Noise reduction using Neat Image
Noise/Grain is one of the distractions sometimes found in an otherwise excellent image. Grain comes from the film cameras where the development of slide film (especially fast film) leads to its formation. This also shows up in scanned images. In digital photography, though there are no grains to worry about, the electronics of the sensor causes noise especially when low levels of light are amplified by the sensor. This is more prominent when printing enlargements of the photo.
There are two really good tools that help photographers reduce the noise or grain. They are Noise Ninja and Neat Image.
Neat Image comes in two flavors, a stand-alone version and a plug-in for Photoshop. It is available for $30 or you can download a trial version with less features. I have been fiddling with the trial version and here is a demo.
I started with a scanned image of the state capitol of Texas at Austin. This is really not a great image but will serve the purpose for the demo. It was taken with my old N-70 camera and Nikkor 28mm lens. It was handled, just after the rains and shot on a Provia 100 film. This was later scanned as a tiff image at 4000 dpi using my Poloroid Sprintscan. As you can see the grain is very obvious even in this scaled down picture. It is even more obvious at full resolution.
There are two really good tools that help photographers reduce the noise or grain. They are Noise Ninja and Neat Image.
Neat Image comes in two flavors, a stand-alone version and a plug-in for Photoshop. It is available for $30 or you can download a trial version with less features. I have been fiddling with the trial version and here is a demo.
I started with a scanned image of the state capitol of Texas at Austin. This is really not a great image but will serve the purpose for the demo. It was taken with my old N-70 camera and Nikkor 28mm lens. It was handled, just after the rains and shot on a Provia 100 film. This was later scanned as a tiff image at 4000 dpi using my Poloroid Sprintscan. As you can see the grain is very obvious even in this scaled down picture. It is even more obvious at full resolution.
After running it through Neat Image, this is what we get. Do click on the pictures to notice the difference.
Before:
After:
Obviously, the difference is striking in the detailed view. Whenever I plan to print a large photo which has noticeable noise, a quick run through Neat Image always does the trick and gives better results.
An important note:
Like any noise reduction algorithm Neat Image slightly softens the image. So an unsharp mask in Photoshop will quickly sharpen the photo again.
1 comment:
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