Well after seeing Tim’s test on noise reduction software, I thought I’d try one out myself. I’d never really compared different NR (noise reduction) processes before, instead I’d just basically given up high iso photography. I have to say, after mucking around with the software a little bit, I’m not so worried about using high iso settings on the DSLR anymore. I was quite impressed.
I only had 3 methods of NR which included DPP (Digital Photo Professional), Noise ninja, and “Camera RAW” with photoshop. I tried all on the same photo which I’ve taken a 100% crop sample of. I tried to include a mix of textures in the sample.
View the image below at it’s largest size and you immediately you notice each process produced quite different results.
The original photo was taken indoors with dim light. The digital noise isn’t that bad really, i have other photos that are worse, but I chose this as it had several different textures and is common of the iso noise I get.
Camera RAW seemed to keep the most “faithful” colours, but blurred pretty much everything. Some detail was lost particularly in the edges, which gave an overall soft look to the photo. It seemed to get rid of both noise and grain which are two different things really. By getting rid of some grain it lost a bit of sharpness and detail.
DPP was a little less full on when it came to removing the grain. It still has quite a bit which helps keep some overall sharpness. To my eyes it has a nicer contrast and colour too. I’d never used DPP before, but it looks to be quite effective.
Noise Ninja was again different. I downloaded the 400D (Rebel XTi) NR profile from the manufacturer website and gave it a go. It appears to be bit of a mixed bag. I like how it’s kept some edge sharpness, more than the other programs, but it makes the skin look like plastic. Some people might like that as bit of an airbrushed skin shortcut, but its not to my tastes. The colour has again changed from the original, probably the most drastic out of all. It was also introduced some of its own fragments to the image which look a little messy, this might be treatable in the setting panel which I didn’t play around with (I just used standard setting for all).

After looking at the 3 noise reduction programs, I have to say i quite like them all in one way or another.
I’d never used DPP before, but I liked how it treated the image. It still has some grain, but removes most of the digital noise which is what I want most. It had nice contrast i thought, and the colours looked fine too. The only downside is that there’s not many options for individual settings. So fine tuning is pretty much out of the question. (It almost seems as though it was bit of an after thought with the DPP software, but that’s another story).
Noise ninja seems very powerful with a large range of fine tuning options. I think once i play around with it I’ll be able to reduce the plastic skin look. The colours looked quite different from the original too, but that’s probably another thing that can be fixed also. The program seems to need a bit of fine tuning which is to be expected I guess. But the whole idea is to minimise hours in front of the computer, if I have to play around with NN each time I use it, I’ll probably lose interest. That’s just a personal thing though.
Then there’s Camera RAW which seems fine, but would probably be my last choice. It just seems to give bit of an overall blur to the image, which isn’t all that useful.

I guess it all comes down to personal preference. If i can get Noise Ninja sorted out, I’ll use that the most. Otherwise I’ll go with DPP and its simplicity.