Nik Color Efex Pro users

[Digifrog]

Hi all

A techy sort of question for Nik Color Efex users. It's probably not ideal but.... Can you use the Tonal Contrast filter as an effective noise reduction tool. That is if...

Saturation = 0
Highlight Contrast = -15
Midtone Contrast = -15
Shadow Contrast = -15

I've used this on smoother areas like sky and water but was wondering what you think. It's probably not as effective as a bespoke NR tool, or is it? If not what are your reservations, if yes please state why.

Regards

Scott

 

[michaelg]

Have you got Dfine, also by Nik? Not sure if the offer is still available but I got the full Nik package for free as I already had Silver Efex Pro 2 and Color Efex Pro 4. If not the full package is fairly cheap to buy since Google bought Nik Software. Dfine is designed for noise reduction and does a really good job. The other software in the package is great too. I'd use them rather than the proposed solution above or if you don't want to buy the full package read up more on how to get the best out of Lightroom or Photoshop noise reduction as I mostly begin with that unless I'm doing a detailed edit of something I want to print.

 

[Digifrog]

Thanks Mike

I haven't got Dfine but I am aware of it and other NR products.

 

[michaelg]

If you have any images you want run through Dfine to compare with your proposal, send me a PM and will give you my email address.

 

[juggler]

Hi all

A techy sort of question for Nik Color Efex users. It's probably not ideal but.... Can you use the Tonal Contrast filter as an effective noise reduction tool. That is if...

Saturation = 0
Highlight Contrast = -15
Midtone Contrast = -15
Shadow Contrast = -15

I've used this on smoother areas like sky and water but was wondering what you think. It's probably not as effective as a bespoke NR tool, or is it? If not what are your reservations, if yes please state why.

Regards

Scott

Why would you? It'll reduce all the local contrast, not just how visible the noise is and probably won't do anything with chroma noise. Sometimes the tonal contrast filter with negative values is useful to soften backgrounds in a way which is more subtle than adding fake blur. I suspect that one reason it looks more realistic is that it doesn't remove noise.

Anyway.. why not use Dfine if you've got Nik?

 

[Digifrog]

I've found that if used conservatively having the TC sliders at -12 to -15 it does help NR but I agree it's not ideal.

Using the tools I already have I have just started to use the NR slider in ACR at somewhere around +70 on selected areas and found that it helps. I don't know why it has taken me so long to use the ACR method tbh but it will do for now.

 

[juggler]

I've found that if used conservatively having the TC sliders at -12 to -15 it does help NR but I agree it's not ideal.

Using the tools I already have I have just started to use the NR slider in ACR at somewhere around +70 on selected areas and found that it helps. I don't know why it has taken me so long to use the ACR method tbh but it will do for now.

+70? Really? If I use the corresponding sliders in Lightroom I rarely push them to more than +10 for contrast and +25 for chroma noise. If I have a really bad problem - invariably because I've underexposed and pushed the exposure in post - then Dfine works fairly well for me.

Have you got a raw file showing what you're tackling?

 

[Digifrog]

Noise isn't really that much of an issue with me tbh, its just I like to make the skies a little smoother with the Adjustment Brush.

At +70 it looks just fine & does this without detriment to the image. This is only really noticeable in ACR at 300% I could probably get away with dialing in less but visually it works for me.

I'll experiment with increments of 10 and see how it goes.

This image was half a stop under so Exp was boosted in ACR. NR was set at +60 on the sky and water only.

 

[juggler]

Noise isn't really that much of an issue with me tbh, its just I like to make the skies a little smoother with the Adjustment Brush.

At +70 it looks just fine & does this without detriment to the image. This is only really noticeable in ACR at 300% I could probably get away with dialing in less but visually it works for me.

I'll experiment with increments of 10 and see how it goes.

This image was half a stop under so Exp was boosted in ACR. NR was set at +60 on the sky and water only.

View attachment 55564

Well, reducing the tonal contrast in CFX does a very good job of smoothing things out if that's what you want to achieve.

 

[Digifrog]

Yeah well, I'll use ACR method now as the tool apparently is as good as any plug in. Not to mention the fact that applying the adjustment to a data file is far preferable than applying it to an image file.