It's the age old dilemma, speed vs quality. In the film days it was "grain". In the digital age it's "noise". One of my favorite shooting subjects is animals in action and the trick is to freeze that action into an interesting photographic image.

I shoot most of my critters with a Nikon D200 and a Sigma 100-300 f/4 lens. I have found that in order to get the shutter speed (1/500 or better) to freeze the action and enough DOF to get things in focus, I use settings in the range of 1/800sec, f/6.3-8, and an ISO of 400. The dilemma comes in post processing (I shoot only raw images) when I usually have to crop for composition, adjust exposure and saturation, and sharpen. At ISO400, there is some noise and depending on how much of crop is necessary, this can get to be a bit of a problem. I have tried all the noise reduction programs and have settled on Neat Image which works really well as a plugin.

My problem is that often times I'm not sure whether I like the image better with noise reduction (NR) or with the "noise". So, I'm hoping I can get some opinions here on the following images of a hunting GBH. The first set are the whole image with and without NR. The second set are the 100% crops. I'd just like to get some feed back on which whole image you like better and why (It's OK if you really don't see much difference, it is subtle). Now I know that the web is not the best display method for judging these kinds of things, but it's all we have. Thanks for your feedback.

Native image (no NR)

Image with NR


Here are the 100% crops in which the NR effects are more visible.
Native

With NR

Hi George,

I like the second image on the close up, it seems to smooth out the edges etc. I try to adjust my images so that they appeal to my customers and they always seem to like what I do to them. A lot of photographers are always trying to get the sharpest image possible on the overall frame, but I like to make sure that the area important to me is in focus and everything else can become obscure.

I have been using an older nikon 400mm 5.6 with my D200, but would like to upgrade to a better lens. How do you like the Sigma 100-300? I have read good reports on that lens.

Thanks,
Dale

You can clearly see the effects of NI in the 100% crops. The noise in the water behind the head of the bird is gone, and so is the noise on the gray feathers on its neck and in the lower left corner of the image. However, not unexpectedly the detail in the brown feathers on the left side of the image and in the upper right corner is gone. IMO this is not objectionable, because the removal of the noise in the feathers on the lower part of the neck makes for a much more appealing look due to softening of the harshness. The neck is a primary area of focus for the image, and you have done a good job of taking care of noise there in a pleasing way. Perhaps you are a bit lucky because the fish itself has no particular detail. If it did, the lack for sharpness from the de-noising could have been problematic.

Having said that, there is no reason to de-noise the whole image. You can either apply NI selectively to parts of the image selected with the lasso tool, or you can put the de-noised image in a separate layer, and then use a layer mask to expose the de-noised parts you want.

I like the 2nd full image, but only because NR has enhanced the subject/background separation. I suspect you're not getting the most out of your NR program in terms of fine-tuning capability. I use Noise Ninja and found that, over time and with extensive use, I finally figured out how to make it do what I wanted. But I had to abandon any notion of 'automatic' noise reduction. It's a hands on, fine tuning process to get good results. There are at least six variables (2 each in contrast, strength of NR, and smoothness) plus sharpening.

However the biggest advance I experienced in learning how to do NR was when I learned that NR in one channel only, usually the blue channel, often yields far superior results - since, as fate would have it, most noise will be found (in the world of current digital sensors) in that channel.

So, in Photoshop CS2 I use the Noise Ninja plug-in first thing after RAW conversion. Well, not exactlly first - first I make a duplicate layer, zoom to 100%, switch to channels, select R, G and B one at a time and confirm which channel (95 out of 100 it's blue) has the noise.

Since I've downloaded Noise Ninja's camera profiles, the program looks at my image and chooses the appropriate profile which then has its effect. I toggle before and after with each change and I run through the variables listed above. When I'm done I activate the R and G channels to confirm if I like the result, or not. Often I wind up converting the layer in which I applied NR using the PS luminosity filter and reduce opacity to anywhere between 50 and 90% depending.

Another key trick I learned is that reducing the NR effect to something less than what my eye tells me is enough will allow me to sharpen the image later without creating more problems.

And finally, don't forget that you can create a new layer with a slight gaussian blur, de-sellect your subject, tune the opacity of your blur layer, then use the sharpening brush tool to selectively sharpen aspects of your subject it its layer (for birds - the eyes, some of the feathers, the beak etc.), flatten the layers... and never even have to use noise reduction!

Just a few thoughts that I hope are helpful. Great picture, by the way!

Boyan,

Thanks for the feedback. I agree with everything you say here. I guess like most of life, the noise question is an issue of trade-offs. What I find interesting about myself is that sometimes I like the noise and sometimes I don't. I can't seem to decide from session to session which way to go.

Thanks also for the comments about the application of differential noise reduction. I actually use layer masks quite often to apply the noise reduction to just certain areas. This is a great technique and does solve some of the dilemma in many cases. I guess the question I still have is which looks "better" in a whole image. I didn't even get into the whole issue of noise and printing (can't really share prints on the web).

Thanks again.

I think you're asking yourself and going back and forth because, though smoother and more appealing in that way, the 2nd image has a certain amount of 'posterization' or uniformity in smaller areas of contrast and color that doesn't look quite right. If that were'nt there but still the noise had been reduced (without sacrificing detail), that would be better, right? And you wouldn't be trying to decide which you liked better. Ideally, noise reduction done right does exactly that.