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Noise Ninja kicks some noise in Aperture
Of the many third party editing plug-ins that was announced as "in development" when Aperture 2.0 was first introduced, PictureCode is probably one of the last to deliver with its very popular and much anticipated plug-in, Noise Ninja. Originally slated for a mid-May 2008 release, it was almost August when it finally became available.
As with the stand-alone product and the plug-in for Photoshop, Noise Ninja 2.0.2 for Aperture is reputed to stand above all the other image noise reduction tools in its capability to remove noise and reduce visible artifacts without destroying details.
Using the Noise Ninja plug-in for Aperture, with either an automatic or manually selected profile, you have a 1-click option to improve and clean up the image, or, you can tweak the settings with various sliders for luminance, color, and sharpening options. You can also check options to filter out coarse noise and suppress halos. All these are accessible from the dialog box. And, you can save these settings as well.
When tweaking an image with Noise Ninja for Aperture, it seems easier and faster to input numeric values instead of dragging the sliders. Not only is it more convenient, but it is also able to quite dramatically and obviously show the changes in the viewer window.
According to PictureCode's website, the technology behind Noise Ninja is what is termed a "wavelet theory." This transforms images "from pixels to a rich spatial-spectral representation that improves the ability to automatically identify and suppress noise at different frequencies, locations, and color channels." What it means is that after submitting an image thru Noise Ninja, it will look much more clean. And it works with all sorts of images shot at high ISO.
Camera and scanner profiles come with Noise Ninja. However these profiles were not generated from Aperture. While these profiles are usable, it is recommended that Aperture users create their own camera profile. Instructions on how to create and save new profiles are included in the plug-in.
For more information about Noise Ninja 2.0.2 plug-in for Aperture, and to download the latest official release, visit the PictureCode website.
[Note: Photos in screenshot by Dominique James of The Studio and The Playground. Copyright © 2008. All rights reserved.]
Hey Dominique,
I have a short demo on Noise Ninja over at Aperture Plugged In... check it out - http://www.aperturepluggedin.com
-m
This one isn't quite the last one. NN's main competitor, Noiseware (by Imagenomic) is also supposed to be coming out with its Aperture plugins, including Portaiture and Realgrain.
I've tried both NN and NW, and prefer the further adjustability of NW. Can't wait to see the Aperture Incarnation :-D.
Hello Micah! Thank you for the link. I appreciate the additional information. - DJ
Hi Daniel,
Hopefully, it won't be the last. I'm looking forward to checking out Noiseware's plug-ins.
But for now, comparing the Noise Ninja adjustments with the built-in Noise Reduction of Aperture, I can easily see more immediate dramatic improvements with NN than with Aperture's NR. Also, the NR returns a softer image which can of course be fixed with Sharpening and Edge Sharpen. In NN, however, I get a more crisp-looking image even after sharpening.
I wonder if my experience is the same with that of other photographers -- would love to hear the feedback of other NN plug-in users.
Dominique James
You can see a ISO 3200 before/after on my blog. I have to agree that it is a very nice plugin but now that I have done even more work with it, I really wished there was a way to mask the zones we want to denoise.
I have never seen an image that actually looked better after somebody removed the luminance noise from it, regardless of the tool used. The result is invariably an unnaturally creamy looking disaster that would have looked a lot better with the noise left in. There was a time when noise — grain — was considered beautiful, and now a legion of photographers are smearing the hell out of their own images. A much better strategy would be to run Color Efex and augment the noise with some natural-looking film grain.
Seriously. This de-noising insanity needs to end. You're ruining your pictures by doing this.
You can remove color noise separate from luminance noise with Noise Ninja. There's no need to be to aggressive with luminance noise reduction either.
Thanks for mentioning your NN demo on Flickr, Micah. My D2H has seen very little use over the past 2 years since I purchased a D2X. I started using it again last week with some political campaign brochure work where enlargements are not a factor. I have never veered from ISO 200 with this camera but I will make some tests now that I have the NN plug-in for Aperture.
You gotta love the speed and color the D2H produces. It works wonderfully with CLS also and uploading cards are very quick.