Noise in image

From: John McWilliams

The only filter that I found, under Filters->Noise was Despeckle, and that has some positive result, but is there a better fix?

Neat Image does a nice job, as do half a dozen other such products. My wife did some ‘available-light’ casual portraits of Alzheimer’s victims in a nursing home and had to use ASA 1600, and Neat Image really helped smooth out the noise inherent in the files.

Ditital Rebel, shooting in RAW mode.

For RAW conversion I’m using Capture One software, which has noise reduction options as part of the RAW conversion. Dunno how well it works but you can try it out for free for up to 60 days … http://www.c1dslr.com/

Photoshop’s RAW converter also has options for ‘color noise reduction’ and ‘luminance smoothing’ but I haven’t tried them out since I use C1. Dunno if these might help with iso 1600 files, but worth a look in the Help files.

I’d just get Neat Image myself 🙂

Bill

If your out to try try googling helicon noisefilter

both are free – the google and the filter

I can’t say its very good but …

Arts

"Bill Hilton" wrote in message

From: John McWilliams

The only filter that I found, under Filters->Noise was Despeckle, and that has some positive result, but is there a better fix?

Neat Image does a nice job, as do half a dozen other such products. My

wife

did some ‘available-light’ casual portraits of Alzheimer’s victims in a

nursing

home and had to use ASA 1600, and Neat Image really helped smooth out the

noise

inherent in the files.

Ditital Rebel, shooting in RAW mode.

For RAW conversion I’m using Capture One software, which has noise

reduction

options as part of the RAW conversion. Dunno how well it works but you

can try

it out for free for up to 60 days … http://www.c1dslr.com/
Photoshop’s RAW converter also has options for ‘color noise reduction’ and ‘luminance smoothing’ but I haven’t tried them out since I use C1. Dunno

if

these might help with iso 1600 files, but worth a look in the Help files.
I’d just get Neat Image myself 🙂

Bill

Photoshop’s RAW converter also has options for ‘color noise

reduction’ and

‘luminance smoothing’ but I haven’t tried them out since I use C1.

Dunno if

these might help with iso 1600 files, but worth a look in the Help

files.

It does help, quite a bit in my experience. I have to use 1600 sometimes to capture dance motion shots on stage.

It would be worth a try. Be sure to look at image at 100 percent view in the raw converter preview, then experiment with changing the luminance smoothing value.

Neat Image might do better, but there is a learning curve and from what you write this seems to be a one off situation for you. May be fortunate that you shot raw.

Bob Shomler
www.shomler.com

"Arty Phacting" posted:
"…
If your out to try try googling helicon noisefilter
…."

OK, I tried it.

I have … and use …

Neat Image
NoiseWare
Polaroid Dust and Scratch Remover

And IMHO the Helicon Noise Filter is "not (yet) ready for prime time."

YMMV

yeah – but – ah – I know what yopu mean 🙂

Arty

"RSD99" wrote in message

"Arty Phacting" posted:
"…
If your out to try try googling helicon noisefilter
…"

OK, I tried it.

I have … and use …

Neat Image
NoiseWare
Polaroid Dust and Scratch Remover

And IMHO the Helicon Noise Filter is "not (yet) ready for prime time."
YMMV

In article ,
(Bill Hilton) writes:

Neat Image does a nice job, as do half a dozen other such products.

Neat Image and Noise Ninja are widely considered the best available products for noise reduction at a reasonable price.

—

Warren S. Sarle SAS Institute Inc. The opinions expressed here SAS Campus Drive are mine and not necessarily
(919) 677-8000 Cary, NC 27513, USA those of SAS Institute.

Bill Hilton wrote:

From: John McWilliams

The only filter that I found, under Filters->Noise was Despeckle, and that has some positive result, but is there a better fix?

Neat Image does a nice job, as do half a dozen other such products. My wife did some ‘available-light’ casual portraits of Alzheimer’s victims in a nursing home and had to use ASA 1600, and Neat Image really helped smooth out the noise inherent in the files.

Ditital Rebel, shooting in RAW mode.

For RAW conversion I’m using Capture One software, which has noise reduction options as part of the RAW conversion. Dunno how well it works but you can try it out for free for up to 60 days … http://www.c1dslr.com/
Photoshop’s RAW converter also has options for ‘color noise reduction’ and ‘luminance smoothing’ but I haven’t tried them out since I use C1. Dunno if these might help with iso 1600 files, but worth a look in the Help files.
I’d just get Neat Image myself 🙂

Yeahbut, yeahbut, I’m onna Mac, and that’s one that don’t do Mac.

Thanks for the tip and link to C1; I had been meaning to try it for some time. Its GUI people and I just aren’t on the same page- er, menu. It is counter-intuitive for me, and took forever to just load images already in a folder on my desktop. If I had popped in a CF card, no problem…… In any event, the noise reduction works all right, but I have re-vowed to not screw up – at least not in that way!- next time…..

Given that the noise was introduced almost solely by my not realizing that the ISO was set horribly for the conditions, might that indicate a more specific course of remedy?

—
John McWilliams

Check this out:

http://www.aim-dtp.net/aim/techniques/index.htm

It’s Timo’s site, but those are not strictly linear editing techniques. There are two techniques for noise removal at this address, so take a look.

John McWilliams wrote:

Bill Hilton wrote:

From: John McWilliams

The only filter that I found, under Filters->Noise was Despeckle, and that has some positive result, but is there a better fix?

Neat Image does a nice job, as do half a dozen other such products. My wife
did some ‘available-light’ casual portraits of Alzheimer’s victims in a nursing
home and had to use ASA 1600, and Neat Image really helped smooth out the noise
inherent in the files.

Ditital Rebel, shooting in RAW mode.

For RAW conversion I’m using Capture One software, which has noise reduction
options as part of the RAW conversion. Dunno how well it works but you can try
it out for free for up to 60 days … http://www.c1dslr.com/
Photoshop’s RAW converter also has options for ‘color noise reduction’ and
‘luminance smoothing’ but I haven’t tried them out since I use C1. Dunno if
these might help with iso 1600 files, but worth a look in the Help files.
I’d just get Neat Image myself 🙂

Yeahbut, yeahbut, I’m onna Mac, and that’s one that don’t do Mac.
Thanks for the tip and link to C1; I had been meaning to try it for some time. Its GUI people and I just aren’t on the same page- er, menu. It is counter-intuitive for me, and took forever to just load images already in a folder on my desktop. If I had popped in a CF card, no problem…… In any event, the noise reduction works all right, but I have re-vowed to not screw up – at least not in that way!- next time…..
Given that the noise was introduced almost solely by my not realizing that the ISO was set horribly for the conditions, might that indicate a more specific course of remedy?

The best noise reduction tool(s) I have ever had the pleasure of using are both free, and extremely powerful. Check em’ out here:

http://www.2morrow.dk/75ppi/coolpix/actions/ direct link at top of the page. Has a basic ‘de-noise’ function, and then mid and hi ISO de-noisers (word? who cares…) You can repeat the hi iso effect repeatedly, and while it will loose some color on each run through, it has an action to re-add some of the color that is lost on the hi-iso filter. Stomps neat image and noise ninja to bloody pulps. Hope that helps.
Oh, and did I mention free…

On Sat, 14 Aug 2004 19:55:07 GMT, John McWilliams
wrote:

I failed to look, I failed to look, I fai…. to see that the ISO was set properly. Somehow I had cranked it to 1600 inadvertantly, and didn’t notice till after I looked at the pictures on my monitor. It was indoors, low white ceiling, nice bounce flash using Canon 550 EX on a Ditital Rebel, shooting in RAW mode. Ironically, the exposure is about perfect except for the huge amount of noise I introduced with the bad setting on the ISO.

The only filter that I found, under Filters->Noise was Despeckle, and that has some positive result, but is there a better fix?

Chuck Norris wrote:

The best noise reduction tool(s) I have ever had the pleasure of using are both free, and extremely powerful. Check em’ out here:
http://www.2morrow.dk/75ppi/coolpix/actions/ direct link at top of the page. Has a basic ‘de-noise’ function, and then mid and hi ISO de-noisers (word? who cares…) You can repeat the hi iso effect repeatedly, and while it will loose some color on each run through, it has an action to re-add some of the color that is lost on the hi-iso filter. Stomps neat image and noise ninja to bloody pulps. Hope that helps.

It’s Windows only, and the web pages are two years old, not that that proves the software hasn’t been updated, but…. also, they talk of PS six and older Canon and Nikon models, again, not necessarily a death knell, but one wonders….

—
john mcwilliams

On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 22:34:07 GMT, John McWilliams
wrote:

Chuck Norris wrote:

The best noise reduction tool(s) I have ever had the pleasure of using are both free, and extremely powerful. Check em’ out here:
http://www.2morrow.dk/75ppi/coolpix/actions/ direct link at top of the page. Has a basic ‘de-noise’ function, and then mid and hi ISO de-noisers (word? who cares…) You can repeat the hi iso effect repeatedly, and while it will loose some color on each run through, it has an action to re-add some of the color that is lost on the hi-iso filter. Stomps neat image and noise ninja to bloody pulps. Hope that helps.

It’s Windows only, and the web pages are two years old, not that that proves the software hasn’t been updated, but…. also, they talk of PS six and older Canon and Nikon models, again, not necessarily a death knell, but one wonders….

Works fine on CS and XP, promise.

On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 22:34:07 GMT, John McWilliams
wrote:

Chuck Norris wrote:

The best noise reduction tool(s) I have ever had the pleasure of using are both free, and extremely powerful. Check em’ out here:
http://www.2morrow.dk/75ppi/coolpix/actions/ direct link at top of the page. Has a basic ‘de-noise’ function, and then mid and hi ISO de-noisers (word? who cares…) You can repeat the hi iso effect repeatedly, and while it will loose some color on each run through, it has an action to re-add some of the color that is lost on the hi-iso filter. Stomps neat image and noise ninja to bloody pulps. Hope that helps.

It’s Windows only, and the web pages are two years old, not that that proves the software hasn’t been updated, but…. also, they talk of PS six and older Canon and Nikon models, again, not necessarily a death knell, but one wonders….

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention… it’s not a stand alone software package such as noise ninja, it’s an extensive PS action. So it doesn’t really get "updated" it simply follows the version of PS that you use. Did I mention it’s the best? And free? As to the camera models, they have no bearing as to how the action works, none whatsoeva’.

Chuck Norris wrote:

On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 22:34:07 GMT, John McWilliams
wrote:

Chuck Norris wrote:

The best noise reduction tool(s) I have ever had the pleasure of using are both free, and extremely powerful. Check em’ out here:
http://www.2morrow.dk/75ppi/coolpix/actions/ direct link at top of the page. Has a basic ‘de-noise’ function, and then mid and hi ISO de-noisers (word? who cares…) You can repeat the hi iso effect repeatedly, and while it will loose some color on each run through, it has an action to re-add some of the color that is lost on the hi-iso filter. Stomps neat image and noise ninja to bloody pulps. Hope that helps.

It’s Windows only, and the web pages are two years old, not that that proves the software hasn’t been updated, but…. also, they talk of PS six and older Canon and Nikon models, again, not necessarily a death knell, but one wonders….

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention… it’s not a stand alone software package such as noise ninja, it’s an extensive PS action. So it doesn’t really get "updated" it simply follows the version of PS that you use. Did I mention it’s the best? And free? As to the camera models, they have no bearing as to how the action works, none whatsoeva’.

But it is, "Windows only" isn’t it?

-Raf

—
Misifus-
Rafael Seibert
mailto:
http://www.ralphandsue.com

misifus wrote:

The best noise reduction tool(s) I have ever had the pleasure of using are both free, and extremely powerful. Check em’ out here:
http://www.2morrow.dk/75ppi/coolpix/actions/ direct link at top of the page. Has a basic ‘de-noise’ function, and then mid and hi ISO de-noisers (word? who cares…) You can repeat the hi iso effect repeatedly, and while it will loose some color on each run through, it has an action to re-add some of the color that is lost on the hi-iso filter. Stomps neat image and noise ninja to bloody pulps. Hope that helps.

It’s Windows only, and the web pages are two years old, not that that proves the software hasn’t been updated, but…. also, they talk of PS six and older Canon and Nikon models, again, not necessarily a death knell, but one wonders….

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention… it’s not a stand alone software package such as noise ninja, it’s an extensive PS action. So it doesn’t really get "updated" it simply follows the version of PS that you use. Did I mention it’s the best? And free? As to the camera models, they have no bearing as to how the action works, none whatsoeva’.

But it is, "Windows only" isn’t it?

No. Actions are not "Windows only" or "Macintosh only". It works on a Mac and Photoshop CS just as well.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

Johan W. Elzenga wrote:

misifus wrote:

The best noise reduction tool(s) I have ever had the pleasure of using are both free, and extremely powerful. Check em’ out here:
http://www.2morrow.dk/75ppi/coolpix/actions/ direct link at top of the page. Has a basic ‘de-noise’ function, and then mid and hi ISO de-noisers (word? who cares…) You can repeat the hi iso effect repeatedly, and while it will loose some color on each run through, it has an action to re-add some of the color that is lost on the hi-iso filter. Stomps neat image and noise ninja to bloody pulps. Hope that helps.

It’s Windows only, and the web pages are two years old, not that that proves the software hasn’t been updated, but…. also, they talk of PS six and older Canon and Nikon models, again, not necessarily a death knell, but one wonders….

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention… it’s not a stand alone software package such as noise ninja, it’s an extensive PS action. So it doesn’t really get "updated" it simply follows the version of PS that you use. Did I mention it’s the best? And free? As to the camera models, they have no bearing as to how the action works, none whatsoeva’.

But it is, "Windows only" isn’t it?

No. Actions are not "Windows only" or "Macintosh only". It works on a Mac and Photoshop CS just as well.

And, a note of thanks to Chuck. I did apply the action, after downloading the zipped file, and eventually got decent high ISO noise reduction, this on a Mac, a newbie with 3 months PS experience, and with little "action" heretofor. I also thanked the creator of the PS actions, who says there’ll be updates some day.

—
John McWilliams