[BigMackCam]

Here are my results with Corel AfterShot Pro 3...

First, using the Perfectly Clear Noise Removal, strength 50 and detail 10:



And now, using Wavelet Denoise - luminance threshold 50, detail 50; color threshold 80, detail 50:



One more, again using Wavelet Denoise - luminance threshold 75, detail 75; color threshold 100, detail 50:



The crops I've provided show a slightly larger area this time, as I was concerned by the artefacts in the blurred edge at the top left. I felt this was worth showing. Although I'm not too keen on the noise reduction in AfterShot Pro 3, I quite like the result from the third example above, and when resized to 50% reproduction and smaller, I think it's a useable result.

I confess, I'm not very well-versed in using this tool, as I pretty much gave up on it when I found it wouldn't load and process files for a couple of my cameras If anyone has better experience with it and can improve on these results, please do post them!

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Last edited by BigMackCam; 11-24-2017 at 04:22 AM.

[Nicolas06]

Is there some sharpening applied? I'm just wondering about the edge artefacts around the white lettering...

Hum, the first 2 default in the previous post were without DxO applying the lens profile while the 3 last were with the lens profile applied.

DxO applies the lens profile by default once downloaded. It perform geometric correction as well as vigneting but it also uniformize sharpness a bit as I understand it. It also work on chromatic aberations. Of course you can disable it if you don't like it.

That aside, while I find the Lightroom result quite decent, I find the Corel AfterShot Pro 3 quite bad. In particular it merge the colors of different areas near the border if you look much more than the others.

Yes, I just noticed that this morning I'd forgotten to de-select the resize option in my export dialogue. I've now corrected all my posts in this thread to include 100% crops

I deleted my old post as no longer necessary

[newmikey]

Have you tried any stand-alone noise reduction programs such as NeatImage or Topaz, applied to an already converted raw?

[BigMackCam]

Have you tried any stand-alone noise reduction programs such as NeatImage or Topaz, applied to an already converted raw?

I tried Topaz a year or so back, but didn't get on with it. However, I'd be delighted if anyone who does use it could post their results!

[BigMackCam]

Hum, the first 2 default in the previous post were without DxO applying the lens profile while the 3 last were with the lens profile applied.

DxO applies the lens profile by default once downloaded. It perform geometric correction as well as vigneting but it also uniformize sharpness a bit as I understand it. It also work on chromatic aberations. Of course you can disable it if you don't like it.

Good to know. I don't think it matters for the purposes of our comparison, though. I do like the

That aside, while I find the Lightroom result quite decent, I find the Corel AfterShot Pro 3 quite bad. In particular it merge the colors of different areas near the border if you look much more than the others.

I agree the AfterShot Pro 3 results look bad... playing around with it, though, the third example I provided looks pretty decent at smaller reproduction sizes. That said, the same is probably true for any of them!!

[newmikey]

I tried Topaz a year or so back, but didn't get on with it. However, I'd be delighted if anyone who does use it could post their results!

Alright, I'm stuck at work with a Windows computer right now so I can't do very much but I'll run some tests with NeatImage8.3 as soon as I get home tonight and share results.

[BigMackCam]

Alright, I'm stuck at work with a Windows computer right now so I can't do very much but I'll run some tests with NeatImage8.3 as soon as I get home tonight and share results.

Great! Thank you!

[rawr]

The Pentax Digital Camera Utility 5 software has decent NR features, particularly the 'Multi-level NR' slider for high ISO. Certainly worth a look for anyone playing with high-ISO.

[Nicolas06]

The Pentax Digital Camera Utility 5 software has decent NR features, particularly the 'Multi-level NR' slider for high ISO. Certainly worth a look for anyone playing with high-ISO.

Could you show how it fare in practice using the sample DNG ?

[newmikey]

OK, I've converted once with Darktable and once with RawTherapee, both at standard settings and with any NR switched off) and ran both files through NeatImage8.3

You can find the initial conversions from raw as well as the filtered jpegs in a shared Dropbox folder here : Dropbox - IMGP5877

PS: let me know if you (and anyone else) can access this shared folder - I haven't really used Dropbox in this manner before but as these are full-sized files I saw no other easy option. I can always wetransfer them should anyone require - just drop me a PM with an email address.

I have not yet compared them to any other versions shown in this thread, will leave that up to your good self...

[BigMackCam]

OK, I've converted once with Darktable and once with RawTherapee, both at standard settings and with any NR switched off) and ran both files through NeatImage8.3

You can find the initial conversions from raw as well as the filtered jpegs in a shared Dropbox folder here : Dropbox - IMGP5877

PS: let me know if you (and anyone else) can access this shared folder - I haven't really used Dropbox in this manner before but as these are full-sized files I saw no other easy option. I can always wetransfer them should anyone require - just drop me a PM with an email address.

I have not yet compared them to any other versions shown in this thread, will leave that up to your good self...

Thanks! Would it be OK for me to crop the JPEGs and post them in this thread?

[newmikey]

Thanks! Would it be OK for me to crop the JPEGs and post them in this thread?

Of course!

[subsea]

Hi, Mike,

In the interest of completeness (not really!), I tried your challenge with ACDSee Photo Studio V4 since my goto apps are being covered by others. I did some beta testing on the app and I think it'll be a while before they achieve the level of capabilities seen in the others. That being said, here is a 100% crop sample with a screenshot of the settings used in the detail panel of the Develop module. I did a little sharpening prior to the noise reduction. Hope it helps.

Mark

[jbinpg]

Mike - The way to approach separate colour and luminance NR in darktable is to simply create another instance of whichever NR module you are working with and enabling the type of NR you wish to use. It is the rightmost of the 4 radio buttons next to the module name. I usually use the equalizer rather than profiled denoise but that is more a matter of taste. Equalizer is computationally intendive but then so is any NR reduction.

BTW, the module placement in the darktable pipeline is fixed by the developers so it does not matter in what order you enable any specific module. You can see the processing order by clicking on the leftmost radio button under the histogram. The processing pipeline is read from bottom to top of the graphic.

- Jack

[BigMackCam]

OK, I've converted once with Darktable and once with RawTherapee, both at standard settings and with any NR switched off) and ran both files through NeatImage8.3

Thanks to @newmikey, here are the 100% crops...

First, the file in Darktable with standard settings and NR disabled, followed by the same file run through NeatImage 8.3:





And now, in RawTherapee with NR disabled, followed by the same file through NeatImage 8.3:





As you can see, I've changed the position of the crop slightly, to show the more of the flash casing edge at the top left. Although NeatImage seems to have done a superb job overall, it ran into a problem with the blurred edge here and introduced some artefacts (especially from Darktable ). No NR is perfect, I guess That aside, I really like the way NeatImage has handled the rest of the noise, with just a little colour blotching in the white lettering of minor concern (primarily in the RawTherapee version).