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Seeking some Christmas Help


Tom Mann

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Me either but an action would only run FFT and pause, to allow you to manually adjust the channel, then finish up the requited steps by restarting the action.
You're still manually processing it.
True, 'nuff. :)

Tom M
 

ALB68

Dear Departed Guru and PSG Staff Member
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Acquired a different plug-in called NeatImage for noise removal. It was recommended in Ctein's book on Digital Restoration for removal of textures. Gave it a try today on this image we kicked around here last week. It worked pretty well. So here is what I came up with this time.
Nan & Grandad Photo24 copy24.png
 
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Steve

Retired Administrator
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Neatimage is a good program, I used it for years.
At some point the version I owned became incompatible with (I think) Windows 64bit.

I never upgraded and eventual bought Topaz DeNoise.
 

ALB68

Dear Departed Guru and PSG Staff Member
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Neatimage is a good program, I used it for years.
At some point the version I owned became incompatible with (I think) Windows 64bit.

I never upgraded and eventual bought Topaz DeNoise.

I have Topaz DeNoise too, but this is the latest for 64bit systems. It is better than Topaz. It cleans up paper texture unbelievable.
 

Tom Mann

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Noise reduction has been a strong interest of mine for years. I've used Neat Image since 2007 or early 2008, and have upgraded regularly. I currently have installed on my system:


  1. Neat Image
  2. DxO's newest "Prime" NR,
  3. several different FFT routines (including several in Matlab and Mathematica),
  4. Imagenomic's Noiseware,
  5. the current NR in ACR and LR
  6. Medhi's Noise Shampoo
  7. NIK's Dfine
  8. Power Retouche Pro's Noise Corrector
  9. Tiffen's DFX v3 DeNoise (under "Image")
  10. the latest version of Topaz DeNoise
  11. XiDenoiser


My current recommendations are:

a. For de-noising of RAW files from common cameras, DxO's Prime is heads and shoulders above everything else. My second choice for RAW files would be, believe it or not, the NR built into ACR and LR. If you are a photographer, de-noising the raw, by almost any method will almost always be better than denoising the image after conversion to a conventional bitmap. That being said, a bit of initial de-noising of the raw file, followed up by a 2nd round de-noising later in one's workflow is sometimes the best approach, particularly, if you want the file in different sizes.

b. For removal of texture, even though I've been a huge supporter of Neat Image for years, it's a distant 2nd to the manual FFT approaches. But, when you are in a hurry, have to get something out the door fast, and don't have time to devote to the task (manually), it's better than anything else (except FFT'ing the image).

c. For general de-noising of images once inside of PS (ie, it's no longer a raw file), it's a neck-and-neck race between XiDenoise (extraordinarily versatile, many different algorithms, a geek's dream, LOL, and the best on popcorn noise), DxO's Prime, Neat Image, & Noiseware (for portraits).

d. IMHO, at the bottom of the heap are: Medhi's "Noise Shampoo", PRP's "Noise Corrector", and Tiffen's DeNoise. They all certainly can reduce noise, but often at the price of loss of detail and/or a fake plastic look.

e. IMHO, somewhere in the middle of the pack are NIK's Dfine and Topaz's DeNoise. Both are nice, competent, general purpose products, just not superstars in any area.

Also,don't forget that when evaluating NR tools, it's not simply the amount of noise reduction that's important -- it's the amount of de-noising AT A GIVEN LEVEL OF PRESERVATION OF REAL IMAGE DETAIL. Also, the artifacts produced by the above algorithms are all different. For example, in 2007-2008, when Neat Image was, IMHO, the one-to-beat, if you cranked it up too high, it could produce weird little worm-like artifacts. Fortunately, I haven't seen them in years, LOL. Similarly, if you are not careful, FFT's can easily introduce ringing artifacts (eg, light and dark halos, as well as wide, smooth light and dark bands). Only you can decide which type of artifact you can live with.

HTH,

Tom M

PS - At the risk of stating the obvious, if you are the one taking the picture and your subject is stationary, the best noise reduction is to put your camera on a tripod, drop the ISO to the lowest setting on your camera, and just take a long exposure, or use flash (if that's possible). The results of a shot at low ISO will always be better than using a higher ISO and hoping that some magic NR software will come to the rescue in PP.
 
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ALB68

Dear Departed Guru and PSG Staff Member
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Well not being a photographer and more interested in restoration, I found the NeatImage 64 bit plugin to be pretty amazing. The Windows version I got is the latest edition..V 7.6 and now works with PS CC 2014. It costs $39.90 for the "Home" ediition that only supports 8 bit images. For another $40.00 you can get the Pro version that supports 16 and 32 bit. It can be purchased at http://www.neatimage.com/win/photoshop/purchase.html
 

ALB68

Dear Departed Guru and PSG Staff Member
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I know its too late for Christmas but I came across your post and thought I'd edit your pic for practice, I hope you don't mind.
Hi Emily , Welcome to the forum!
Very very nice! Care to share your technique?
 

Emily Rutter

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http://civilwartalk.com/threads/black-white-colorization-tutorial.78508/#post-560874 -->See below

Thanks! I found this site when I was searching for something and thought it would be great as I'm learning more about editing. I tend to use a lot of layers so I can go back and adjust things, I hope this makes sense but here is what I did...


-I downloaded the FTT filter and used it for the first time; I ended up spot healing all the stars as the pattern didn't seem uniform to me to paint them
-Back on the picture I spot healed and cloned for the folds (on a separate layer)

-Levels adjustment to brighten it a bit
-Then I did dodge and burn layers to even things out left over from the damage and texture (I did it on layers so it wasn't destructive and so I could go back and edit if needed)
-I did another set of dodge and burn layers for shadows and highlights on the faces and clothes
At this point the black and white photo was done being edited
-I followed the tutorial (linked above) to colour the skin (again first time using this technique) and did a contrast adjustment layer for the teeth with a very low opacity

-I made a separate folder for each section ie mans clothes, womans clothes, hair etc and continued colouring the same way as the skin.
-For the clothes I tried to do something similar to dodge and burn but with colour. I did a base colour over the entire coat for example, then did another layer with a slightly lighter colour to enhance highlights then a darker colour to enhance the shadows
 

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