Noise Reduction Software

[GadgetRick]

A friend recently told me about noise reduction software. Said it seems to do a reasonable job at getting rid of noise in a photo. I was wondering if anyone here has experience with this type of software and whether it does help. I have shots which have some noise (not a ton) I'd love to get rid of if possible. Unfortunately, can't afford faster glass just yet...

Thanks.

[digirebelva]

Noise reduction software works by slightly bluring the photo (or a selection)..you can do a reasonable job without it using layers and a blur action..depending on what software you have if you can seperate the RGB channels and apply a blur to a specific area, the blue channel tends to have most of the noise anyway followed by red..

[Jim Poor]

Blurring layers and masking out areas of the blur is a way to get less noise, but it doesn't even come close to the results that can be obtained from "real" noise reduction software. All the reputable makers have free trials so download them and test for yourself.

Noise Ninja and Topaz Denoise come to mind. Nik software makes one too. Just google noise reduction software and start trying them out.

Lightroom has built in Noise reduction capabilities as do Photoshop and ACR.

[teaking]

If your looking for a free Noise Reduction Plugin that does a good job then The Gimp has a plugin that uses a pretty good algorithm and the results look pretty good. Ohh yeah my point lol the plugin is either the old standalone version GREYCstoration, or the new package which is a bunch of filters distributed as G'MIC which are both free and load through GIMP.

However Gimp may not be your choice of image editor but hey ho the choice is out there

[kencaleno]

Why not use what photoshop provides? the following beats any third party software noise reduction:

1- Noise (Chroma-colour noise)


- Image> Mode> LAB Colour> Channels
Channel “a” Gaussian blur 5 pixels
Channel “b” Gaussian blur 5 pixels
Channel “lightness” Filter> noise> despeckle
Image> Mode> RGB colour

2-Noise (Luma -Grainy noise)

-lasso area and apply smart blur at default setting (For small areas)
-Or Ctrl+J
-Smart blur-Then eraser tool to expose background features

Regards, Ken

[GadgetRick]

Originally Posted by Jim Poor

Blurring layers and masking out areas of the blur is a way to get less noise, but it doesn't even come close to the results that can be obtained from "real" noise reduction software. All the reputable makers have free trials so download them and test for yourself.

Noise Ninja and Topaz Denoise come to mind. Nik software makes one too. Just google noise reduction software and start trying them out.

Lightroom has built in Noise reduction capabilities as do Photoshop and ACR.

Have to check them out. I use Lightroom but can't figure out how to get the NR portion to work. No matter what I seem to set the choices at, no changes.

Oh I'm on a Mac as well.

[GadgetRick]

Originally Posted by kencaleno

Why not use what photoshop provides? the following beats any third party software noise reduction:

1- Noise (Chroma-colour noise)


- Image> Mode> LAB Colour> Channels
Channel “a” Gaussian blur 5 pixels
Channel “b” Gaussian blur 5 pixels
Channel “lightness” Filter> noise> despeckle
Image> Mode> RGB colour

2-Noise (Luma -Grainy noise)

-lasso area and apply smart blur at default setting (For small areas)
-Or Ctrl+J
-Smart blur-Then eraser tool to expose background features

Regards, Ken

Will have to try and figure this out. Thanks for the steps.

[Jim Poor]

You have to be at 100% zoom to see the effects in LR.

LR3 supposedly has even better NR, but I've not played with the beta enough to know.

Originally Posted by GadgetRick

Have to check them out. I use Lightroom but can't figure out how to get the NR portion to work. No matter what I seem to set the choices at, no changes.

Oh I'm on a Mac as well.

[GadgetRick]

Originally Posted by Jim Poor

You have to be at 100% zoom to see the effects in LR.

LR3 supposedly has even better NR, but I've not played with the beta enough to know.

"I see," said the blind man as he fell down the stairs...

Ok, I see it working (some) now.

Just downloaded the Noise Nija plugin for Photoshop. Going to play with that and see if it's worth me buying. Also going to try the other PS stuff here.

Thanks a bunch guys!

[mipo]

Originally Posted by Jim Poor

You have to be at 100% zoom to see the effects in LR.

LR3 supposedly has even better NR, but I've not played with the beta enough to know.

In LR3 Beta, only RGB is enabled at this point
Luminance is not yet enabled and may not be until the GA release.
But seems promising from the comments in the Lightroom Forums