Digital Noise Reduction Application

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GailTori

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Does anyone have a recommendation for a good digital noise reduction application? I photographed Woodpeckers being fed by their parents and the results are very noisy because it was too dark and too far away to get the best results. I'd love to recover some of these shots if possible. Thanks for any advice you may have.
 
Do you have an editor software already? Lightroom does a fair job, or the software that came as a free download with your camera. These are often fairly good and free if you already have them before you get into paying for special denoise software.

photographylife.com

Photo Noise Reduction Tutorial

This photo noise reduction tutorial is for beginner photographers who want to reduce or get rid of noise in their images and don't know how to do it.
photographylife.com photographylife.com
 
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GailTori said:
Does anyone have a recommendation for a good digital noise reduction application? I photographed Woodpeckers being fed by their parents and the results are very noisy because it was too dark and too far away to get the best results. I'd love to recover some of these shots if possible. Thanks for any advice you may have.
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I'm pretty happy with Topaz DeNoise.
 
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Topaz Denoise works well, although I normally use the Noise Reduction (section) in Lightroom. Use the 100% view and stop when the noise in the background is acceptable.

Topaz offers a free trial of their products, so no harm in giving it a try.
 
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I am also pleased with Topaz DeNoise AI and I have also been working a little with the just released On1 NoNoise AI as well. Topaz offers a 30 day trial and On1 offers a 14 day trial. Most of the noise reduction software applications offer some type of trial which is helpful in finding one that works well with your work flow. Noise reduction can be a processor intensive task to it is a good idea to test them on your hardware.
 
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All I can do is confirming various reviews saying that the NR function integrated in DxO PhotoLab 4 seems to be one of the best - if not the best - NR on the market today. There are a number of threads around this in the post-processing forum. But apart from the noise reduction capabilities there is also the question of how a tool would fit in your workflow. I was always annoyed by having to jump between different programs during post processing and thus being pushed in a particular step sequence, sometimes as a consequence of being forced to change file format during the process.
With PL4 I have top notch NR function fully integrated in a workflow directly working based on native NEFs only and leaving me the freedom to balance out NR with other settings in random sequence if needed, until I have the final result worth to be exported.
 
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I invested in Topaz Denoise AI 18 months ago and my post processing changed forever. No longer am I fighting the balance between noise and detail. The key to it, in my experience, is that you want to apply it before any other lighting adjustments. So I've moved from a workflow that started with basic raw adjustments in Lightroom and then went into Photoshop to where I now generally just crop in Lightroom, open in Photoshop, apply Denoise AI, and then start light edits using a levels adjustment layer (if needed) and then Camera Raw filter. I shoot regularly at ISO 4000 and 6400 with my D500 and R5. This is the R5 at ISO 4000.

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Get the trial and see what I mean. If you decide to buy and do it through this link you'll get 15% off - even if it's on sale.
 
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I'm another who favours DXO PL4. Since DXO launched their Deep Prime NR in PL4 I have not touched Topaz. DXO also had the Pure RAW product which is not the full RAW processor that PL4 is, a few people I know use and love that who still use Adobe products for their main processing.
 
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There are really two that stand out, and are on a different level to lightroom etc. Firstly Topaz Denoise ai...... which is fantastic if used appropriately, and secondly using DXO Pure Raw to initally process the raw files. (Dont use the camera /lens profiles in DXO though as currently those lead to an over sharpening of the images). DXO also have a bigger suite which uses their denoise software, but my workflow is simply DXO Pure raw and then straight to Photoshop. Currently the DXO software gets me the best results and maintains the detail i need. I then use topaz as a plugin in photoshop to refine the noise reduction a little more, but be careful not to completely remove every last bit of noise whichever software you use, as this can lead to color issues in the final image including posturisation. I set the topaz software 'detail' slider to 20 which keeps enough 'non seen' noise, and stops any such issues.
 
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Backdoor Arts said:
I invested in Topaz Denoise AI 18 months ago and my post processing changed forever. No longer am I fighting the balance between noise and detail. The key to it, in my experience, is that you want to apply it before any other lighting adjustments. So I've moved from a workflow that started with basic raw adjustments in Lightroom and then went into Photoshop to where I now generally just crop in Lightroom, open in Photoshop, apply Denoise AI, and then start light edits using a levels adjustment layer (if needed) and then Camera Raw filter. I shoot regularly at ISO 4000 and 6400 with my D500 and R5. This is the R5 at ISO 4000.

View attachment 22082


Get the trial and see what I mean. If you decide to buy and do it through this link you'll get 15% off - even if it's on sale.
Click to expand...
Topaz is fantastic software which i also use, but the new DXO pure raw is even better as long as you dont use their camera /lens profiles which currently over sharpen the images. My workflow is now DXO Pure raw, then export to photoshop, and apply topaz ai (after dxo you will only need 1-3 % denoise in Topaz and 15% sharpening. (I have found It is always best to leave a small element of noise in an image to avoid posturisation issues, and you can do this in Topaz by apply a '20' on the topaz detail slider.) The topaz part of the workflow is really optional now as the DXO does such a great job, and maintains more detail than if using the Topaz sofware alone....
 
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I just tried DXO and I found their flow process very cumbersome. Apparently (and please correct me if I am wrong) you cannot use it as a plug-in AND it will reject any image that has had any processing (which means all my focus stacks are out).

Correct?
 
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pochito said:
Is it necessary to use a Denoising SW with stacked images?
I've read thar stacking reduces noise per se.
Just curious, no experience at all
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There's different kinds of stacking and focus stacks do not reduce image noise.

Focus stacking just takes the sharpest part of each image in the stack to create the final image. Stacking for noise reduction like you might do in astrophotography takes the mean or median value of each pixel from each image in the stack for the final image. That reduces noise but it's a different way to pull info from each image in the stack compared to focus stacking.
 
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