Best K7 noise reduction setting

Apologies if this has been asked before, but I can't find it in the forum.

There are various settings for high ISO noise reduction on the K7, I have it set to off, and then use Lightroom or DFine. Am I doing the right thing, or would I be better letting the camera do some noise reduction.

The argument I have heard for doing it afterwards is that you have far more processing power and time and better algorithms on your PC, while if in camera the processor in the camera is less powerful and has to do it in a split second.

Finally, I always shoot RAW, does the high ISO noise reduction setting have any effect on the RAW file or only the JPEG?

AFAIK the noise reduction system takes account of measured sensor noise.

That is, when an image is taken, a second 'dark frame' exposure is taken straight away. This is then subtracted from the first exposure to remove this measured/recorded noise.

It would be possible to take one dark frame exposure, then subtract that from all further exposures, having already turned off the in-camera noise reduction.

I would suspect that there's an advantage to alloowing the camera to do this. The noise will vary depending upong sensor temperature as well as ISO, and, being random noise, may well vary anyway. The camera will measure the actual noise at a particular time rather than an example of noise.

RAW is raw data from the sensor with the least amount of camera adjustments and that includes noise reduction.
So there is no noise reduction applied to RAW only to JPG.

The noise reduction does have influence on the JPG preview inside the RAW.

About noise reduction on the PC.
Topaz has make an instruction video for their product it might also be useful for other noise reductions link

I would suggest to do noise reduction at home if you want the best quality when you're shooting with JPG.
The software at home is more powerful and keep more details and you can adjust them just right with the controls you've.

I think the type of in-camera noise reduction you can turn on and off only applies to jpegs. Shoot RAW+jpeg and see how your own efforts in LR compare to what the camera does with the jpeg!

Long exposure NR (dark frame subtraction) is slightly different - it can be turned off for exposures under 30secs if you are shooting long exposures and don't want the camera to lock up while it performs dark frame subtraction.

The in-camera noise reduction is only applied to jpegs, as others have said. I am quite impressed with Lightroom 3's noise reduction, but Topaz Denoise still gives better results, and allows more paramters to be set, ie removing noise from individual colours (allowing for example the sky to be treated seperately) or just removing noise from dark areas. As I get more used to it I am more and more amazed at what it can do.

looked in the k7 manual and menu and there is nothing to say either method of noise reduction ,slow shutter or high iso, are only for jpeg which is normaly indicated if this is the case. i.e hdr only jpeg. as i was hoping to do some evening/night shooting in raw using noise reduction

The answers to these questions are very simple to solve: try it and see. I suspect you will see no change to RAW files with NR turned on or off, whereas you will with the jpeg (smearing is the usual result using the highest settings). If it does make a difference, I'd be interested to see!

From my experience with the K-7 in camera noise reduction made no difference to the RAW file, it only affected the Jpeg output.
I mainly shot RAW processed and with CaptureOne Pro.

raw is raw nothing is done, in jpeg i had it set to off, its better done in p&p also you can do selective noise reduction.