NEATIMAGE & HIGH ISO's
 

Someone on one of the pro photo groups suggested I check out NeatImage after he
found the background in this ISO 1600 pic to be a bit noisy ( I didn't have a
prob with it):
http://www.pbase.com/bret/image/35429440

So anyways, I had tried it a few years ago but wasn't too impressed so I
figured I'd give it another day in court. To make a long story short, I now
have the full ver. 4.4 Pro+ edition and it works as advertised.

To test it out, I took some photos of the sky at ISO's ranging from 100 to
3200.
Here is a little test strip I made showing how each shot looks from the 20D and
with the NeatImage processing.

http://members.aol.com/annika1980/neatcomp.jpg

As you can see there is little advantage to using NeatImage at the lower ISO's
since the 20D is so clean. However, the software really kicks in the higher
you go so it's like buying two extra stops on all your shots for $79.

This one gets the ANNI 4-star rating. (It might've garnered a perfect 5-star
rating, but I had to pay for it).

-Annika ---- hates buyin software

Hi Annika

I'm in deep agreement the goodness of NI.

I routinely use it on D70 images. As you note,
it's especially good on high ISO images. Makes
my 1600 ISO images look better than scanned
pro ISO160 film.

-- stan

Hi Annika

I'm in deep agreement the goodness of NI.

I routinely use it on D70 images. As you note,
it's especially good on high ISO images. Makes
my 1600 ISO images look better than scanned
pro ISO160 film.

-- stan

Annika1980 wrote:

To test it out, I took some photos of the sky at ISO's ranging
from 100 to 3200.

I can make a trivial de-noiser which will produce zero noise under your
test conditions: simply replace all pixels with the average value.

A better test would be to synthesize an image and then degrade it to
various degrees -- add in some white noise -- and then give it to "NI"
and compare the result to the original. One can then quantify not only
the noise reduction, but also the (necessary) detail reduction as well.

Annika1980 wrote:

To test it out, I took some photos of the sky at ISO's ranging
from 100 to 3200.

I can make a trivial de-noiser which will produce zero noise under your
test conditions: simply replace all pixels with the average value.

A better test would be to synthesize an image and then degrade it to
various degrees -- add in some white noise -- and then give it to "NI"
and compare the result to the original. One can then quantify not only
the noise reduction, but also the (necessary) detail reduction as well.

From:


To test it out, I took some photos of the sky at ISO's ranging
from 100 to 3200.


I can make a trivial de-noiser which will produce zero noise under your
test conditions: simply replace all pixels with the average value.

The reason I chose the sky for my test is because that's where the
noise usually shows itself in my pics. On areas with lotsa detail the
noise isn't so problematical. In fact, it sometimes may even look
beneficial as it adds artificial detail and texture to the scene.
Kinda like film.

From:


To test it out, I took some photos of the sky at ISO's ranging
from 100 to 3200.


I can make a trivial de-noiser which will produce zero noise under your
test conditions: simply replace all pixels with the average value.

The reason I chose the sky for my test is because that's where the
noise usually shows itself in my pics. On areas with lotsa detail the
noise isn't so problematical. In fact, it sometimes may even look
beneficial as it adds artificial detail and texture to the scene.
Kinda like film.

Annika1980 wrote:



The reason I chose the sky for my test is because that's where the
noise usually shows itself in my pics. On areas with lotsa detail the
noise isn't so problematical. In fact, it sometimes may even look
beneficial as it adds artificial detail and texture to the scene.
Kinda like film.

Exactly, zero noise makes an image look "plastic" to me.

--

Stacey

Annika1980 wrote:



The reason I chose the sky for my test is because that's where the
noise usually shows itself in my pics. On areas with lotsa detail the
noise isn't so problematical. In fact, it sometimes may even look
beneficial as it adds artificial detail and texture to the scene.
Kinda like film.

Exactly, zero noise makes an image look "plastic" to me.

--

Stacey

I like plastic, I call it glassed over.


"Stacey" wrote in message
...
Annika1980 wrote:



The reason I chose the sky for my test is because that's where the
noise usually shows itself in my pics. On areas with lotsa detail the
noise isn't so problematical. In fact, it sometimes may even look
beneficial as it adds artificial detail and texture to the scene.
Kinda like film.

Exactly, zero noise makes an image look "plastic" to me.

--

Stacey