[BWG]

With my K5ii I used either Lightroom or Topaz DeNoise and liked the results. I frequently cleaned up ISO 12,800 pictures with plenty of detail. My K3 is a very different animal and NR with those programs really softens the images - a lot. I'm wondering about DxO or Nik (or another choice).

[Na Horuk]

Keep in mind that pixel-peeping is more unforgiving with the K-3, since it has so many more pixels than the previous models.

[Kerrowdown]

Keep in mind that pixel-peeping is more unforgiving with the K-3

Aye +1 on that, remember to keep the optimum viewing distances for images.

[Wingincamera]

To answer your question I mostly use Lightroom unless I am going to take a photo into Photoshop, then I will use Neat Image, (plug in for Photoshop), and also do any sharpening afterward.
You can download all of them to try out before actually spending any money. I occasionally download other noise reduction software to try out, but so far never saw a reason to switch from Neat Image.
Neat Image - best noise reduction for digital cameras and scanners

[MJSfoto1956]

if you send me one of your RAW files I'll process it in DxO Optics Pro and send it back to you as a 8-bit TIFF. You can then post the results side-by-side. I think you will see a huge difference, especially in shadows and at high ISO. BTW, I also own Topaz DeNoise and find that using DxO PRIME conversion reduces my need for Topaz DeNoise significantly.

[Miguel]

With my K5ii I used either Lightroom or Topaz DeNoise and liked the results. I frequently cleaned up ISO 12,800 pictures with plenty of detail. My K3 is a very different animal and NR with those programs really softens the images - a lot. I'm wondering about DxO or Nik (or another choice).

I'd continue using Lightroom and learn to better balance sharpening with noise reduction. Both of those controls within LR are very capable, and unless your shots are unusual (large shadowed areas at very high ISO for example) then I wouldn't recommend a third party plugin. I also find that the K-3 requires a greater level of shooting and technique discipline including higher shutter speeds to offset slight camera movement that can blur the image.

M

[scole]

If I apply any noise reduction outside of ACR, I use Nik Software's Define plug in.

[RonHendriks1966]

We probably also need one update for the LightRoom noise reduction to work better with K-3. Iso12.800 is offcourse pushing the limits woth K-5 and I expect the K-3 to be one step behind with those hi-iso's.

[dane.dawg]

MJSfoto1956- I did not think DXO supported K-3 DNG files yet?

[MJSfoto1956]

DxO doesn't support DNG and likely won't -- we are talking only RAW here.

M

[John Cafarella]

I'd continue using Lightroom and learn to better balance sharpening with noise reduction.

M

This is true. You can get quite good results with LR but the settings are pretty critical.

There are some LR tutorials on both sharpening and noise reduction, before I watched them I didn't know that if you hold down ALT whilst adjusting the parameters, the display of the shot changes in various ways to assist with optimum settings.

eg: sharpening/masking it shows the mask so you can more accurately apply sharpening only to edges and not textures (noise)

With uncropped K3 files I've found that I get a better result by applying less reduction than I would to a K5 file. The noise "grains" are smaller, so they aren't as visible, so NR to the same degree as a k5 file when viewed at normal size looks over-processed.

John

[klkitchens]

DxO doesn't support DNG and likely won't -- we are talking only RAW here.

M

DxO supports DNG just not K-3 DNG yet. They said they will mid January.

DNG is RAW same as PEF. Just different formats.

[tx0h]

i just created a k-3 denoise profile for darktable. it's actually in the public git repository. for those who compile their stuff themselves

so, i use darktable with my own profile for denoising, sometimes also other plugins, depends on the image. but darktable does it all.

greetings,
tx0h

[Miguel]

We probably also need one update for the LightRoom noise reduction to work better with K-3. Iso12.800 is offcourse pushing the limits woth K-5 and I expect the K-3 to be one step behind with those hi-iso's.

Why do you think this about Lightroom after version 5.3 was released? It seems to manage noise on my K-3 ISO 12,800 files quite well. K-3 files bring less of a challenge than 7D files do at the same ISO and LR handles both just fine in most circumstances.

M

[Michaelina2]

I shoot RAW and use LR5.3 with NIK's plug-in collection for LR. K-3 files (DNG and PEF) clean up quickly and quite well (up to ISO 12,800 and sometimes higher) when shot in SV mode.


Last night, I installed the trial version of DXO 9 on my Win7-64 desktop computer and plan to play around with it over the next 30 days. Immediately, I see a need to get accustomed to the fact that DXO reads only PEF (Pentax's proprietary RAW format) and its effects are applied globally across the entire image. In contrast, LR w/NIK permits global AND localized fine tuning of effects within an image. Also, DXO requires Windows NET Framework 4.5. This program seems to be a real resource hog and tends to slow everything down even when not engaged by DXO. In addition, DXO requires custom camera + lens profiles to be installed for things to work well. Fortunately, there's a profile for the K-3 and K-5 IIs, plus the lenses I tend to use. If your images are produced by lenses that are not profiled, it's possible you might not get the results you desire. Others have observed that DXO does some tasks very well, but other tasks might be better executed on an exported partially completed image in LR or Photoshop. This may add complexity to the work-flow, but since I have not gone there, I can't comment, yet.


MY DXO observations are quite preliminary and I may not understand the program properly. Please do NOT read too much into what I've written, above. Also, while I may offer a comment along the way, do NOT look for a post-processing software review from me. I post-process for specific purposes and private reasons (yours will probably differ), so do your own research...


Cheers... M