Which Noise Reduction with Lightroom?

[mitchell]

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OK, I'll admit it. I haven't used noise reduction!

 

2 Questions:

 

1. Which is the best noise reduction software to use with Lightroom?

 

2. When in the workflow do you use it? Second to last, just before final sharpening?

 

(I'm ready to start using Noise Reduction now that I've got the flow from import to print down with Lightroom. LR may not give the very best images, I don't know, but the workflow and speed make it great for me. I love the hassel free printing, and jumping into Photoshop and back painlessly. C1 is completely beyond me, for me a nightmare, and Aperture bogs my computer down even though I have 3 gig of RAM.)

 

Thanks for your thoughts,

 

Mitchell

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[hdrmd]

I would just send the photo from LR to Photoshop , and then use Noise Ninja or Imagenomic as a plug-in. Make the round trip back to LR and you are finished. DR

[M6J]

Unsharpened in LR > PS : Noise Ninja before capture sharpening >...>...

[ho_co]

I would just send the photo from LR to Photoshop , and then use Noise Ninja or Imagenomic as a plug-in. Make the round trip back to LR and you are finished. DR

 

Unsharpened in LR > PS : Noise Ninja before capture sharpening >...>...

 

I'll tag on a question, too, if I might. I'm using PSCS2 but will be installing Lightroom when I can get some computer issues straightened out. I understand Noise Ninja as PS plugin, but I don't understand two other things:

 

1) David--what is the purpose of returning to LR? Am I right to think you're viewing Photoshop as the location of final tweaking? Does PS then just return me to LR, or is there a specific advantage to returning to LR?

 

2) Jordan--I don't recognize the term 'capture sharpening.' Is that a part or function of Lightroom?

 

As you can see, I'm unfamiliar with LR, so simpler answers would probably be better than specific ones.

 

Thanks.

 

--HC

[M6J]

 

2) Jordan--I don't recognize the term 'capture sharpening.' Is that a part or function of Lightroom?

 

 

No, it is not a LR function. But sharpening is supposed to be best done in more than one steps, so capture sharpening is the first sharpening step. Noise reduction should be done before any sharpening step IMHO.

[chris_tribble]

Interesting to look at the LR tutorials that Reichmann and Schewe (paid download from LL site). They do make a useful distinction between capture sharpening and final sharpening (depending on final image use).

 

I'm finding in my own LR workflow that it's useful to have a set of defaults with different NR levels set from ISO 160 (NONE!) through to ISO 2500 (Luminance 20 / Color 50). This gives me a good starting point from which to do capture sharpening as needed (often linking with the Clarity slider). I like the tools that are there - and have honestly never needed to bother with Noise Ninja in PS for pre-print NR.

[hdrmd]

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ho co: I said return to LR because of LR's archival function. It is a fine way to label, save, and retrieve photos. You do not have to return to LR; from Photoshop you can print, "save as", or even use another archive like iView. Regards. DR