Ninja Noise - Wow!

[wade_thompson]

<p>Last night I downloaded Ninja Noise removal software, and wow! what a difference!<br />I previously used the noise removal task in Paint Shop Pro X2 and this Ninja is way superior!<br />One question (although I will eventually figure it out): how do I load a preset profile for my D200 into the prgroam so I don't have to run the sampling analysis every time?</p>

<p>Anyone know where and how to load that profile?</p>

<p> </p>

[tim_eastman]

<p>Every situation will be different, so a one size fits all approach will not give you the best results. It can be time consuming, but playing around with different settings will let you figure out your favorite settings. One question for other NN users is whether they do any sharpening in NN or sharpen later in Photoshop. I have also heard to use NN first in the workflow.</p>

[elliot1]

<p>Wade, can you post some samples (before/after)?</p>

[wade_thompson]

<p>I wish I could but I have those photos I tried last night on another laptop that is at the house right now. Will have to try to do later if I get time with T'giving coming.</p>

[alvinyap]

<p>At OP: Could be mistaken but:<br>

http://www.picturecode.com/profiles.htm</p>

<p>I use the Noise Ninja built into Bibble Pro 4, there is some usm built into the controls there. I personally don't sharpen for print, leaving my print app (Qimage) to do that for me. For web use, use imagemagick to resize with the adaptive sharpen flag but I don't see much difference.</p>

<p>Alvin</p>

[hans_janssen]

<p>Do you want a real WOWWWW(if you shoot in RAW) try Dx0 6 as RAW converter and you don't know what you see after convertion.</p>

[g_c4]

<p>I've been testing Neat Image this week and find it very easy to use. The results are impressive. There is a TINY bit of lost detail, and I do mean tiny, but it is well worth it to clean the ugly red spots out of the shadows of my Nikon D2h high ISO photos. There are examples on flickr, if you're interested (not mine). Free download to check it out, if you're interested. Note: I don't know how Neat Image results compare to in-camera noise reduction that exists in more modern cameras.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>I've used Noise Ninja and Noiseware on my high ISO D2H photos. Both work equally well. I tried just about every other noise reduction utility on the market but prefer those two for ease of use, speed and effective individual treatment of chroma and luminance noise.</p>

<p>With my D2H photos I tend to use fairly heavy chroma noise reduction and light luminance NR, which eliminates blotchy color noise while preserving fine detail with a little "grainy" noise.</p>

<p>You can also work with layers or duplicate images, blended later, to very selectively remove grainy luminance noise from certain areas where there is no fine detail to preserve (skies, out of focus backgrounds), while retaining detail where needed. It's a little extra trouble but it works.</p>

<p>Wade, regarding the auto NR profiles, just be sure the profiles are in a folder where Noise Ninja knows to find them. They should automatically load. This is how it works with the stand-alone version. Not sure about the plug-in version, I don't use the latter.</p>

[liljuddakalilknyttphotogra]

<p>I tried Noise Ninja, but I now use Topaz DeNoise - beats it by a long shot as far as I'm concerned.</p>

[walterh]

<p>Lil what exactly is better in Topaz DeNoise?</p>

<p>Does it come in a plugin for PS and is there a free demo version?<br>

I am just thinking of buing a new licence for Neat image to use it on 64bit (my old one is 32bit only).</p>

<p>My impression was that it all boils down to the user interface and how well one can see the changes and find the best compromise between noise removal versus loss of detail. The algorithms should be well worked out and are published years ago. But my tests were done a few years back so could be outdated :-)</p>

[alvinyap]

<p>Can't sleep. Here's a shot and some 100% crops.</p><div></div>

[alvinyap]

No noise ninja:<div></div>

[alvinyap]

<p>Noise ninja at default settings. Note that the lens in use is a 16-85VR, and I think the focus point may be on the R, if I remember properly :(</p>

<div></div>

[walterh]

<p>I do not know if there is any advantage to use any noise reduction software with fixed settings.<br>

If you use fixed settings then why not use NX2 at fixed settings?<br>

It is best to reduce noise already while converting from RAW, at least for a first step in a two step process to reduce noise.<br>

The optimal noise reduction really needs to be found for each image (or series of similar images) because humans detect noise not depending on a technical specification of noise but depending on many factors like objects and what we "know" how objects should look like. Even the same image would require different settings depending of the output target and what you want to show in the image.</p>

[alvinyap]

<p>NX2 doesn't run on Linux - and it does not have awesome plugins - and I am certain there is no bibble-the-cat in capture nx :) Bibble does noise reduction very early on in the raw processing, but I have no clue about two stage noise reduction.</p>

<p>I personally don't want to think about "optimal noise reduction" for each image as</p>

<p>a) I don't print all my images<br>

b) Most of my images are for my blog or photo.net at miniscule sizes - high-res is for my background wallpaper.<br>

c) I don't think my images are up to the standards that I should bother with such pro level processing techniques.<br>

d) Amateur, not a professional.</p>

<p>That said, depending on the mood of the image, I may decide to leave it at the defaults (get a smooth result) or only reduce chroma noise (and get some sort of "grain") - so much better looking than 8 base scans off superia/press 800 ;-)</p>

<p>Alvin</p>

[walterh]

<p>Or you could upgrade to a used D3 now that it is "outdated" :-P<br>

(Sorry I keep my one^^.)<br>

But serious: I never liked the noise of the D200 but the later D300 got less noise and the D3 got even better. The noise you still get using a D3 looks much more pleasant than what I used to see before with other bodies. So I use noise reduction after RAW import very seldom now.</p>