Noise Reduction

[mdm]

I got some very nice scans back today which I want to print fairly large relative to the negative size (about 10 times enlargement). I was wondering what people do for noise reduction. Do you use third party software? Actually, I like the grain but would like to try to reduce it in some images.

[polyglot]

greycstoration is pretty good, plus it's free.

[mdm]

Its a gimp plug in therefore limits you to 8 bits per channel. No good for me, I print digital negatives from 16 bit files in QTR. Thanks for the idea though.

[timparkin]

I got some very nice scans back today which I want to print fairly large relative to the negative size (about 10 times enlargement). I was wondering what people do for noise reduction. Do you use third party software? Actually, I like the grain but would like to try to reduce it in some images.

By far the best film grain reduction i've found is Imagenomic's Noiseware. It 'reduces' grain, instead of traying to destroy it.

Tim

p.s. Leave more grain in where possible - it prints nicely in the same way that Seurat paintings have a 'glow' and 'shimmer' to them..

[mdm]

Yes, it did occur to me to leave it. It looks very undigital. Like Ralph Gibson. Anyway, I will check out Noiseware.

[Daniel Moore]

Another vote for Noiseware. In most cases I can accept the default settings and quickly move on. Does a great job of balancing NR and detail retention.

[Brian Ellis]

I don't generally have a major problem with noise but when I do I use the noise reduction options in Camera Raw. They seem to work fine for me, I've never thought I needed a third-party program. But reading Daniel's response, maybe I'll check out Noiseware. Balancing loss of detail with loss of noise is always touchy for me and I often am not sure I've done it as well as it could be done.

[Daniel Moore]

It was recommended to me by the late Bruce Fraser at a seminar but the results speak for themselves.

[mdm]

I have tried Noiseware, it looked like it gives more control than noise ninja. I am not shure where I stand. The photo I tried it on is very grainy and detailed, used minimally it still softened a fair bit of detail which I brought back with some sharpening, but why sacrifice the detail and then bring it back again with sharpening, even my best efforts with a high radius brought the grain back too. So for that one I have decided to leave it as it is. I need to see how the grain will print in a carbon transfer before I can decide what to do with it.

[Frank Petronio]

Sometimes you might actually add some Photoshop noise to even things out. I rather have grain/noise than a watercolor. It also depends on your output medium and size, nothing beats testing at 100% size.

A lot of printers and papers will absorb that noise so you never see it. Also adjusting the image and keeping the contrast nice and strong will eat a bunch of it up - lots of noise comes from forcing the shadows to open up and the file just falls apart. Expose and scan better and you'll have a lot less noise.