BetterPhoto Q&A
Category: Software Techniques, Tips, & Tricks

Photography Question 

Oliver Anderson
 

Noise Reduction Software for CS2


I've got Photoshop CS2 and need to purchase a noise reducing software package to complement my CS2. Which ones are the best?


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December 15, 2005

 

Peter K. Burian
  Oliver: Many Reviews favor Noise Ninja 2. See my Review at www.shutterbug.net/test_reports/0205noise/index.html

"Noise Ninja 2.0 Can Software Cure High ISO Digital Noise? Peter K. Burian, February, 2005"

Regards, Peter Burian, Instructor,
Mastering The Digital Camera and Photography
www.betterphoto.com/photocourses/PBN01.php


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December 16, 2005

 

Oliver Anderson
  Wow! thanks Peter, it is a pleasure to see you answer two questions of mine, and I appreciate it. I've told all photography friends about this site and they all love it. I'm the rookie but hanging with the pros at some events has taught me a lot. Look forward to taking advantage of the courses offered (like yours). Just read Bryan Peterson's Understanding Digital Photography and Jim Miotke's Digital Photography, and they're marked up like a college textbook.


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December 16, 2005

 

Bos Meloy
  I use Noiseware Pro and get great results! Very easy to use.


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December 20, 2005

 

Oliver Anderson
  just bought Noise Ninja yesterday. haven't had time to work on any photos but Sunday I photographed the D1 Drift races at night so I plenty of work ahead.


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December 20, 2005

 
- Svami Gurupremananda

BetterPhoto Member
Contact Svami Gurupremananda
Svami Gurupremananda's Gallery
  Oliver, you have a free noise reduction in CS2.
You will find it at Filter>Noise>Reduce Noise. And it is free.


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December 21, 2005

 

Oliver Anderson
  thank you Swami G. I've tried it but it wasn't quite good enough. From what I hear on the street Noise Ninja is Great and it works with CS2 so I'm sure I'll be pleased. I appreciate the help.


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December 21, 2005

 

David Earls
  First thing to do is to assess where the noise is. I've become habituated to shooting everything in RAW mode and then applying luminance smoothing in the Photoshop RAW converter. However, this doesn't always remove all the noise.

In Photoshop, open the Blue channel. The Blue channel usually accumulates the most noise. You can remove fine grained noise on this channel with a Gaussian blur. If the noise is big and clunky, you can use the Noise/Dust and Scrathces filter.

An alternative is to convert the image to L*a*b colorspace, then apply Gaussian blur to the a and b channels. Then sharpen the L channel, and convert back to RGB (provided, of course, no other edits are required).

Dan Margulis has recently published a book on editing in L*ab colorspace that's very informative; that's where alternate two comes from.


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December 21, 2005

 

Oliver Anderson
  I understand and will try your method this weekend. I shot the D1 race at 6:30pm at Irwindale and unlike all the other photographers that were using 100-400lenses I used a Canon 100mm 1:2 and shot at 800, couldn't believe how little noise I got compared with fellow photographers shots. In my location I could get 3 clear almost full frame very little noise thankfully.


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December 21, 2005

 
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