Panasonic FZ18 Noise

[David Bottel]

Hello,
I shoot in raw and process in Adobe Camera Raw.
As we know the FZ18, because of it's small sensor produces noise at high ISO and I use ACR to reduce this.
My question is would stand alone noise reduction software be better than ACR. if so what would you recommend.

Regards, David

[arith]

I use Helicon Filter but haven't tried anything else.

http://www.heliconsoft.com/heliconfilter.html

[Dave Humphries]

Hello,
I shoot in raw and process in Adobe Camera Raw.
As we know the FZ18, because of it's small sensor produces noise at high ISO and I use ACR to reduce this.
My question is would stand alone noise reduction software be better than ACR. if so what would you recommend.

Regards, David

Hi David, (great name )

First off, welcome to the CiC forums (since I didn't say that last time we conversed )

I use ACR for noise reduction and by default, I have both sliders at maximum (100) for nearly all my RAW conversions.

Having read the recommended book* on ACR, I believe the algorithm ACR uses is very similar to the third party noise reduction applications, which explains why, in comparative tests I did on one of my own images a few months ago, I satisfied myself that leaving both sliders at max had a negligible effect on image detail but a very useful effect on image noise - even from a DSLR.

Before I discovered how excellent the NR was in ACR, I had bought Neat Image and run that as a plug-in on PS Elements. I still have it, and recently upgraded to the 16 bit version, but now, with a DSLR and using ACRs NR, I find I only need it when shooting iso1600 or above, or to demonstrate the effects of NR on other people's images here at CiC.

* Real World Camera RAW

So basically, you may find a third party NR program useful, particularly if you still have noise after ACR processing of small sensor pics.

Something like Neat Image is clearly more customisable; you can choose what it samples and make other adjustments beyond the two sliders for Luminance and Chroma NR amount available in ACR. The range is greater too. If used as a plugin within PSE or CS, it must be possible, by use of masking and/or layers, to only apply it to selective parts of the image, which could be useful if you need to really agressive with it on say the sky, but don't want to wipe out detail in the foreground.

You may find this thread helpful;
Neat Image, a simple workflow

Hope that helps,

[David Bottel]

arith and Dave thank you for your replies.
Dave, Neat Image looks very interesting and I may invest in this in the future, but from your comments I will stay with ACR for now.

Kind Regards, David

[proseak]

Concerning 3rd party NR "Something like Neat Image is clearly more customisable"...yes that's very true; to get the best from it, use the profiles, either available on the website (http://www.neatimage.com/noise-profi.../download.html) or better yet, make your own. The program comes with a calibration target, and instructions on it's use. Profiling takes shoot-, Raw-, and post-process time, plus about 30 seconds. I used it for ISO 400, 800, 1600 and 3200 at standard exposure, -1 and -2 stops, using the standard for each speed and using curves to match the other images as closely as possible...not very close at 3200 -2 but at that exposure I'm just glad to get a result. I've not yet generated the -1&2 adjusted in ACR...must remind myself!

HTH

proseak

[David Bottel]

Peter,
I purchased Neat Image Home+ Edition in November 2009 and have used it just in the default setting with good results.
However thank you for the link. I have now downloaded the FZ 18 profile.

Regards, David

[proseak]

I'll be interested to hear how you get on, or better yet, see the results

proseak