When to Reduce Noise?

[Terry Yarbrough]

Just purchased NI Pro+. At what point in my photo management workflow is it best to apply noise reduction? Before or after resizing? Before or after sharpening? When?

Thanks!

[NITeam]

My suggestion is to reduce noise right after receiving images from the camera. However, there are people who use it after certain postprocessing. I advise to reduce noise before sharpening in any case.

Vlad

[W A Hunt]

Vlad,

Is there any benefit to using NI (v4Pro+, in my case), before, or after re-sizing? I saw your reply, regarding Sharpening, and agree. In this specific case I'm working on a 4x5x2000ppi drum scan, but will be taking it up to 91"x59" @ 200 dpi for a display poster. If I run NI before re-sizing (up), I'm obviously using a smaller image, but will I loose any of the work done in NI, when I re-size. I know that there will definitely be other losses, I'm just wondering about NI here.

TIA,
W A Hunt

[NITeam]

I would try both ways to see what is better in terms of quality but processing smaller image will certainly take less time in any case. So it depends on your priorities too.

I think that using NI before upsizing is better in your workflow.

Vlad

[taob]

If you are using a pre-made profile (which is what I do 99% of the time), you will need to use one that was created from a sample that was resampled the same way and by the same amount, otherwise the profile will not be useful.

I will run NI immediately after converting my DSLR's raw files into low compression, unsharpened JPEGs (or TIFFs if I need 16-bit channel depth). Then I will perform any necessary edits, including some unsharp mask. Note that because of the raw conversion step, certain parameters such as exposure compensation, contrast setting, white balance, etc. are done before the NI step (but my NI profiles take those into account).