Noise Reduction

Just for general interest & for those who haven't come across it before, I thought I'd show the effect of using Neat Image for noise reduction.

Below are a before & after pair.......


Before



After



I've used NI for some time & I think it's really good. It's also free!

The only (slight) disadvantage is that it doesn't retain the exif, well not in the free version, anyway.



Any thoughts?

Roger.

Unfortunately it also takes the edge off the fine detail. Personally, I'd rather have the small amount of noise.

Personally i try to take alternative shots with slightly wider aperture and slower shutter speed if wildlife reasonably static. F5.6 at 1/320th would maybe have helped here.

Too harsh sharpening accentuates grain in poor light shots too I find. I agree with John.

Ideally you want to be using something that allows for targeted adjustment of specific areas, or at least the ability to back off the noise reduction in areas of fine detail etc.

Like Lightroom

Or Topaz DeNoise! Here you have a ' counter control' for DeBlur and Restore Detail which automatically pull back clarity lost as related to the actual texture complexity of the noise reduced surfaces. Ideally you'd use it on a PS duplicate layer to wipe away or precisely control the amount required for each key zone of the image (eg sky / ground).

Of course all this is not to say that the OPs choice of software does not offer further control ... Does Neat Image come in a PhotoShop plugin form? This will always offer the most sophisticated control over application via the layer process, whatever the effect being applied.

Or DxO 8. It's free and does a great job of reducing noise and sharpening.

In the first instance I fail to understand how you got a great sunshine photo with so much noise???
Secondly the 2nd PPd photo does not have the punch as the original. Even the bird, the subject matter of this great shot, has lost its sheen and sharpness.
Regards.

Well, I much prefer the NI processed image than the original horribly noisy one.

but

With any of the modern Pentax sensors you are *really* going to have to try hard to get that much noise in a daylight shot. With decent light, sensible settings and restrained processing noise simply isn't visible enough to be an issue.

And the processed image has lost some fine detail and micro contrast, other tools may well do it better and we all have our favourites - mine's darktable but as a general rule any tool that lets you apply different processing to selected areas of the image is going to be better than some global compromise on denoise values

Thanks, all, for your most interesting & useful thoughts!

I shall return to the drawing board re noise reduction, then.
Particularly in respect of more careful exposure in the first place and more critical noise reduction in post-processing, if and when necessary!

Thanks again,

Roger.