Best Noise Reduction Combo?

[klaxian]

What is the best combination to fix image noise in ASP? I keep trying to get results like Lightroom's NR, but I can't seem to get there.

• NoiseNinja Lite doesn't seem to give the level of control that I'd like. It doesn't seem too good at color noise, but ok on luma. NN integrated with ASP has a known bug that causes the first vertical line of an image to be incorrect.
• Wavelet Denoise seems ok for color noise, but loses a lot of detail when reducing luminance noise.
• ASP RAW Noise reduction (not Impulse) seems like the worst, but maybe I'm misusing it.

Any other ideas or tips? Is it worth it to get the registered version of NoiseNinja? Will I notice a big difference? How do you deal with noise? Thanks!

[t3mujin]

Overall I prefer Wavelet Noise Ninja, but I have to be VERY gentle with luminance slider

[klaxian]

Yeah, a low amount of luminance smoothing in Wavelet seems to be ok, but even middle values lose lots of detail. I've been trying a combination of Noise Ninja for luminance only, Wavelet for chroma noise, and a touch of ASP RAW Noise reduction. That combo seems to produce the highest quality without sacrificing too much detail. I still think Lightroom is a little better

[claudermilk]

It's a lot of trial-and-error on this front now. I've seen a huge degradation in my (frequent) high-ISO images from what I was able to achieve in Bibble 5. It's bad enough to have driven me to start using DxO for those.

I have played with first shutting off the standard ASP NR--that is AWFUL--then leaving RAW NR on and a little Wavelet. It works ok, but still pretty heavy loss of detail. At least that mostly avoids the extra-hash salt & pepper artifacts I was getting at first. It's quite frustrating to spend as much time as is required to get to the mediocre results that it manages to squeak out. On clean, low-ISO images this is not such a problem.

[benoit]

I am quite happy with a combination of NN and wavelet. The trick that I am using to get some luma noise reduction without loosing too much texture and detail is to first set the detail conservation value of wavelet denoise luminance channel to a high value of 95.
Then I adjust the strength between 35 (for medium ISO up to 1600) and 50 (for Iso 3200 6400 and 6400 +1ev ...)

I did not see any advantage to do the same for chroma so I don't touch the detail conservation slider and only adjust strength from 15 to 40

I combine this with NN luma ranging from 4 (medium ISO) to 6 (ISO 6400) and NN chroma ranging from 7 to 10

For real high ISO of 6400 + exposure adjusted around +1ev, I also need to add the ASP built in RAW slider to 50 as a last chance to rescue the shot. But then I need to add more wavelet2 sharpen (up to 30) and the result is OK for display but not always good for large print.

I am using two 5DMkII cameras. 6400 iso value is the normal maximum of this camera and is quite usefull in wedding 'lifestyle' shooting (dark church, dinner room lighted only by candelas ...).
I don't remember from whom I get the idea to better use the combination of wavelet conservation and strength but it was from a forum member for sure
I hope this will help others
regards

[KeithR]

Which camera(s) do you use, Benoit? And what kind of subject matter do you shoot?

[benoit]

Which camera(s) do you use, Benoit? And what kind of subject matter do you shoot?

I answered by editing my previous message, as I experimented only with one type of camera and it may be important to know it for those who could think that my settings will do miracle : maybe it is not at all the case with other cameras !

[KeithR]

maybe it is not at all the case with other cameras !

Yep, that's why I asked, Benoit - thanks for the clarification. Your subject matter doesn't really need fine detail retention - in fact, it will almost certainly benefit from the "smoothing" effect of noise reduction - but for other kinds of photography, the noise reduction solutions currently available in ASP are very poor if detail retention is important, as Claudermilk points out up the page.

Interestingly I find ASP to be a little better than Bibble (which was truly appalling - at least the registered Noise Ninja works properly in ASP, apart from that bloody edge pixel bug), but it's still a joke compared to its competitors as soon as ISO starts creeping up.