Why all the noise about noise?

On 2009-10-01 18:17:33 -0700, Chris Malcolm said:

Alan Browne wrote:
David J Taylor wrote:
"Alan Browne" wrote in message
...
[]
Having said that, noise that looks like film grain can even enhance
the mood of an image... of course noise can always be added in
photoshop but cannot be removed very easily.

Alan, even my Paint Shop Pro from a few versions back has a "Digital
Camera Noise Removal" feature (I prefer "reduction" rather than
"removal") - surely PhotoShop has something similar? G

Good one. Are you happy? No it doesn't. You have to buy 3rd party
s/w. Maybe Adobe are being bribed to keep it out?

I tried one of the noise reduction programs and found it to make things
too smooth (in plain areas) and wipe out fine detail in other areas.
Gave up on it. (Noise Ninja I believe...).

That's what Neat Image does on its default settings. But it also has a
great variety of adjustable parameters to allow you to fine tune the
trade offs between various aspects of noise reduction, fine detail
preservation, sharpening, etc., plus a variety of prepackaged custom
sets and the ability to create your own. Takes quite a bit of
learning, but well worth while. Different cameras, different lenses,
and different kinds of subject and lighting can call for quite large
differences in noise reduction adjustments.

Doesn't Noise Ninja offer customisable noise reduction
parameterisation?

Topaz Labs, Denoise plugin offers another alternative which seems to do
a reasonable job.
http://www.topazlabs.com/denoise/ It is also offered as part of their
plugin bundle.

--
Regards,

Savageduck

On Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:41:12 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote:

David J Taylor wrote:
"Alan Browne" wrote in message
...
[]
Having said that, noise that looks like film grain can even enhance
the mood of an image... of course noise can always be added in
photoshop but cannot be removed very easily.

Alan, even my Paint Shop Pro from a few versions back has a "Digital
Camera Noise Removal" feature (I prefer "reduction" rather than
"removal") - surely PhotoShop has something similar? G

Good one. Are you happy? No it doesn't. You have to buy 3rd party
s/w. Maybe Adobe are being bribed to keep it out?

I tried one of the noise reduction programs and found it to make things
too smooth (in plain areas) and wipe out fine detail in other areas.
Gave up on it. (Noise Ninja I believe...).

The effective use of noise-removal software is more art than science. There
is no "one setting fits all" standard for any one camera model's ISO,
exposure, or exposure setting. Even two cameras from the same production
line, one made right after the other, can have differing noise profiles.
The temperature of your camera will even change the noise profile from one
image to the next. I find predetermined "noise profiles" and presets fairly
useless for all of noise removal software. Each image must be handled as a
unique example.

Just like all cameras, all noise-removal programs can do an exceptional
job, in talented hands that understand what all the settings are for. I
haven't found one noise-removal method yet that can't do a good job, when
used properly and carefully. Noise Ninja, Noiseware, Neat Image, PSP's
"Digital Camera Noise Removal" filter, PL32's "Image Noise" filter,
CleanerZoomer ... they're all good. Each has unique ways of maximizing the
results. But if you take the time to learn them they all work as intended
and work well. Some are easier to use than others, but those that are more
difficult to learn can be more effective.

The problem that beginners run into with using noise-removal software is
that they depend on the presets and defaults in each program. Just like
they pride their auto-everything snapshooter's DSLR cameras to do all the
work for them, they expect all their software to be nothing more than one
click of a mouse-button to fix what's wrong.. Finding that it won't work
for their particular subjects and image-noise profiles for their images,
they give up. Good, I say. Garbage in, garbage out.

"Alan Browne" wrote in message
...
[]
Good one. Are you happy? No it doesn't. You have to buy 3rd party
s/w. Maybe Adobe are being bribed to keep it out?

I tried one of the noise reduction programs and found it to make things
too smooth (in plain areas) and wipe out fine detail in other areas.
Gave up on it. (Noise Ninja I believe...).

Yes, I'm happy with Paint Shop Pro 10, and I'm very surprised that the
very expensive Adobe program does not offer such a noise-reduction
facility. PSP's NR seems to work well.

As I said, I find it best to compare with and without NR. Sometimes it's
best to leave the grain for a "newsy" effect, other times the noise,
particularly if it's coloured noise, can be slightly objectionable. How
you judge the change will depend, I suspect, on viewing conditions (on the
screen, printed etc. etc.).

Cheers,
David

On Thu, 1 Oct 2009 10:23:49 -0700 (PDT), eNo
wrote:


Wow, I didn't know that about scratching itches. I wonder why some
itches won't go away even when you scratch them? Not enough "noise"
perhaps?


Some nerve irritation (itch/sensory noise) lasts longer than the temporary
noise that you add by scratching. When the sensory noise from scratching
dies down, then you feel the longer lasting itch again. Many itches that
appear seemingly out of nowhere are caused by microscopic nematodes (very
tiny worms) that live within your body moving alongside nerves. It has been
estimated that if you removed all the tissues of a person's body except for
the nematodes that live within them during their lifetime, you could still
probably recognize who the host person was. (Did you really want to know
this?)

One of the most unique nematodes are ones that live at the base of your
eye-lash hairs. Everyone has them, they live no other place on earth, and
nobody knows how they get from parent to child to begin with, nor how they
evolved to live there in the first place. (last I heard anyway). Your body
is not just human cells. Think of yourself like a balanced aquarium with
many thousands of species living within it. As long as they all get along
the aquarium thrives on its own. This is why they talk of your health
"being out of balance" at times. For example, if some beneficial bacteria
has been destroyed in your system from taking antibiotics, it needs to be
replaced before your health is back in balance again. Many people eat
active yogurt (acidophilus bacteria) as a temporary fix while their body is
trying to get back in balance after an antibiotic treatment. Other more
close-to-nature people will even eat small samplings of dirt, or not clean
root vegetables from the garden very well, leaving some dirt on their food,
just to replenish the now missing and beneficial bacteria in their systems
that was destroyed by the antibiotics.

I wonder if that's how noise-cancelling headphones work? I thought
they just brought down the noise floor.


Noise canceling headphones work on a whole different principle. They sample
the external ambient noise and then invert the waveform. They add the
inverted waveform of the ambient noise to the sounds that you want to hear
through the headphone so the two waves cancel each other out.

dan sothers wrote:
On Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:41:12 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote:

David J Taylor wrote:
"Alan Browne" wrote in message
...
[]
Having said that, noise that looks like film grain can even enhance
the mood of an image... of course noise can always be added in
photoshop but cannot be removed very easily.
Alan, even my Paint Shop Pro from a few versions back has a "Digital
Camera Noise Removal" feature (I prefer "reduction" rather than
"removal") - surely PhotoShop has something similar? G
Good one. Are you happy? No it doesn't. You have to buy 3rd party
s/w. Maybe Adobe are being bribed to keep it out?

I tried one of the noise reduction programs and found it to make things
too smooth (in plain areas) and wipe out fine detail in other areas.
Gave up on it. (Noise Ninja I believe...).

The problem that beginners run into with using noise-removal software is
that they depend on the presets and defaults in each program.

Actually I spent several hours on a single image with help from various
sources trying to get a specific bit of noise to have less impact. The
effect on other areas adjacent was not to my liking - fine detail was
lost and affected the texture of the image in the area of concern
(unless dialed back enough that effect wasn't ... effective).

David J Taylor wrote:
"Alan Browne" wrote in message
...
[]
Good one. Are you happy? No it doesn't. You have to buy 3rd party
s/w. Maybe Adobe are being bribed to keep it out?

I tried one of the noise reduction programs and found it to make
things too smooth (in plain areas) and wipe out fine detail in other
areas. Gave up on it. (Noise Ninja I believe...).

Yes, I'm happy with Paint Shop Pro 10, and I'm very surprised that the
very expensive Adobe program does not offer such a noise-reduction
facility. PSP's NR seems to work well.

As I said, I find it best to compare with and without NR. Sometimes
it's best to leave the grain for a "newsy" effect, other times the
noise, particularly if it's coloured noise, can be slightly
objectionable. How you judge the change will depend, I suspect, on
viewing conditions (on the screen, printed etc. etc.).

Except for some slide film scans where shadow noise can be
objectionable, I rarely have issue enough with it to worry. I agree
that $600+ programs like CS3/CS4 should have it ... OTOH, there is a
world of 3rd party plugins out there that represent functionality that
PS does not have.

Perhaps Noise Ninja et al bribe the product managers at Adobe to leave
such out.

(I've heard so many times of late of people receiving FedEx (or UPS,
Purolator, etc.) packages in W-A-Y oversized packages (eg: 2 cu. ft. box
to hold a 10 cu. in. product package) that I wonder if some shipping
co's have people following expediting employees to their watering hole
and bribing them to overpack ... )

"Alan Browne" wrote in message
...
[]
Except for some slide film scans where shadow noise can be
objectionable, I rarely have issue enough with it to worry. I agree
that $600+ programs like CS3/CS4 should have it ... OTOH, there is a
world of 3rd party plugins out there that represent functionality that
PS does not have.

Putting it mildly, I would be disappointed to find that I had to buy
add-ons to provide functionality missing from a $600 program.

Perhaps Noise Ninja et al bribe the product managers at Adobe to leave
such out.

(I've heard so many times of late of people receiving FedEx (or UPS,
Purolator, etc.) packages in W-A-Y oversized packages (eg: 2 cu. ft. box
to hold a 10 cu. in. product package) that I wonder if some shipping
co's have people following expediting employees to their watering hole
and bribing them to overpack ... )

... but a micro-SD card might get lost were it not over-sized in its
packaging! G

What annoys me more are those sealed, clear-plastic packages for things on
sale from customer self selection racks - typically in airports - and even
for SD cards. You know, the ones where you need scissors or a knife to
open the package, but there's no way you are allowed to bring scissors or
knives through security. So you end up struggling to unseal the package
with your teeth or worse!

David

On Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:46:45 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote:

dan sothers wrote:
On Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:41:12 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote:

David J Taylor wrote:
"Alan Browne" wrote in message
...
[]
Having said that, noise that looks like film grain can even enhance
the mood of an image... of course noise can always be added in
photoshop but cannot be removed very easily.
Alan, even my Paint Shop Pro from a few versions back has a "Digital
Camera Noise Removal" feature (I prefer "reduction" rather than
"removal") - surely PhotoShop has something similar? G
Good one. Are you happy? No it doesn't. You have to buy 3rd party
s/w. Maybe Adobe are being bribed to keep it out?

I tried one of the noise reduction programs and found it to make things
too smooth (in plain areas) and wipe out fine detail in other areas.
Gave up on it. (Noise Ninja I believe...).

The problem that beginners run into with using noise-removal software is
that they depend on the presets and defaults in each program.

Actually I spent several hours on a single image with help from various
sources trying to get a specific bit of noise to have less impact. The
effect on other areas adjacent was not to my liking - fine detail was
lost and affected the texture of the image in the area of concern
(unless dialed back enough that effect wasn't ... effective).

Tsk tsk, Mr. GIGO (a.k.a. Alan Browne).

It bears repeating:

The effective use of noise-removal software is more art than science. ...

The problem that beginners run into with using noise-removal software is
that they depend on the presets and defaults in each program. Just like
they pride their auto-everything snapshooter's DSLR cameras to do all the
work for them, they expect all their software to be nothing more than one
click of a mouse-button to fix what's wrong.. Finding that it won't work
for their particular subjects and image-noise profiles for their images,
they give up. Good, I say. Garbage in, garbage out. (GIGO)

You don't know how to use the masking features of the noise removal program
nor how to use the masking features of your editor? Even inexpensive PSP's
noise removal filter lets you protect regions by hue/luminosity ranges.

Something like you deserves to not be helped. I bet you even bitch about
the fact that you have to turn your car's steering wheel to get from A to B
every day. No wait, let me guess, you can only ride busses and then bitch
about the fact that the driver is not even allowed to spoon-feed you then
carry you to bed and tuck you in every night. What a pathetic point and
shoot snapshooter you must be, no matter what camera or software is in your
hands.

David J Taylor wrote:
"Alan Browne" wrote in message
...
[]
Good one. Are you happy? No it doesn't. You have to buy 3rd party
s/w. Maybe Adobe are being bribed to keep it out?

I tried one of the noise reduction programs and found it to make things
too smooth (in plain areas) and wipe out fine detail in other areas.
Gave up on it. (Noise Ninja I believe...).

Yes, I'm happy with Paint Shop Pro 10, and I'm very surprised that the
very expensive Adobe program does not offer such a noise-reduction
facility. PSP's NR seems to work well.

As I said, I find it best to compare with and without NR. Sometimes it's
best to leave the grain for a "newsy" effect, other times the noise,
particularly if it's coloured noise, can be slightly objectionable.

Since the detail is more in the luminance, and chromatic noise is
usually much more objectionable, a good noise reduction tool should
have the option of reducing chromatic noise and luminance noise to
different degrees.

--
Chris Malcolm

David J Taylor wrote:
"Alan Browne" wrote in message
...
[]
Except for some slide film scans where shadow noise can be
objectionable, I rarely have issue enough with it to worry. I agree
that $600+ programs like CS3/CS4 should have it ... OTOH, there is a
world of 3rd party plugins out there that represent functionality that
PS does not have.

Putting it mildly, I would be disappointed to find that I had to buy
add-ons to provide functionality missing from a $600 program.

To avoid serious disappointment then I suggest you be very careful not
to look too hard :-)

What annoys me more are those sealed, clear-plastic packages for things on
sale from customer self selection racks - typically in airports - and even
for SD cards. You know, the ones where you need scissors or a knife to
open the package, but there's no way you are allowed to bring scissors or
knives through security. So you end up struggling to unseal the package
with your teeth or worse!

There's a new product opporunity! A plastic package opening tool
carefully designed to be of no use in hijacking an aeroplane. Should
sell well in airports :-)

--
Chris Malcolm