If electronic noise, haloing and digital artifacting is a problem for you in your prints then read on...
This is a review of my recent experiences reducing electronic noise when preparing 20" X 16" sized prints.
Experience summary:
1-By far, noise reduction and digital artifacting are most common in the soft focused areas of an image and in the sky portions of landscapes.
2-Some say you will not need any additional noise reduction software if you have Photoshop CS2 and its new "Noise Reduction" filter. WRONG!
3-NeatImage or other noise reduction add-on software products do a better job than CS2's "Noise Reduction" filter but still may NOT be sufficient to remove all noise and you will have to manually touch up your images.
4-Digital noise and artifacting plainly shows up in large prints when it is invisible on web graphics created from the same source file.
Is CS2's "Noise Reduction" filter enough?
No! For "noisy" images you will still need your add-on noise reduction software!
CS2's new "Noise Reduction" filter is best for removing chromatic color noise and might even be best for that. However, it does not do nearly as good a job as NeatImage for removing artifacting. You can get close if you work at it. It removes LESS artifacts from sky and soft focused areas where it is needed most AND it smooths the areas that don't need it MORE than NeatImage does. That is a double whammy against it.
Is add-on noise reduction software enough?
NO!
Noise reduction is always a battle between removal of digital artifacts introduced by your camera(And post processing) and retaining real detail. Overused noise reduction results in lost detail and gives images a "plastic", unrealistic appearance.
The trick with noise reduction is to balance removal of artifacts with retaining detail. It is a delicate tightrope walk. You will never be able to remove all noise and retain all detail. The best that you can do is to remove most artifacts and lose only a small amount of detail and it is individual image dependent.
NOTE:
You will want to examine your image on your monitor screen at the appropriate magnification size for which it will be printed. For example, if you are printing at 300 dots per inch you will want to examine it at about 400% magnification if the image has not already been interpolated to the full print size. That is because your monitor can only display 72 dots per inch which is about 4 times less than will be printed per inch. Noise looks huge on your screen this way but, believe me, what you see there shows up plainly and sharper on prints even though the print is physically smaller than the display.
Will I have to perform "manual" noise reduction?
For important prints... YES! AFTER applying noise reduction I do with all my prints. After automated noise reduction has been applied always review the entire image and use the healing, clone, blur, and/or smudge tools as necessay to remove remaining artifacts and haloing. It is a time consuming process.
It is recommended you remove as much noise and haloing as possible from your unsharpened, post-processed master file. But you will still have to do more cleanup later.
Though this is not abslutely essential it is also recommended that you create a separate print master file from your post-processed master file. The post-processed master file is the SINGLE source for all your different types of output and generally does not have shapening applied to it. The sharpening and quality requirements for each type of output is different so each needs to be unique. Sharpening a web graphic output is vastly different from sharpening a 24 X 18 inch print.
Having a print master file assures you that you will be able to make accurate reprints of the same picture over and over again. That comes in handy if you later need to make additional prints for such things as selling them as fine art photography.
Always remember...
The Golden Rule:
If an image looks right to you then it is right!
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