noise ninja vs neat image vs whatever

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Robert T Higaki

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I am starting to look at noise reduction software. Any inputs from you guys will be much appreciated.

Bob- the slide shooter at heart
 
Hey Bob!
I use both Noise Ninja and Noiseware Pro. Some images respond better to one over the other. I also like the fact that Noise Ninja has a stand alone app which let's you use it from LR without having to fire up PS. I believe Noiseware also has this capability on the PC side but not on the Mac.
In any event, both are excellent programs.
 
Thanks for the inputs. Hopefully, I will get more opinions on this subject.


Bob- the slide shooter at heart
 
Quite partial to Noise Ninja myself. Neat Image is another one to throw into the mix too.
 
I tried both Noise Ninja and Nik Dfine and thought the Nik software did a better job for me, although the default settings are a bit too smooth on texture, this can be easily fixed.
 
[quote author=happycranker link=topic=795'.msg544'7#msg544'7 date=1254195'79]
I tried both Noise Ninja and Nik Dfine and thought the Nik software did a better job for me, although the default settings are a bit too smooth on texture, this can be easily fixed.
[/quote]
I never heard of Nik Dfine. I will look it up on the web.

Thanks,
Bob
 
I went ahead and bought Noise Ninja. I am pretty happy the results I am getting with the noise reduction program.

Bob- the slide shooter at heart
 
I use Noiseware with great success. However, it's not often that I need noise reduction in the first place.
 
I only have to use noise reduction in some(not all) of my shots done at ISO 64''. I really do not know why some are clean and some are not.

Bob- the slide shooter at heart
 
[quote author=Robert T Higaki link=topic=795'.msg5461'#msg5461' date=12546'7582]
I only have to use noise reduction in some(not all) of my shots done at ISO 64''. I really do not know why some are clean and some are not.[/quote]

All from the D3, I assume? Have you disabled Automatic D-Lighting (ADL)?
 
Mark,

Yes, it is the D3. Yes, the Automatic D-Lighting is off. My High ISO NR is set a normal.

I did a couple of shots at ISO 8''' and Noise Ninja cleaned it up nicely. I am satisfied with the program.

Bob-the slide shooter at heart
 
I guess I should have set the D3 at High ISO NR at high. So much details to remember especially when you are shooting "on the spot."

Bob- the slide shooter at heart( I know digital has advantage here; there is
no way I could have gotten the shots using film in low light situations.)
 
If they are raw files, it doesn't matter what you set High ISO NR to. It is ignored for raw files. (Long Exposure NR does apply to raw files, however.)
 
I did not know that. Even my D3 owner's manual does not mention it.

Thanks,
Bob- the slide shooter at heart
 
I have bought Noise Ninja. I am very happy with the product. I have one shot at ISO 8''' and the program did a very good job of cleaning the image up. But, I guess with the beta LR3 this upgrade should also do a good job of noise reduction.

Bob- the slide shooter at heart
 
It is not fair to say that one plugin is better than the other based on a single example, but I think Noiseware did a better job for me. It has motived me to go ahead and buy Noiseware.

I would also like to say something about speed. It took about 18 seconds on my Mac for Noise Ninja to profile the full image (8 MP) and do its thing. Noiseware took about 15 seconds. (Noiseware seems to be doing something when it is invoked which I suspect could be some image profiling, so I took that into consideration.
 
[quote author=Mark Sirota link=topic=795'.msg5462'#msg5462' date=1254628293]
[quote author=Robert T Higaki link=topic=795'.msg5461'#msg5461' date=12546'7582]
I only have to use noise reduction in some(not all) of my shots done at ISO 64''. I really do not know why some are clean and some are not.[/quote]

All from the D3, I assume? Have you disabled Automatic D-Lighting (ADL)?
[/quote]

Why?
 
Because what ADL does is reduce the overall exposure, and then applies some fill light in the JPEG conversion phase. LR doesn't pay attention to the latter, so all you get is an underexposed raw file. And then you bring up the exposure in Lightroom, which increases the visibility of the noise.

And the reason it might apply to some ISO 64'' files and not others is that the amount of underexposure will vary with image content.
 
Again, I apologize for the slow response.

I really think the noise is directly proportional to the amount of light available. Look at the other thread(D3s). Compare the ISO 1'2,4'' shots of the Rolling Stones vs the Beatles. The Stones shot was done nearly in darkness therefore you see way too much noise. The Beatles shot was done at low light. Yes, still a lot of noise but not as bad as the Rolling Stones.

Bob- the slide shooter at heart
 
I did another test on noise as I want to back up my statement that noise is directly proportional to the amount of light.
So, this time I kept the aperture, and ISO 2',''' the same. I was able to dim the light. I used a Pentax digital spotmeter to measure the light( make it objective vs subjective). You can see that noise increases as the light decreases. I did the test on Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida album.( all these years, I still do not understand this song) http://www.rxphotos.net/Photography/unofficial-high-ISO-test/11'979''_AmDDj#799224118_JuP3q

Bob- the slide shooter at heart
 
Yup, the darker the scene, the more likely it is you'll get noise at ANY ISO but especially higher ISOs. Also, exposure makes a big difference. If you don't expose properly, you'll be more likely to get noise. If you crop too much, you're more likely to get more noise. A lot of factors go into noise.

I looked at the various NR tools out there and settled on Noise Ninja. Nothing wrong with the others I looked at but it made more sense for me than the others. I'm very happy with it and I'm (finally) getting around to learning how to control it better. I do NOT like the default settings--makes it too smooth--so I back off them right away. Also, you have to be careful, one level down (or up) makes a big difference in what it'll do.

It eats noise like Pacman eats little white dots, fruit and blue ghosts....
 
We're hoping on the basis of the new chroma NR in Lr3beta, that with the addition of the luma NR, (whenever that may be, the sooner the better I might add :) ), that add-ons will be a thing of the past, at least in many cases.
 
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Topaz DeNoise. I've only made a cursory look at noise reduction software, but I thought it produced noticably better results than noise ninja. Maybe I just wasn't trying hard enough.
 
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