Using neat image

[rakes]

Hi there,

Been using NI for the past two months.
Read the search but my question is still open

Question:
Should NI be used after the completion of all the normal processing including USM.
Have tried to use NI before and after USM and to my eyes, NI after USM seems to be better. Is this view correct?

Thanks
rakes.

[NITeam]

We recommend to always use NI in the beginning of a post-processing workflow, to avoid aggravation of the noise by post-processing before NI gets a chance to reduce the noise.

Hope this helps.
Vlad

[BIGshotz]

We recommend to always use NI in the beginning of a post-processing workflow, to avoid aggravation of the noise by post-processing before NI gets a chance to reduce the noise.

Hope this helps.
Vlad

Hi, I’ve been using NI Standalone for about a year now, & I agree, this way definitely is the way to go to get the impressive NR results of NI. However, I have a major problem when I do the NR first that I can’t seem to reconcile.

As I don’t use Adobe PS or LR, currently I have to immediately convert copies of my RAW files into TIFFs to be able to take them to NI before I post-process with my editing software.
This bothers me to no end because I’m throwing away a majority of the data in my RAW files before I get to utilise it for the post-processing of my images. So, how do I get around this?

Unfortunately, if I post-process first & then send my images to NI I’m always disappointed with the results of the NR because most of the noise is so totally ‘baked in’ by all the actions of Post-processing. In fact, I would not have bought NI at all if this was it’s best output.

Is there another way I could be working to use NI for good results without compromising the data from my RAW files? Or, do I have to decide which is more important to me? An optimally clean image with much less data available to process, or a noisy image with all the data of my RAW file available?

Presently, I compromise by NR only the extremely noisy images BEFORE processing & I put up with low/ moderate noise in others, so that I have more data for processing these. Occasionally, if it seems the noise has increased after processing, I’ll try NR AFTER processing, & just before sharpening for final output.

This is the best compromise I’ve come to in a year of trying, but ultimately, I shouldn’t have to compromise when I’ve paid money for a solution.

I hope someone can suggest a better way.

[NITeam]

As a possible idea, perhaps those metadata of the original RAW files could also be saved as separate files, either by the camera itself or by the post-processing software supplied with the camera. And then you could take the data from those separate files and join them with the image data after processing. Just an idea at this point, but you can check if that could be possible with the tools you have.

Vlad