Noise Reduction (and I don’t mean shooting the band)

Recently, I got into a discussion about what the best noise reduction software for photography was. Aside from the larger debate about whether you should post-process your picture or not (which could be a post in and of itself), I was wondering if there was a clear leader in programs to reduce noise in the shots that I took at higher ISOs with the Nikon D70. The D70 has a well-deserved reputation for adding quite a bit of noise at ISOs greater than 400, which is pretty unacceptable really.

But since it’s there, I have to compensate for it. My wife introduced me to Noise Ninja, and I found Noiseware myself. Both work very well, but were they the best choices? I created a test to compare them, and found that they were comparable, although I preferred Noiseware.

After posting the comparison of Flickr, I got a lot of feedback about other packages that people liked, such as Neat Image, Dfine and Kodak GEM. So, I went out to try them out as well. The result was these two images – one that had moderate noise, and a second with heavy noise. So, how did they fair?

In the first image, as you can see in this image, there was a moderate amount of noise. At first glance, I think you can put Dfine last, because it leaves a bit of noise with the least saving of detail. Neat Image does a good job of noise reduction, but at the expense of detail in the subject. That leaves three. Kodak GEM does a decent job with noise reduction and detail preservation, but the interface is clunky at best and hard to customize. Noise Ninja preserved the detail nicely, but left a bit more noise in the background. Finally, Noiseware did a fine job all around, eliminating most of the noise but also becoming a hair less detailed than either Noise Ninja or GEM.

So, if I were picking these, based on image alone, I would say Noiseware, GEM and then Noise Ninja; however, when you add the interfaces into it, I would drop GEM to third because it really is a mess – both NW and NN have it beat hands down.

As you can see in the second image, there was a LOT of noise – perhaps too much, but that is what this test set out to determine. Again, I think you can put Dfine at the bottom of the list – mediocre noise reduction at best. Kodak GEM is about average in both noise reduction and detail preservation (but I still hate that interface). Noise Ninja preserved the detail nicely, but left a quite a bit of background noise – in fact, the most aside from Dfine. Noiseware did a good job at eliminating the extra noise but also produced one of the least detailed sparrows – it’s not bad but I think almost all of the others did a better job. Neat Image is clearly the best image in this instance. The noise is reduced quite a bit (only Noiseware did better), and the details are fairly well preserved (although not as well as Noise Ninja; however, though the details are blurred, it actually produces a fairly nice image of the sparrow.

Based on the final images, I would give a nod to Neat Image for heavy noise, with a second-place between Noiseware and Noise Ninja, with GEM closely behind. In both tests, I found that Dfine was the long-distant finisher – in fact, I’ll be removing this plug-in now. I’ll probably do the same with GEM because it only performed okay, and I really disliked the interface. That leaves the 3 heavy-weights, all of which have their plusses and minuses. I’m not a huge fan of the fact that I have to export/save my image in order to use Neat Image, although I believe that the purchases version includes a plug-in. Still, over the three tests, I’ll stick with Noise Ninja and Noiseware (my personal fav), although Neat Image deserves some consideration.

Final Results

Well, it’s not a fair fight because I only did two programs in round 1, and 5 in the next two rounds. But I’m not a supreme court judge, I’m a guy playing with camera equipment. So…

¹ Price: I always got the Pro Bundle (plug-in AND standalone) for the price to keep it even.
* Final Score: The average of the 3 tests, plus the interface multiplied by a differential of the average price. For the three programs I hadn’t used in test 1, I left that score out of the average.

Final Thoughts

My favorite of the programs is Noiseware, which also turned out to have the best overall performance and price. I also like Noise Ninja, although Neat Image did produce some great pictures as well, and is lower in cost than any of the other packages. I haven’t used the plug-in, only the standalone, but I’ve been told that it’s pretty similar and works well. Both GEM and Dfine are in a secondary class in my opinion, and not worth the extra money they are charging for them.
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