Originally Posted by Jaell
With what? It helps to know what camera your using. Also, are you shooting in RAW and processing your own Tiffs/jpegs.
Have you considereda RAW editor other than ACR. I'd suggest SilkyPix. I like ACR but I can batch process easier with a stand alone like SilkyPix or Bibble. Plus, I like the way SilkyPix renders.
Bibble has Noise Ninja light built in. SilkyPix has noise removal also. It works fine for ISOs up to 800.
Personally I use Neat Image for high ISOs. In batch mode I let it auto profile the imageand remove halfthe noise. I follow up with batch USM in Photoshop or batch sharpen with Irfanview Thumbnails. I think Neat Image is very intuitive and less destructive than the other noise cleaners. The pro version has a Photoshop plugin which allows you to selectively clean the noise from an image.
Mostof these programs have a 30 day trial period. I'd download and do a heavy workout with your scanned slides to see which one works the best for you.
It's funny, Madison pointed meto John Ascough, one of the best wedding photographers in the world and he adds noise to his digital images. He sells PS actions to add film grain. Here we are talking about taking it out.
I don't think HDR software is going to re-create the dynamic range of film as much as learning to use curves during raw processing.
HDR Tools is fun to play around with and it will create some really life like images if used ccorrectly. Photomatix is the best for ease of use, but just like any software you need to learn how it works to get the desired result. Photomatix gives great results if you ease back on the amount of tonemappng it does. I've seen some outputs that you cannot tell are HDR images. That's the way it should be. The over-the-top gray highlighted metallic look turns me off! Like the recent Panasonic commercial. They're even tone mapping video now!!
There are some really good Photoshop tutorials online that show how to intelligently combine several images to get a high dynamic range output without the metallic/gray cast HDR look. Here are a couple of examples:
http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-cs3/hdr-high-dynamic-range/index.html
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/high-dynamic-range.htm
The results are much more like film thanthe over-tonemappedlook of an HDR.
My2Abes,
Chuck
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