Noise reduction for slides and film

[roa5100xx]

Hi,
I am starting to scan some old slides(Kodachrome and ektachrome) and black&white film. Can someone tell me what noise reduction program is best(if I need to reduct noise)?

Thank you
Herbert

[Fine_Art]

How can they define best? I use Noise Ninja typically with -18 on smoothness for luminance and for color noise. -5 on strength for both. You have to adjust the settings for your film. I use fine grained films like velvia. A high contrast ISO800 B/W is going to need something else.

Maybe something out there is better, I wouldn't know. I am quite happy with the results.

[Fine_Art]

I'm glad you asked, it made me have a look to see if they had done an update. They did release one Jan 10th.

[Mark D Segal]

When it comes to scanning, one should distinguish between noise and grain. Scanner noise is electronic generated from the sensor, sometimes visible in the very dark areas of the image, whereas the grain one sees all over the photo is clumps of minute chemical particles and dyes in the film. Noise reduction applications that we use in digital imaging from digital cameras are designed for dealing with sensor noise, not film grain. It so happens, however, that they can mitigate film grain, always at some sacrifice of image detail. The trick is to optimize settings between the reduction of apparent "grain" and the reduction of detail. As well, some applications may perform better than others in making this distinction. I have written several relevant articles on this website. Two you may find useful to consult are http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/ndq.shtml and http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/software/topaz.shtml.

[dmerger]

I assume by “noise” you mean film grain?  I can’t say which is best, but I get very good results with Neat Image.  I use it mostly for Velvia and Provia. Neat Image works best if you create accurate noise profiles.  I used IT8.7 targets to build my noise profiles.  As a result, Neat Image will almost completely remove film grain with virtually no loss of detail.  

Edit:

Here is an example.  The photo is a small crop from a 7800 x 5232 pixel scan.  One is the original scan; the other has had Neat Image applied. Both versions were converted to sRGB, 8 bit and saved as jpeg’s with moderate compression.  It would be possible to do more aggressive removal of the film grain in the smooth sky area using layers with masks in PS, but for this example the NI noise reduction was done globally.

[Mark D Segal]

I have also used Neat Image and found it very good - my first article on the subject features Neat Image. More recently I find Lightroom and Topaz DeNoise produce competitive results.

[roa5100xx]

Hi,
Thanks to all for your replies. Think I will download the trails for both programs and see which I like.

dmerger, how do you use an It8.7 target to create a noise profile?

Thank you

Herert

[dmerger]

The Neat Image owners guide has instructions.  It's easy, once you learn the basics of NI.

[roa5100xx]

Hi,
thank you

Herbert