Effortlessly
Remove Noise From Your Digital Camera
By Mark Comon
Since the beginning of
digital imaging, noise has been a serious problem for photographers.
We’ve longed for a way to reduce noise while not affecting image
quality and camera performance.
Noise in digital photography manifests itself in similar ways to what
film photographers call grain, that is, random artifacts of colored
pixels from shooting with high ISO ratings or by making extremely
long exposures (one second or longer). PictureCode’s new Noise
Ninja 2.0 software offers a terrific solution, as it virtually eliminates
noise in digital captures and scanned images with minimal loss of
detail and overall image quality.
Noise Ninja is easy to use and provides
great results. Using the software for the first time on long digital
exposures and ISO 3200 images, as well as a scanned 35mm slide, yielded
fantastic images. The Ninja software features a built-in (and updatable)
database of digital camera profiles, which allows it to recognize
the camera model and ISO setting (embedded EXIF file) from the image,
and thereby optimize the noise-reduction algorithm automatically (or
manually, if you choose).
Making it happen is quite simple: Drag a photo into Noise Ninja, select
full auto profile, and presto—Noise Ninja recognizes the noise,
and with the click of a button, it’s gone. You have the opportunity
to adjust luminance, colors and sharpening, but I chose to let the
software do all the work.
Like all software programs, we know that with a little practice and
understanding, further improvement to the output quality is possible,
but it certainly was a bonus to have “auto” results that
were beyond expectations.
At $69 (for a professional license), PictureCode’s Noise Ninja
2.0 is a bargain for what it does. It’s available online as
a download and through camera retailers.
