Noise and Dfine
I have often mentioned that Adobe products only do an adequate job with noise. Lightroom 3 has some promising improvements, but from what I have seen so far, I still find Nik Software Dfine to be superior. There are other good noise reduction programs on the market, including Noise Ninja and Imagenomics Noiseware, but I find Dfine is easier to use and offers one thing that no one else does, the ability to control where and how much noise reduction is applied based on color and tone. Often noise is stronger in certain colors and tones, plus sometimes you don’t want to reduce noise in a color or tone because that can help hold sharpness better.
Now I have said these things before and once got a comment from a photographer who felt that the program wasn’t that good and the only reason I said it so was because I must be paid by Nik. I am not paid by Nik, although I admit that I think so highly of their products that I would never feel bad about doing any work for them. From what I have seen of Dfine on my images, I have to think this critic either had not used Dfine or did not know how to use it. But to be fair, I should show you real results rather than just talking about it.
I took my G11 to a banquet yesterday and decided to shoot a cheese cake sitting in front of me at ISO 3200. That ISO is really not usable straight from the camera, I think, which is why I used it for this test. The resulting image is not all that great (it has had some basic adjustments). Small, it will look okay here, but look at the magnified portion of the image. This would be good if you like special effects!
Then I put this into Dfine. Look at the difference.
That is actually now a usable image.
I did feel that the leaves were a little overprocessed, so I reduced the amount of noise reduction on the leaves. I am not sure you will be able to see the difference here, but there is a distinct difference on screen that will translate in the print as a better leaf.
To me, this is significant. It means that higher ISOs on the new cameras become even more usable.
January 25th, 2010 at 9:15 am
Great post Rob! I have found that reducing Contrast Noise in Dfine to 75% works really good. Still pulls out all of the color noise and leaves enough grain to keep sharpness in the image. With this great filter I am wondering why people are even worried about noise levels with new cameras? I have consistently been shooting my 1D Mark III at iso 3200 with publishable results. Here is an image captured that way…http://tinyurl.com/yehf6wc
January 25th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
You are absolutely right about Dfine. It’s amazing how often just setting it to automatic does an outstanding job. Dfine makes the G10 a very usable camera.
January 26th, 2010 at 6:54 am
Excellent demonstration. I purchased Dfine myself after reading your comments about it some months ago, and I am happy that I did. It’s control-point features allow for a sort of targeted noise reduction that is unmatched (so far) by other software.
I was annoyed to read the insolent response from the disgruntled reader you referred to (at O.P.’s web site). Some people read blogs to get educated, while others are only looking for affirmation of their own self-perceived expertise. He pretty obviously lives in the latter camp.
Rob, your no-nonsense analyses of how to approach photography and post-production are unique in this craft. Thanks for your work.
January 26th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
Rob,
What in the world are you doing taking pictures of cheesecake? I hope you eventually got around to eating it. If it had been on my table you’d never have had a chance to shoot it!