I'm NI happy user since years. Recently I've changed system (bridge camera -> SLR). I'm trying to find out my own workflow and I stuck at the wall.
In the past I did JPG photos and workflow was very simple: Camera->NI->Photoshop. Now, with SLR I wanted to switch to RAW because of more adjust posibilities and not loosing data (JPG compression, 8-bit, etc.).
I choose RAWTherapee as RAW processing soft. Till now it works perfect and almost perfectly suits my needs. Workflow RT->NI worked fine if there was not excess corrections applied in RT. But recently, after solving problems, I started to use automatic photo correction using Lens Correction Proflies. Of course I created calibration profiles and use it for denoise.
The problem is - If I'll use RT to correct photos with LCP profile, NI does not remove noise (or remove very little). If I'll create TIFF in RT without lens correction, denoise in NI, load again into RT - I can't fully apply LCP (vigneting and chromatic aberration correction does not work). I assume that the problem is because Lens Correction causes changes in image geometry and after correction image noise does not fit noise profile, also image noise is not uniform on whole image. And that is my Gordian Knot - I can have either this or that. But I want to have both.
Theoretically problem could be solved by autoprofiling each image. But first autoprofile is making mistakes sometimes selecting area that does not represent noise in current image. I would have to profile each image - impossible, I have calibration profiles created to do it for me. Second - noise uniformity deformation because of picture geometry correction by LCP.
What to do?
I saw some topics here about DNG (or RAW in general) . I think implement of DNG support would be perfect and solve problem described above. First you dont have to deal with all camera image formats - Adobe did it for you (DNG Converter). But:
I dont't know NI algorithms of course, but why not to threat RAW image as monochrome? In fact in RAW file you have information "directly" from sensor which is monochrome (except Foveon). Monochrome sensor is coated with filter (Beyer RGBG or other). But it's still monochrome sensor and noise should be uniform on whole monochromatic image. Denoise DNG and save it in the same format will allow denoising at lowest level and further processing in RAW processing programs.I am not sure having RAW data in .DNG format makes it significantly easier to read. It still requires RAW->RGB conversion and that is not something Neat Image is designed for.
Vlad
Best Regards
Sebastian