Still trying to learn how to use Neat Image--in it's simplist form. Wish you had a "Basics" section on this forum so as not to bore the experienced users. Anyway, I do not understand why a camera-specific profile should be used. Isn't it much better to let NI sample each photo and measure the amount of "noise" that is present? For example, I see much more noise with dark blue skies than with light ones. If *I* can see such a big difference, surely NI can too (and see/measure it much better, I'm sure).
Am I missing something here?
Why profiles?
NeatImage, being a piece of computer code without the benefit of our human brains, can only "see" pixels. It does not inherently know that the mottled patch of blue in your image is supposed to be clear blue sky, or a piece of blue wallpaper with a random texture pattern on it. That's why it is helpful for you to tell it "this area is noise" and thus it can confidently say "ahhh okay, now I know what I need to clean up".
For that to work, you need to have a fairly sizeable region of your photo that represents just noise. That means no other detail, no colour changes, no edges, etc. Photographing a standardized patch chart (as recommended by the manual) is the best way to guarantee large regions of flat colour. Yes, you could ask NI to auto-profile each image for you, but what if it can't find a good enough featureless region? Many of my photos do not have that. Thus it is better in those cases to have a consistent profile to fall back on.
By default, I will use my own set of profiles. 99% of the time, they do the job just fine. But once in a while, I think NI could do a better job. Depending on the image, I will manually look for a featureless region, and get NI to create a specific profile just for that image.
For that to work, you need to have a fairly sizeable region of your photo that represents just noise. That means no other detail, no colour changes, no edges, etc. Photographing a standardized patch chart (as recommended by the manual) is the best way to guarantee large regions of flat colour. Yes, you could ask NI to auto-profile each image for you, but what if it can't find a good enough featureless region? Many of my photos do not have that. Thus it is better in those cases to have a consistent profile to fall back on.
By default, I will use my own set of profiles. 99% of the time, they do the job just fine. But once in a while, I think NI could do a better job. Depending on the image, I will manually look for a featureless region, and get NI to create a specific profile just for that image.
NeatImage Pro Plus 5.0 + dual Opteron 244 + Windows XP SP2 + FreeBSD 5.2
OK, thanks. Do you know how consistant the noise profile of any given camera/ISO is? In order for a fixed profile to work, the camera would have to be fairly consistant with the amount of noise it records, I would thing.
Also, while I see the comparison chart for the features of the various licensed versions, what is missing from the free demo ver. compared with the cheapest home version? I think I will want to do batch processing, and 10 photos at a time should be OK (I think). Can the demo ver. do batches? It has a button for "Queue".
Yes, I really need to spend a bunch of hours reading the Help section and try to figure out what to do.
Benesesso
Also, while I see the comparison chart for the features of the various licensed versions, what is missing from the free demo ver. compared with the cheapest home version? I think I will want to do batch processing, and 10 photos at a time should be OK (I think). Can the demo ver. do batches? It has a button for "Queue".
Yes, I really need to spend a bunch of hours reading the Help section and try to figure out what to do.
Benesesso
Digital cameras are approximately consistent in the amount of noise they produce in fixes camera mode. That's why it is possible to use fixed noise profiles with Neat Image. To further improve the profiled-to-real noise match, Neat Image can automatically fine-tune a profile using the image itself.
Regarding limitation of the Demo edition, it does not save the output in TIFF or BMP format, only JPEG (with fixed high quality compression level). Also, the queue/batch size is limited to 2 images. In the Home edition, up to 10 images can be processing in queue/batch.
Hope this helps.
Vlad
Regarding limitation of the Demo edition, it does not save the output in TIFF or BMP format, only JPEG (with fixed high quality compression level). Also, the queue/batch size is limited to 2 images. In the Home edition, up to 10 images can be processing in queue/batch.
Hope this helps.
Vlad
Thanks, Vlad. I think I could live with 10 "jobs" at a time, but not 2. So, which ver. do I buy? Right now my camera is an Olympus C-2100 UZ (~3,000 photos that need NI filtering), and soon I will be getting a 6.3 M pixel Canon. 8 bit or 16? Is the purpose of a "plugin" to send the output image of NI directly into PS?
Thanks,
Benesesso
Thanks,
Benesesso
You could start with any edition (for example consider the Home edition). Then you could upgrade to a higher edition by paying just the difference.
In addition to all Home edition's functions, the Pro edition enables unlimited batches and 16-bit image processing.
The plug-in version of the filter (included in both Home+ and Pro+ edition) makes Neat Image work as a Photoshop plug-in (just like Photoshop's own built-in filters).
Vlad
In addition to all Home edition's functions, the Pro edition enables unlimited batches and 16-bit image processing.
The plug-in version of the filter (included in both Home+ and Pro+ edition) makes Neat Image work as a Photoshop plug-in (just like Photoshop's own built-in filters).
Vlad