noise reduction
in Olympus E-System , Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Since Noise Ninja 2.0 has been released as a public Beta for Mac OS X, I've been trying it out on some ISO 3200 photos, and comparing with the Olympus post-processing tools (not in-camera noise reduction). The following sequence of 100% screenshots shows various combinations:
This is the raw image, no noise reduction of any type
This has Olympus Studio RAW Noise Filter turned on.
This has both Olympus Studio RAW Noise Filter turned on and Olympus Studio Image Editor Raw Noise Reduction on, set to auto. Note things are getting a bit plasticky
This has Noise Ninja's supplied ISO 3200 profile applied to an otherwise untreated image.
This has Noise Ninja's supplied ISO 3200 profile applied to an image with Noise Filter turned on.
This has got everything on - Noise Ninja's supplied ISO 3200 profile applied to an image with Noise Filter on and Noise Reduction set to auto.
To my eyes, the best result is to go direct from the raw image to Noise Ninja, without applying any Olympus tools. This may be because the Noise Ninja default profiles are built with this in mind. Note, they're also intended for "average" JPG images, whereas I'm creating 16 bit TIFF from RAW. There is probably quite a lot of scope for improving things by creating profiles for this scenario. It seems to be a fairly straightforward process. It may also be because Noise Ninja produces a more "photographic" rendering, which is more pleasing to the eye.
Either way, Noise Ninja is impressive, and makes E-1 ISO 3200 genuinely usable.
This is the raw image, no noise reduction of any type
This has Olympus Studio RAW Noise Filter turned on.
This has both Olympus Studio RAW Noise Filter turned on and Olympus Studio Image Editor Raw Noise Reduction on, set to auto. Note things are getting a bit plasticky
This has Noise Ninja's supplied ISO 3200 profile applied to an otherwise untreated image.
This has Noise Ninja's supplied ISO 3200 profile applied to an image with Noise Filter turned on.
This has got everything on - Noise Ninja's supplied ISO 3200 profile applied to an image with Noise Filter on and Noise Reduction set to auto.
To my eyes, the best result is to go direct from the raw image to Noise Ninja, without applying any Olympus tools. This may be because the Noise Ninja default profiles are built with this in mind. Note, they're also intended for "average" JPG images, whereas I'm creating 16 bit TIFF from RAW. There is probably quite a lot of scope for improving things by creating profiles for this scenario. It seems to be a fairly straightforward process. It may also be because Noise Ninja produces a more "photographic" rendering, which is more pleasing to the eye.
Either way, Noise Ninja is impressive, and makes E-1 ISO 3200 genuinely usable.
