Selective Noise Reduction Software

[Kuzey Cem Kulaço?lu]

Hi everyone, I am a young birdwatcher and photographer from Turkey. I have just joined this site. I will post an introduction.
For now, however, I would like to consult you with a problem that has really bothered me: Noise. Of course everyone has this problem, and it is impossible to make it disappear; but you can always reduce it with noise reduction software.
I have been using Neat Image for a few days now. It is good and all but when I apply noise reduction, there is a great loss of detail too. That's why I'm on the lookouts for a software that can separate the foreground from background and apply noise reduction to the former.
I use an iMac with OS Mavericks installed. Oddly enough; I can't upload photoshop or lightroom, so those are not options. I have used Photoshop Elements 13 for a while and I am satisfied, but I think there are some better ones out there.
Thanks already!

[Diane Miller]

Hi Kuzey - welcome to BPN! We look forward to seeing your work!

PS and LR will run with Mavericks, but maybe the issue is with the computer. Is there enough hard disk space? Enough memory? Video driver issues? Unfortunately as software becomes more sophisticated, hardware lags behind. But Elements is an adequate place to start.

Neat Image usually does a good job for me of reducing noise in areas without detail, while still retaining detail in busy areas. But any NR program can go too far, especially if the original shot had a lot of noise. You can run it on a duplicate layer and mask it out where the effect is too strong. I also use Nik's Dfine, which often gives a similar result to Neat Image, but sometimes one is better than the other. The key is to have low noise to start with. Exposing to the right will help a lot -- bringing exposure down in post helps minimize noise while bringing it up will magnify noise.

The Nik Suite of programs is wonderful for photography and I think it will run under Elements.

[Kuzey Cem Kulaço?lu]

Thanks for your response. Happy to be here and I surely will share some of my work.
I used Elements for about a month (as in a trial) and I was quite satisfied with it. I liked how I could separate the bird from background and then filter the two layers separately. NeatImage - at least the standalone demo version I have - can't do that.
I tried many trial versions of Lightroom and Photoshop. Photoshop didn't load at all and Lightroom had an error about modules.
I tried Noiseware with my Windows XP laptop (still no PS as it requires W. Vista or above). It was nice but still lost me some detail. I tried Nik Dfine 2 but the trial expired before I could really try it.
Especially in winter days like these, I could sure use some nice software.

I always try to keep the noise down but usually when I try to do that the shutter speed goes down and the image comes out blurred.

[Diane Miller]

The need for up to date hardware and operating systems can be very frustrating, similar to the need for a certain level of camera gear. Elements is a good place to start, especially if it is all that will work!! One of the fellows in the Macro forum, John Robinson, does awesome work with some older and very inexpensive software that might run for you. Going back through his posts is well worth it, just for inspiration.

I'd rather deal with some noise than get a blurred image.

[Diane Miller]

From the problems you describe with the computer, I wonder if it's just not adequate for Mavericks (old processor, not enough hard drive space, RAM, etc)?? Or if the installation got corrupted? Is it an older computer that was upgraded to Mavericks?

The newer OSs always seem to have major issues. Maybe you should consider rolling it back to an older OS with a clean install. I have a 4-5 year old laptop that will run PS and LR, but not the newest versions.

[Don Lacy]

What year iMac are you using and how much hard drive space and Ram do you have. I am running PS6 on a 2009 iMac with 8 gigs of ram and 370 gigabytes of unused space on my 1 TB drive also running Maverick currently. I am going to upgrade my Ram tp 16 gigs soon as I am running into performance issues with the larger files from my 6D.

[Kuzey Cem Kulaço?lu]

I am uploading the full version of Photoshop Elements 13 now; as I couldn't find where to download PS or Lr for Mac. I really hope the PSE13 works - the trial version did.
Now the next question is; while I was using the PSE13 trial my selective noise reduction was something like this: I opened the lasso selector, selected the bird and anything else on the foreground, then I clicked "select inverse" so it would select the background only. Then I would apply noise reduction. After that I usually sharpen the bird a little.
Is there an easier way to do this? I know it can be done by layers but I don't really understand how that works...

[Kuzey Cem Kulaço?lu]

By the way, I tried to upload a photograph to the avian discussion group but it said I may not post any attachments - why is that?

[Diane Miller]

I think there are limits to how often a Participant can post attachments -- but maybe someone can correct me if that's wrong. But it looks like this is your first post and you haven't posted an attachment yet. I can never keep track of things like that. I'll put anote in the Moderators section and maybe someone can help.

I don't know Elements, but if you can add a mask to a layer (to hide part of it) I would do this:

Duplicate the BG layer and do NR on that layer
Add a mask
Choose the Brush tool, set the right size and paint in black for the areas where you want to hide the NR.

That's so much more accurate than the lasso tool, and you can modify the mask at any time by painting with black or white.

There are many tutorials online for Elements.

[Kuzey Cem Kulaço?lu]

Thank you so much for your help. As soon as I figure out that attachment thing you can hopefully see some of the results :bg3:

[Daniel Cadieux]

Hi Kuzey, welcome to BPN!!

The reason you cannot post an attachment is because you are a "Forum participant". Only paying "BPN Members" have access to upload an attachment to our servers. In the meantime you can link your image from another photo hosting site (e.g. flickr, photobucket, etc...)

Here is a "Sticky" you can read to help you with that (scroll down to "Forum participant"):

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/87352-Please-Read-Before-Posting-The-First-Time-and-Then-From-Time-to-Time