T1i Noise Reduction doesn't really turn off.

I've noticed that when you open a raw image in DPP there is always a bit of NR applied, which goes up depending on the ISO. This is fine, you can turn it off and move on your merry way. The problem is that the same image opened in ACR would seem to be applying the NR at the same levels too, but in ACR you can't turn it off. On another forum I asked about this and someone said that it was actually just ACR applying it's own level of noise reduction and nothing could be done...but comparing images side by side from DPP and ACR, it looks the same, and my conclusion is that ACR can actually detect the level of NR on the shot and act accordingly, albiet in the background, and it cannot be changed.


Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone has dealt with this, knows a possible work around. I love using ACR because of all the awesome editing features, but I want to be working from the cleanest image possible to start. I sure hope that Adobe figures this out, or that maybe I'm missing something with the camera settings (I'm not, all possible NR anything is disabled).

This is one area that Adobe does not allow you to control. One possible reason is that noise reduction is actually a part of the demosaic algorithm itself, and if a different algorithm were used the results would be so bad that Adobe wont allow it. That's just a guess.


Another area where Adobe does not allow control is the exposure offset. On many cameras they apply a hidden exposure compensation (e.g. +0.3 EV on my 5D2) that clips highlights.


The highlight guessing algorithm (highlight "recovery") is also not under your control. Adobe activates it every time you reduce exposure, even if you don't want to use it.


Part of the reason for all this is that Adobe's primary focus is "ease of use". The ability to control the image is a secondary priority. If you want to have more control, I suggest looking into other software. RawTherapee is an excellent and free option.

Thanks for the insight. Actually using DPP is not so bad, it just doesn't have all the awesome and powerful creative tools that ACR does. I think that to maintain overall sharpness I may endup just doing a lot more of the processing from the JPEG that comes out of DPP from now on, though. You really wouldn't believe how much image sharpness is being lost from ACR applying it's noise algorithm...did a lot of side by sides with DPP noise reduction set to 0 and ACR, and man, it's bad. Oh well...another day with digital, another hurdle to overcome I suppose.