Bad image quality for Nikon D7000 and high ISO

[tigloo]

Hi everyone,

I'm a Linux user and have used Digikam for a long time. I'm slowly starting to shoot RAW pictures and because I'm not particularly fond of Digikam's user interface, I'm looking for a good picture management tool and RAW converter. So far, I'm really impressed with AfterShot Pro. The only thing that's preventing me from buying it is the experience with the attached picture. Since I'm new to AfterShot and also new to RAW, I'm looking for some expert help here.

I took a quick holiday picture when arriving at Cancun airport in Mexico. This being the first picture after a long flight, I forgot to properly reset my camera settings and accidentally shot at ISO 800. It was ok on the camera preview, but at home the picture turned out to be surprisingly noisy. While with Nikon Capture NX 2 the picture comes out "ok", with AfterShot Pro it is totally messed up.

The AfterShot images have a lot more noise. Furthermore, the AfterShot images also have a lot more color noise, while Capture NX 2 mostly shows noise in the pixel brightness. The AfterShot images have a lot less detail and the edges of objects seem to show chromatic aberrations.

I will add side-by-side comparisons in the following posts. I'd be really grateful if someone could show me how to achieve results that are close to Capture NX 2. I've tried all the features such as "Perfectly Clear", "Noise Reduction" and "Noise Ninja", but while they do remove some of the noise, the image looks very washed out.

[tigloo]

Detail 1, car. Look at the window of the car and the detail of the palm tree next to the car.

[tigloo]

Detail 2, clouds. Here the difference in the amount of noise can be seen very well.

[tigloo]

Detail 3, curb. NX2 still shows a lot of surface detail on the stone, AFP only generates a few muddy details.

[tigloo]

As for the pictures posted above, all were created with the default settings and no adjustments were made. The only step I took was "Image -> load" and then I made screenshots of a few details. I do understand that it's a crappy shot and I don't intend to rescue it, but the quality differences between AFP and NX2 seem very large with this picture. I would attach the original NEF file, but this board has a really strict file size limitation. If anybody is interested, I can upload it somewhere else.

[andysalay]

As I own D7000 too, I'll be glad to reprocess your image in ASP, please provide full resolution JPEG converted by your favourite converter, for comparison.

Regards,
Andy Salay

[tigloo]

Dear Andy,

thanks for your offer. I have uploaded the original RAW to http://www.tillgerken.de/files/DSC_2442.NEF and the file as processed by Capture NX 2 to http://www.tillgerken.de/files/DSC_2442.jpg.

[andysalay]

Hi Tigloo,

I knew NikonCapture, I had NX1 and used it in the past, I cannot describe its quality other than stunning.
I did not use it though, because of its slow speed and clunky UI.
Bibble (sorry, ASP) is much better in the last two areas, but, still is not in the same league quality-wise.

But, with the help of the plugins like USM and WaveletDenoise, I can get nearer to NX than with plain ASP.
Especially NoiseNinja is nothing but crippled in its free-licence mode. I do not use it.

I have used excellent BEZ plugin for contrast and tonality adjustments. The default ASP rendering is too bright for this image, details in dark areas has too low contrast, so it gives impression that details are gone. Increasing the contrast helps much. Then I have used WaveletDenoise, with higher chroma denoise, and lower luma. (image "v_2" is with NoiseNinja, instead of WaveletDenoise, but it did hurt fine details much more than WaveletDenoise in chroma channel, though I have used registered version, and was trying to find best trade-off between noise and detail retention.) Slightly changed WB, CA correction, USM plugin for halo-less sharpening (I am used to use very low radiuses, around 0,5-0,8 pixel), and with strengts between 150-300.
I think that output from ASP is very usable, though in the sky area the noise is noticeably more blotchy than in NX.
Do not turn on the second checkbox from RAW noise tool, it kills the fine details and increase blotchiness of the noise.

Download and install the plugins, then use my XMP to see the results.

Regards,
Andy Salay

[thufor]

I think that output from ASP is very usable, though in the sky area the noise is noticeably more blotchy than in NX.

The good thing about sky is that you can easily apply stronger noise reduction in a region on a layer just to the sky. There are usually no fine details so strong NR on sky works perfectly.

[tigloo]

Hi Andy,

thanks for your work and the explanation! I can learn a lot from that. Your version is far better than mine. Except for some chromatic aberrations, it gets close enough to NX2. You convinced me to order.

Till

[maggus]

Hi Till,

I also played a bit with your RAW-file and tried to get it close to your NX2 results.
And I can absolutely sign Andy Salay report. I can get close (using WaveletDenoise and WaveletSharpen), but still not same level of quality as your reference. But at least good enough for daily work and normal sized prints and posters.

cheers
Markus

[brucet]

I have a D7000 and I also experienced issues with noise in the sky. I found that the default NN at 10 was an issue. I have a preset that has saturation at -10. Sharpen at +200 and NN at just 2. I'm not sure I know why this works but it works for me. (I think other camera settings such as ISO play a major role as well). But as previously posted I don't get that excited with my sky as I can treat them as seperate layers later on in PSPx4.

[tigloo]

It wasn't just the sky I was worried about but the overall picture quality. ASP's initial conversion really messed this picture up. Lots of detail was lost, colored seams existed around objects and the colors were pretty bad. If the default RAW to JPG conversion that's built into the camera always produces better results than a dedicated conversion tool, why pay the money for such a converter?

Even though it requires lots of work with third party plugins, Andy convinced me that it is possible to at least get an acceptable quality from ASP.

[andysalay]

Even though it requires lots of work with third party plugins, Andy convinced me that it is possible to at least get an acceptable quality from ASP.

Please keep in mind you can use presets!
I have mine grouped in folders - DenoiseNN, DenoiseWavelet, Sharpen, CA-Removal, Frames, etc...
Then, when reasonable named, if you know behaviour of ASP, you can just click to the preset and all parameters are set up with one click.
One preset can contain as much changed parameters in various tools/plugins as you like.
I am using stronger sharpen with use of CA removal for instance.

Now CAQuest plugin allows parametrical denoise depending on ISO of the image. You just need to make one preset that containts your desired denoise for each different iso/camera, and then associate it with plugin, and plugin will choose and apply right denoise automatically.

Regards,
Andy Salay

for your inspiration, here are my presets for wavelet denoise.
free to use/share/modify

[brucet]

I agree about the presets. I have a number of them. Depending on camera/lens combination and end use. For instant I have a HDR preset where I use minimal sharpening and saturation adjustments. These are better addressed later in PSPx4.
I also have found that something in ASP has changed from Bibble 5 re the strength of NN. In Bibble 5 I could use a sharpening of 100 and NN of 10. Now in ASP, to get the same result, I need a 200 sharpening and a 2 in NN.

It's a new learning curve.