noise

[greggf]

I was thinking of which noise software to get, and was hoping I could get some feedback from the forums. which do you prefer, and why?? I have been thinking about Nik Define 2.0 because I use and love Silver Efex and and Viveza(Lightroom plugins). But I have also heard that Noise Ninja works well, although I don't know if you can use it with Lightroom? What other programs does anybody recommend? Thank you for your help in advance....Gregg

[Daniel Browning]

Noise Ninja and Neat Image are good. Simple operations in Photoshop can go a long way. If the noise is caused by Tungsten white balance, a surface blur on the blue channel only helps a great deal. Then a surface blur on the a and b channels in LAB mode. Top it off with a nice tone curve to darken shadows and clip blacks and you're in business.


(Ideally, I'd like to desaturate "on a curve" so that the dark tones have less saturation and the bright tones have full color saturation, just like noise reduction Nikon applies when set to "off", but I haven't figured out how to do it in photoshop yet.)

[Fast Glass]

I like realy like Neat Image.

[Madison]

I would also like to mention Noiseware Professional. Trial version can be downloaded. After reading the manual and learning the settings, I think it is a very very good program. And there is Dfine, one huge advantage DFine has is it used Nik's u-point technology, making it easy to adjust noise reductions in specific color ranges only. Also available as a trial but I have yet to try that one out. Reviews are pretty good though.