Registered Noise Ninja

[Centauri27]

I have the same question as well. I just paid money to buy the Noiseware Standalone and Noiseware Plugin versions to work with Photoshop Elements; don't know if I should pay another $35 for NN. It's too bad that I can't use PS plugins in ASP.

[claudermilk]

I have the same question as well. I just paid money to buy the Noiseware Standalone and Noiseware Plugin versions to work with Photoshop Elements; don't know if I should pay another $35 for NN. It's too bad that I can't use PS plugins in ASP.

Try Wavelet Denoise first. I was in the same boat since Bibble 4. I have an older Noiseware license around somewhere, but that is no use for NN in Bibble/ASP. I ended up using Wavelet in Bibble 5 as it does a darn good job; I'm just getting my head around the changes in ASP.

Keep in mind, PS/PSP are totally different animals from ASP. I wouldn't expect plugins for a pixel editor to work in a RAW converter.

[MikeFromMesa]

Try Wavelet Denoise first. I was in the same boat since Bibble 4. I have an older Noiseware license around somewhere, but that is no use for NN in Bibble/ASP. I ended up using Wavelet in Bibble 5 as it does a darn good job; I'm just getting my head around the changes in ASP.

The first thing I need to say is that I do not seem to be very good at using most anti-noise apps and have had no luck at all with the ASP Wavelet plugin. This is probably because I don't really understand how to use it.

I own the Topaz bundle that I bought when I first started getting interested in digital photography and I do know how to use those decently. In particular I can do a fairly decent job with Topaz's DeNoise plugin although Topaz is set up with a series of presets and it is pretty hard to not use it properly.

I was reading through one of the dpreview forum posts two days ago when I saw a series of bird photos taken at ISO 800 and 1600 and was so impressed by how clean they were that I decided to do some testing at higher ISO settings on my camera. I took a series of photos from ISO 800 through ISO 12800, worked through them with the Sagelight editor and the Topaz DeNoise plugin and posted the results here:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... e=40618288

I then decided to try working on the ISO 12800 image with ASP, but found that I could not remove the noise with either the Raw Noise or standard Noise Ninja sliders (although I thought the NN did a better job) so I tried the Wavelet plugin. As I said I guess I don't know how to use it and what I got was a mess. All the settings I tried with Wavelet made things much, much worse. In the end I found that if I set up ASP's external editor to be FusionExpress (Topaz's external app that can run the plugins) and accessed DeNoise that way, created a tiff file and then edited the resulting tiff in ASP I could easily get as good an image with ASP/Topaz as I had earlier, so all was not lost.

However I think that if I could find a decent tutorial about Wavelet it would make a big difference. I followed the links under Wavelet About but that was not really any help. Since I consider NoiseNinja to be as professional a set of plugins as Topaz I assume I could get results as good with it as with Topaz, but since there is no trial for the Registered NoiseNinja plugin and I would have to buy one of the apps to get the license number (and lose the money if I was not happy with it) just to find out if it worked, I decided to ask on the forum. Hence the post. If you have any idea where there might be a decent tutorial about Wavelet I would appreciate knowing.

[afx]

WD is easy if you do not want to kill all noise but only want to get it to an acceptable level...
Turn off all sharpening.
First pull up the color slider in one click increments (I think that is 5 or 10 points) until the chroma noise is gone.
Repeat with the Luma slider until the noise is no longer bothersome. Completely cleaning Luma with WD seems to be a bit on the plasticy side for my taste so I never use it.

Then use Wavelet Sharpen according to taste. The S+P option is recommended.
I suggest not using the gradient option on noisy images, just stick to WS (and USM for a bit of LCE if needed).
AS sharpening is currently not recommended on noise images ;-(

The regular NN is not really useful in my eyes if you are serious about high ISO shots. You need the dedicated controls for Luma and Chroma to get decent results without killing all detail.

cheers
afx

[MikeFromMesa]

afx:

I recognize that these are pretty simple questions, but I still must ask:

1) What does the "Reduce S+P" checkbox actually do? What is "S+P"?

2)

First pull up the a/b slider in one click increments (I think that is 5 or 10 points) until the chroma noise is gone.

Do you mean the Threshold and Detail sliders in the Color area? Is the "a" slide the Threshold? And the "b" slider the Detail?

3) What do the terms Threshold and Detail actually mean? Does increasing the Detail value increase the detail you can see? Or increase hiding the details? Threshold is the threshold of what? Is increasing the Threshold strength increasing the strength of the Denoise functionality? Or something else?

4)

I suggest not using the gradient option on noisy images, just stick to WS (and USM for a bit of LCE if needed).

Similarly what is USM? what is LCE? Are you supposed to use Wavelet 1 and Wavelet 2 together? Or one or the other?

Basically, are there instructions anywhere for the use of the Denoise and Sharpen plugins? Looking at these questions you can probably tell why I typically use Topaz where the settings are either presets or, based on how the sliders change when the presets change, you can pretty much tell what does what.

[claudermilk]

S+P = "Salt & Pepper" It reduces the pixel noise that looks just like that. IMHO, it's even more critical in ASP than in B5; same goes for WS. I'm not sure why it's been deprecated, I completely disagree there.

I just play with the settings until I get a feel for what they do. Pick one & run it to the extremes to get a good, clear exampe of what it's doing. Then I back down to usable levels.

[afx]

1) What does the "Reduce S+P" checkbox actually do? What is "S+P"?

Especially on denoised images, sharpening can lead to Salt and Pepper type spots. This option reduces them.

First pull up the a/b slider in one click increments (I think that is 5 or 10 points) until the chroma noise is gone.

Do you mean the Threshold and Detail sliders in the Color area? Is the "a" slide the Threshold? And the "b" slider the Detail?

Sorry for that. I am mentally still on the old version, it is color, not a/b.
The threshold slider.

3) What do the terms Threshold and Detail actually mean? Does increasing the Detail value increase the detail you can see? Or increase hiding the details? Threshold is the threshold of what? Is increasing the Threshold strength increasing the strength of the Denoise functionality? Or something else?

The threshold should be labeled strength in my eyes. That would be easier to understand
Detail tries to protect detail when you increase the strenght(Threshold) a lot.

I suggest not using the gradient option on noisy images, just stick to WS (and USM for a bit of LCE if needed).

Similarly what is USM? what is LCE? Are you supposed to use Wavelet 1 and Wavelet 2 together? Or one or the other?

USM is just the standard UnSharp Mask. Use Wikipedia for details.
Local Contrast Enhancement is a boost in micro contrast, typically by using USM with a wide radius and a low amount.
Unless you think that a two pass WS looks better, I suggest sticking to one pass only.
So far I have not found a need yet to run two passes, but then I am not a sharpening guru....

Basically, are there instructions anywhere for the use of the Denoise and Sharpen plugins? Looking at these questions you can probably tell why I typically use Topaz where the settings are either presets or, based on how the sliders change when the presets change, you can pretty much tell what does what.

Dieter wrote up something about the logic behind it, but as far as I know, there are no real tutorials on this.

In general, experimenting a bit with slow steps (not mixing too many tools) helps a lot to understand those things and get a feel for it.

cheers
afx

[afx]

S+P = "Salt & Pepper" It reduces the pixel noise that looks just like that. IMHO, it's even more critical in ASP than in B5; same goes for WS. I'm not sure why it's been deprecated, I completely disagree there.

Depreciated where???

cheers
afx

[MikeFromMesa]

afx:

The threshold should be labeled strength in my eyes. That would be easier to understand
Detail tries to protect detail when you increase the strenght(Threshold) a lot.

Oh, yes. I see now. Using these controls with the information you gave me helped quite a bit. I was able to take the Raw ISO 12,800 image and successfully remove most of the noise although I had to first enable and adjust the included NN setting. It now looks fairly comparable to the image where I first called the Topaz plugin through the Topaz external editor and then adjusted the returned tiff file.

Thank you very much.

[maggus]

az, but since there is no trial for the Registered NoiseNinja plugin and I would have to buy one of the apps to get the license number (and lose the money if I was not happy with it) just to find out if it worked, I decided to ask on the forum.

as far as I remember you can download a trial/test license of the stand-alone NN application... with this you could evaluate full NN performance the same way as with your Topaz.... of course I expect the registered NN to do the same as the stand-alone App.

best regards
Markus

[df]

One thing I assumed that would happen with the registered version of Noise Ninja would be the use of profiles for a particular camera. I've bought the standalone version to use in ASP (activate the ASP version) and it would appear to me that the standalone version of NN offers far more flexibility than the ASP version in terms of profiling the image or the camera as a whole. Am I missing something?

[MikeFromMesa]

Maggus:

as far as I remember you can download a trial/test license of the stand-alone NN application... with this you could evaluate full NN performance the same way as with your Topaz.... of course I expect the registered NN to do the same as the stand-alone App.

You would think.

In fact I had done this some days ago, but the stand-alone app seems to have much more functionality than the plugin. The stand-alone app has profiling for the image, saving and loading profiles, standard and color-specific tabs, Luminance, Color and Sharpening sliders, a halo reducer and a noise brush for starters. The ASP version only has only two sliders - Strength and Smooth. So it is not really possible for me to get an idea of how well it works without paying (and losing) the $35.00.

df:

I've bought the standalone version to use in ASP (activate the ASP version) and it would appear to me that the standalone version of NN offers far more flexibility than the ASP version in terms of profiling the image or the camera as a whole.

That is exactly what I found and why I was trying to get a sense of how good it was before I found myself sorry I wasted $35. I know it is not a lot of money and I know that ASP only cost me $20, but still ...

[afx]

In fact I had done this some days ago, but the stand-alone app seems to have much more functionality than the plugin.

Absolutely.

The stand-alone app has profiling for the image, saving and loading profiles, standard and color-specific tabs, Luminance, Color and Sharpening sliders,

Just like NN in AS.

RTFM: http://product.corel.com/help/AfterShot ... index.html

cheers
afx

[MikeFromMesa]

Just like NN in AS.

Right you are. I don't know why I did not see that at the start. I guess I either did not expand the tab or I was looking at the plain vanilla NN. Thanks for pointing that out to me.

The next question would be whether or not the registered NN works as well as the stand-alone version.

[df]

afx, are you implying that all camera profiles ship with ASP? If so, what about the cameras that ASP supports that NN doesn't have a profile for? Or is it all just rather generic? Sorry, but that's not in TFM.