A900 High ISO Post Processing

[Mike-Photos]

I tried this on another forum here with no response, so apologies for the double post:

I'm playing with some A900 high ISO shots in LR2.1, as per David's suggestion, and they look very good resized to 12MP.
Of course, there's still some noise at the high ISO settings. My question is, should one do noise reduction in LR before resizing, should one do the NR afterwards (I use Noiseware Pro), or both?
While I could experiment, the conclusions I get to may just work for these few shots. I'm sure someone knows why the correct method is better.

[Mike-Photos]

I don't own an a900, but I will answer anyway. FWIW, I do have over 125,000 high ISO shots under my belt.

It depends on the subject and the noise....When I downsize images from say 12MP to 6MP, or 5MP to 3MP, I sometimes NR on the 12MP file, sometimes I NR on the 6MP file, and sometimes I noise reduce on both....and then still other times I leave the NR for the final output stage...and still other times I may NR three different times.

It really does depend on the subjects, the inherent noise, PP techniques, NR software, output desired, etc. etc. etc. I don't think you will find a single correct answer to this question because there are so many NR programs, so many techniques, and noise performance varies so much from shot to shot and scene to scene.

In-other-words, there are several different ways to properly skin a high ISO cat.

-Sonolta

Thanks Don, I get nervous about a double dose of NR, even if it's judicious. Since it's being done in two programs, it's tedious to play what-if games.
What NR software if any do you use? I use Noiseware Pro, which I find to be the best of the lot.

How is your A700, everything working?

[Mike-Photos]

Thanks for the detailed explanations and screen shots. I'm using similar methodology as you, but much less detailed. I have maybe a dozen presets, and I often work off one or the other as a base. I guess I don't have so many shots, so I don't save so many presets.

BTW, I also do a lot of sharpening in Neat Image as sharpening works very well in combination with NR. Of course you can save tons of presets and batch images based on profile matching as well.

I find the same thing. I use FocalBlade to sharpen, but for simpler sharpening Noiseware Pro does quite a good job.

When you start doing NR at different stages (or doing more complex NR) you will be working on different noises at *different times* by using more of the NFS panel, and if you are real good you will learn to use the NRA panel as well.

I do use it, but it takes practice.

One really nice feature of Noiseware Pro (I'm not trying to sell you on it), is that you can select a color range to work on. So, if you have a very noisy sky in a landscape shot, you can select the blues and NR it heavily, without having to mask or select an area. Similarly, a red flower in a mass of green and yellow, you can turn of the reduction on the reds.

[Greg Beetham]

Great post Don.
Greg

[Dr. Harout]

Excellent post, Don.
I think each and everyone should read this as a 'must know'.
Very important output (or input).
Thanks a lot, Don.