikon D3

tuannie wrote:
LAPhotoPro.com wrote:
Just wondering what you folks are doing about noise in your images. At the moment I'm using the noise reduction in Lightroom. Are the alternatives better? If so how.

I use the Nikon D3

Oh, so what kind of sharpening plugin are you using?

Edited by LAPhotoPro.com on Jul 02, 2008 at 04:02 PM GMT

Ear plugs.

Oh, wait...

APERTURE & BOSE QUIET COMFORT

If you use lightroom, leave the default settings for noise. ACR/LR is an incredibly noisy converter and puts noise into the image, the defaukt settings remove it to an extent. Mostly this is a non issue.

The best way to deal with noise is not to put it in in the first place so if I am doing work on grainy, high ISO shots, then I will stay clear of ACR/LR and use DPP as it gives a cleaner end product. I then treat with noise ninja.

If you are using ninja then a caveat should be that the supplied profiles for your camera are probably worthless if you RAW with ACR/LR. I would build completely new profiles and ensure you do your convert with all noise reduction off.

A big old NAD amp a big new pair of Monitor Audio speakers and an Arcam CD player loaded with Led Zeppelin.

I just leave it. As long as Lightroom corrects the color noise, I'm happy. It's barely noticeable in a print, and I quite pixel-peeping a couple years ago!!

Jonathan Consiglio

For high noise shots I use the adobe plugin Imagenomic Noiseware. I'm not as good as other photographer's on here and not as comfortable with leaving the noise as is so I use it when needed. On my 5d I don't tend to use it much as I feel that it doesn't make enough difference in most cases, but when shooting with my 40d I use a it a lot more.

Justin
Captured Art

I'm with Jonathan, pixel-peep and ISO1600 with my 40D looks soft and grainy, but look at it in a 30cm x 30cm album and it's magically gone.

The only correction I do is a blanket 25% colour noise reduction in ACR.

Morgan,

Isn't DPP a bit clunky to use for weddings ? I'd say at least 1/2-2/3 of my wedding photos are at ISO1600, if I had to put each one through DPP I'd lose what little marbles I have left.

Chris

Just the default in LR most of the time.

If I have to print larger sizes, I will carefully use NN in PS.

Don't do any noise reduction, but i don't print ISO 3200 images any larger than 8x12. At 1600 ISO, I can get really large prints if I expose properly with a 5D.

J. Consiglio wrote:
I just leave it. As long as Lightroom corrects the color noise, I'm happy. It's barely noticeable in a print, and I quite pixel-peeping a couple years ago!!

Jonathan Consiglio


AMEN. AMEN. AMEN.

Every time I read some post about the horrors of noise when viewed at 1600%, I look at the 8x10 ISO 1000 D70 PRINT that I have tacked above my desk. Given a correctly exposed image, noise is mostly meaningless in PRINTS.

ACR's color and luminance noise reduction sliders are awesome. Great results and very similar to Lightroom.

As others have stated, no pixel-peeping and you will not see noise; even in at 1600 ISO in most cases.

Prints are far better than a monitor when judging noise.....or lack of.

agree, just try to expose properly, use a high end camera and voila!

http://www.neatimage.com/index.html

evertdoorn wrote:
agree, just try to expose properly, use a high end camera and voila!

This doesn't work with night photography or low light shots.