[ordinaryimages]

K-7 users...this is the ticket! DeNoise

[kytra]

not bad - do you have some examples to post here?

[rrsell]

I have Topazlabs denoise 4. I can shoot ISO1600 in raw with good results. I follow the denoise instructions and process a file without any previous noise reduction applied. The downside is the processing time for denoise, but denoising can be done in batch from Photoshop.

[olenl]

I compared some low ISO with high ISO/TDN4 images and it seems to be quite good so far, although resolution is less which is perhaps inevitable.

I can even get somewhat useful picture from iso12800 on my kx but strongest setting still leaves some noise, probably manual settings can help in this case.

I am going to try some other options though like noise ninja but right now tdn4 seems great to me.

Processing time is decent on my quad core but unfortunately it seems to be only using 3 cores since cpu load is about 75% all the time. One image takes about 50 seconds I think which IMO is not that long.

The only downfall of TDN4 is that you need adobe photoshop which I am not planning to buy (come on it costs like a 2 good lenses) so i have to use Irfanview to launch it, so no automation.... thus I have to process each image by hand which is annoying.

By the way, does anyone know any other free (or low priced) software that can use PS plugins and (preferably) also has automation? Irfanview was the first thing I found to try TDN4, it's not because I already used it... it has very poor user interface for an image viewer.

[slinco]

According to this review at Luminous Landscape, it "also works with Lightroom, Photoshop Elements and several other applications".

Topaz Labs DeNoise 4.1 Review

[StarDust]

I've tried DeNoise a while back and I prefer Noise Ninja to DeNoise because when I used DeNoise I got a lot of jpeg artifacts. Was I doing something wrong? I used the highest quality possible and that left me having to restart photoshop several times since my 3 gigs of RAM was chewed up after three or four photos.
I've never had that problem with Noise Ninja and somehow I feel that the quality is better after some tweaking with the dials.

[aerodave]

DeNoise 4 seems quite different from previous versions. I never liked version 3, either, because I found that it left a lot of maze artifacts. I always preferred Noiseware.

But DeNoise 4 seems like a completely new approach, and I find the results quite good. The detail retention isn't as awesome as they make it out to be on the website, because once you get to a certain level of detail, you can't distinguish noise from texture. But it's still better than anything else I've used. Of everything I've tried, it seems the least likely to create strange artifacts.

I like it a lot, and it should hold me over until Lightroom 3's improved noise reduction finally arrives. Even if LR isn't quite as good, the integration into the workflow (not having to create a duplicate image from RAW) is worth it to me.

[robgo2]

TDN4 is the current king of the hill in terms of noise reduction. I can get K-7 files shot at ISO 3200 to look very close to ISO 400 without NR. The only problem with the program is that it is operationally very slow: Every adjustment is followed by a re-rendering, and the final NR step can take up to 2 minutes on my 3 year old MacPro. To do the NR job really well, it is sometimes necessary to remove banding pattern noise as well. The only program that I know can do this is Dfine 2, which has a de-banding function. So I use both NR programs on selected images. The results can be amazing.

Rob

[deejjjaaaa]

TDN4 is the current king of the hill in terms of noise reduction.

which reminds me your migration from DxO to C1 after the similar praises... will it be Imagenomic NoiseWare this time ?

[eva2000]

Yup using Denoise 4 now and it's amazing best noise reduction tool I've used - also works with irfanview for quick jobs

[JHD]

which reminds me your migration from DxO to C1 after the similar praises... will it be Imagenomic NoiseWare this time ?

Here today, gone tomorrow. Everything changes; always in a flux.

[StarDust]

Well I guess I'll have to pony up with some RAM and get the newest Denoise. I have a K10D but I love being able to shoot at high ISOs.

[olenl]

Apparently it also works in Gimp through pspi plugin.

[robgo2]

which reminds me your migration from DxO to C1 after the similar praises... will it be Imagenomic NoiseWare this time ?

Aahh, it's deejjjaaaa, the gadfly. If Noiseware's next version is superior to Topaz, I will gladly recognize that fact and possibly use it. I am not wedded to any particular program.

Regarding DxO, as you are well aware, that company has virtually abandoned Pentax. They still do not support the K-x. It is for that reason that I went searching for an alternative RAW converter, right about the time that Capture One 5 was released. What a happy coincidence for me, as I discovered what I consider to be a superior program. You see, software keeps getting better all the time. Smart people can take advantage of that fact and get better images as a result. Just for fun, I like to re-work old images with new software. Quite often, the improvements are truly remarkable. This is one of the reasons that I believe that in the digital age, PP skill is possibly the single most important factor in the image-making process. Perhaps it was always so but not to the same degree as now.

Rob

[robgo2]

Well I guess I'll have to pony up with some RAM and get the newest Denoise. I have a K10D but I love being able to shoot at high ISOs.

The K10D has severe banding problems. I highly recommend that you get Dfine as well as TDN4, if you plan on shooting above ISO 400.

Rob