Wow, DxO Optics Pro w/EOS camera noise

<p>I've got a Canon 6D that I've been trying to really push the ISO up to the 25,600 limit. The images get pretty noisy, so I've been experimenting with Noise Reduction. Tried out DxO Optics Pro 10 and was blown away by how well it removes the noise from my Canon EOS 6D images. Below is a cropped sample, on the left, ISO 25,600 noise as shot, and on the right, after DxO Optics Pro 10 Prime Noise Reduction. I've used this same photo editing program with my Nikon DSLR and wasn't happy with the noise reduction, but it seems to really work well with the Canon files.</p>

<p><img src="http://www.timcarrollphotography.com/Forums/NoiseReduc.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>Best,<br>

-Tim</p>

<p>Yes, great results have come to my Nikon and Sony raw images as well. Congrats, on a good find!</p>

<p>Tim, thanks for posting, this is really noticeable in terms of results. Does it work with Adobe Lightroom as a plugin?</p>

<p>Not sure about that Starvy, as I don't use Lightroom. </p>

<p>I found that it's best to take the RAW file right from the Canon camera, put it through DxO Optics Pro 10 first, do the noise reduction (Prime), then export the file as a DNG and import that into my normal image editor. That's what I did with the images above. The one on the right went through DxO Optics Pro 10, had noise reduction, was exported as a DNG, and then edited, the one on the left went straight into my normal image editor, without having the noise reduction done in DxO Optics Pro 10.</p>

<p>Impressive. Any disadvantages besides the price? I'm certainly going to give it a try.</p>

<p>Interesting. I didn't realize that Optics Pro allows exporting the cleaned-up file as a DNG. I wonder how that works. No other noise reduction program I have used allows storing the cleaned-up file in any raw format. Even Lightroom's noise reduction doesn't allow this; you have to export in a raster format.<br>

It would be interesting to see a side-by-side comparison of the prime noise reduction and Lightroom's, which has been improved in recent iterations.</p>

<p>DxO's PRIME noise reduction is world class. I've been using PRIME since it's introduction a couple of years ago. It's handy in many situations, but I use it a lot when shooting deer after sundown or before sunrise, at ISO's 6400 and 12800, with a Canon 7D MkII, which is not known for it's high ISO performance. See here at ISO 6400:</p>

<p><a title="Buck With Antlers Still Attached" href=" data-flickr-embed="true"><img src="https://c3.staticflickr.com/1/397/31597141250_f217df9f79_b.jpg" alt="Buck With Antlers Still Attached" width="1024" height="1024" /></a></p>

<p>When first introduced, it was very slow, because it does a pixel-by-pixel analysis and adjustment. Some of my first trials with it required several minutes per 30+MB image. If you have a fast processor (processor and memory are both important, but fast processor is key), PRIME 2016, which is part of DxO Optics Pro 11.3, does an 80MB file in under a minute. Smaller files are under 10-sec.</p>

<p>I'm big on preserving feather and fur detail, so I push the Luminescence slider down to around 32, which is less than the default. Also, I push micro-contrast to 30 to 35 to add back some of the slight crispness lost. PRIME preserves detail more than most other NR programs, but it will still smear some details at its highest settings.</p>

<p>You can save to DNG, as mentioned. Most of the time, I just save to an sRGB jpg. In the rare files that I need to work in PS or piccure+, I save as a tiff, work the file and then move it back to DxO, as a tiff. </p>

<p>Compared to LR, DxO doesn't have anything like the local healing brush. You can now select an area for "Spot" lighting adjustment, but it adjusts all areas of the image with the same color/brightness characteristic. It's also missing a way to add watermark, which was promised two-years ago. Despite its shortcomings, I do 99.9% of my processing with DxO.</p>

<p>Oh, this may be a plus or minus, depending on how you look at it, but I consider it a plus. DxO does no file management. I love that, because, in a Windows environment, I file images by date and Tag them with copious tags. I can search my 2TB harddrive in seconds and quickly find files. If your not a religious tagger, then you might like the related features of LR or Adobe Bridge.</p>

<p>The NIK define 2 does less well than your DxO, but it is free.</p>

 

<p>Dan M Lightroom does allow you to export a DNG with all of the edits. </p>

<p>Ronald,</p>

<p>thanks. Years of using LR, and I never noticed this! However, the other NR programs I have used don't, so I had to import TIFs or whatever back into LR.</p>

<p>Dan</p>