Photo Noise Reduction Tool Free Download
Eber Shelhorse
My biggest post-processing challenge in photography is image noise. Unlike studio photographers who can precisely control every aspect of lighting, I've been photographing most of my campaigns handheld in natural light for more than 15 years.
But unwanted noise can be quite extreme, and the detail in your photos will suffer. Some high-end cameras certainly handle noise better than prosumer models, but every high-ISO photo could be improved upon with the help of noise reduction tools in post-production.
I needed something more powerful than Lightroom. A photographer friend recommended DeNoise AI by Topaz Labs to solve my noise issue, and I gave it a try. I only needed a light touch of the noise reduction and sharpening sliders before the noise was fully corrected. As you can see, the DeNoise AI results were quite good:
The noise reduction output with DeNoise AI was exactly what I was looking for: a smooth, noise-free background without obliterating skin and hair texture. Here's a comparison alongside the Lightroom output and the original noisy image:
I reached out to the CEO of Topaz Labs last summer to chat more about the technology and ended up partnering with them to supply ongoing images and feedback for all of their AI-powered photo editing applications. When they recently asked me to check out their latest beta of DeNoise, I decided it was high time to take a deep look at other popular noise reduction solutions. Do other applications offer better noise reduction, more intuitive editing options, or a better workflow? Let's find out. On to the challenge!
Website: Adobe Lightroom
Price: $9.99/mo USD
Pros: Robust industry-standard raw photo editor
Cons: Noise reduction can soften details at higher ISO, software is only available by monthly subscription
Lightroom is my default raw image editor, and it's served me well for many years. While generally, the noise handling does just fine, I've found that increasing noise reduction to accommodate heavier noise muddles up the image.
I only needed about 30% power on the noise reduction slider before the background was clean. I was able to ramp up the Sharpening slider to 100 without any artifacts to help bring in detail from the feathers. Using the Recover Original Detail slider, I brought back some of the texture. As always, I was impressed with DeNoise AI. The results are sharp and clean. Take a look:
The options here were surprisingly limited (no sharpening tools), and the output quite poor. The entire image looks like it's underwater. I had hoped that the output would be better than the preview. Nope. Dfine 2 couldn't maintain any detail with its noise reduction tools:
We had a wide variety of results with the noise reduction challenge. I'd love for our audience to decide the winner! You'll see our targeted problem areas in our original photo to compare the output across all these applications:
Generally the Lightroom sliders are designed to be used from top to bottom. So fix your sharpening first then consider how much noise reduction you need. Plus Lightroom allows you to paint noise reduction with the brush, so you could paint the blurred background (perhaps with automask) and both reduce the net sharpening to 0 and if needed add more noise reduction.
For most photos that go to print, the one with no noise or very minimal color noise reduction will look best. On a computer screen viewed at 100%, the Topaz will look best. I stopped caring about noise a few years ago after doing some 16x20 prints taken at 6400 ISO. The prints looked amazing from a D700 camera, a camera that has long been surpassed.
Ah, I didn't realize. Though I do see she cranked all controls as far as possible. DFINE is intended to automatically or through chosen areas to recognize the amount and kind of noise for reduction. You can't just shove all the controls to the right.
I agree there's no AI going on here, but used judiciously, it can yield excellent results. It's unfortunately a hit and miss affair, but it's not a bad tool to have in the toolbox when you need a variant on noise reduction. As I said, I have decent results using a 1-2 punch with the LR NR tool.
I often shoot wildlife in difficult conditions, leading to high ISO, and as much as I always complain about LR, its noise reduction is a lot better than this article wants to demonstrate. It's a little more subtle than pushing the slider to nearly its maximum value and complain about loss of sharpness.
Although the very fact that these programs are out there and gaining popularity may encourage the likes of Adobe and Phase One to improve their Lightroom and Capture One photo editing applications ... so in a way even though these additional de-noise programs are not necessary for experienced users, ironically they probably will contribute indirectly to improvements in the programs we love to use.
Denoise while being the best (so far), it may ruin your photo. I really hope the developers will continue refining Denoise towards reducing artifacts. It is better to leave some residual noise than introduce artifacts
"I suspect Phase One hasn't felt the need to advance their development into noise reduction. Why would they need to when their users are typically meticulous studio photographers shooting at native ISO?"
I think that was the point of the article regarding C1: commercial advertising is done in perfect studio conditions where you'd have no noise, so why would C1 bother implementing good noise reduction.
I have 3 reasons not to switch from LR to C1: the price, the LR catalogs that I'm so invested in, and C1's inferior noise reduction (which, before you say anything, I have tested extensively during my 30 days trial period). As a night-time photographer for a large part, I could never achieve a clean but yet detailed result with C1 :(
On a personal note, when I started with (digital) photography, I also wanted to remove all noise. Noise was bad. But I have evolved into removing most of the color noise (chroma) but at the same time embracing the luma noise. It adds texture, detail and a certain rawness to a picture. Of course I don't do studio portraits at ISO 6400, I am talking about documentary wedding photography or nightlife photography with minimal use of flash and just capturing the mood and light how it is. And not making the image look like a painting, but keeping some noise (to an extent).
You must realize that Topaz Denoise not just doing noise reduction there are sharpening works also. In this example the writer push sharpen slide to max in TDenoise, while in lightroom she only put a little sharpen. As other comment here, the setting of other noise reduction not at their optimal set regarding the example image.Thank you for the original test image, I did some denoise and must agree that setting on other image reduction software not an optimum set.
Topaz Photo AI is one of the newest noise reduction software in the market and it has quickly become one of the most used thanks to its intuitive interface and wide range of AI-powered tools. With Topaz Photo AI you can denoise your images, sharpen them and enlarge them, all in one tool.
You can purchase Topaz Photo AI for $199, this includes the denoise, sharpen, upscale, autopilot, face detection, and text preservation tools. You can also try Photo AI for free before you buy.
However, there are so many techniques of noise removal that it can be hard to pick which one to use. They range from the basic tools in your Raw developer to third-noise removal tools powered by AI. How can you choose the right method?
If you find that your software is softening too many details in your main subject, you still may not need to buy a dedicated noise reduction software immediately. Instead, try using local adjustments to do manual, selective denoising.
Selective noise reduction is when you apply noise reduction more severely to areas where noise is more obvious, like blurred backgrounds. I use careful, selective denoising on virtually all of my noisy images.
What software did I use in order to get a good result like this? Some $200 AI-powered tool? Nope! It was just the basic tools in the open-source software Darktable, which I applied selectively to areas with high noise.
There are quite a few dedicated noise reduction tools today. Many of them are built around subject recognition capabilities, where they will selectively apply noise reduction at different levels in different parts of the image.
ON1 NoNoise AI is yet another AI noise reduction program and it can operate as standalone or plugin for Affinity, Adobe Lightroom, or Capture One. To be honest, I was very disappointed in using ON1 NoNoise AI 2023 for a variety of reasons.
Sure, in some cases, noise can be very distracting. As a wildlife photographer, I often take shots of subjects against distant backgrounds, and noise distracts from the transition between a sharp subject and a smooth background. I do want smooth backgrounds in photos like this:
Scared of noise? Not really the issue. Most of us that have bought or invested in noise reduction software, is because we are up against a wall on what and how we photograph, and noise basically ruins the appearance.
I agree with that. Everyone needs to have their priorities. It is worth noting that faster telephoto primes have other advantages besides reduced noise. They also AF in lower light, produce a shallower depth of field, and are often sharper and have better rendering and corners.
I'm hoping to move completely away from Photo Shop CC to Affiniti Photo (AP) for editing still photo images. I've been working with AP for a couple of weeks, and so far I like it a lot, but I haven't been as happy with the sharpening and noise removal tools. So - two questions - (1) is there a way to install Topaz Denoise 6 into Affiniti (I know the entire Topaz Studio can be installed, but I'll only use DeNoise and I don't want the whole Studio) and (2) Is there a plug-in sharpener tool which is more flexible and powerful than the basic tool in Affiniti? My favorite sharpener has been "Smart Sharpen" from Photo Shop. The sharpener tool in Affiniti seems to be quite basic.
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