Most of the time I don’t have a lot of noise in my images. Partially that’s because of the cameras I use, and partially it’s because I try to make sure not to underexpose images. I rarely use ISOs higher than 400 (although in some of the very latest cameras, you can use even higher ISOs with levels of noise that are still quite acceptable.) However on occasion I need to combine high ISOs and long exposures - such as when photographing Northern Lights. (I was back in the Arctic last week and was fortunate to witness an extraordinary display. I’ll be announcing a workshop soon for Northern Lights next fall and will show some of the shots.)

Generally I use ISO 800 for Northern Lights unless the lights occur at twilight. Depending on the lens I use and the intensity of the aurora, the exposure may range from 10 seconds to a minute or more. That means there’s noise in places - especially if I lighten any areas. As I indicated in a blog awhile ago, my favorite noise reduction program has been Imagenomic’s Noiseware Pro. But unfortunately there’s still not an Aperture plug-in version. So I decided to give both Noise Ninja and Dfine 2.0 a try. I’ve heard many people praise Noise Ninja over the years. It’s a very straight forward interface and overall did a reasonable job. What I didn’t like was the fact that I had no way to control where the noise reduction was applied. Sometimes you want more noise reduction in some areas and less in others and that’s not an option.

Nik Software’s Dfine 2.0 - which has just now been upgraded to version 2.101 - is also very straightforward. The program measures the noise in the image automatically or you can manually specify different points to measure. The next step is to apply the noise reduction. You can apply it to the entire image, limit it to certain color ranges, or apply it selectively via U-point technology control points. Learning to use the control points is very easy. You click where you want to place a point and drag sliders to control the size of the area affected, color noise and contrast noise. Some people think that since the size slider is indicated with a circle, that the noise reduction is applied only in circles. In fact it’s applied to areas with similar tonalities and color - which is evident if you switch to the Modes drop down menu and choose to view the mask. You can readily apply more noise reduction in one area of your image than another.

One of the other convenient features of Dfine 2.0 is the ability to batch process images in Aperture. You select however many images you want to apply noise reduction to and go to Edit With >Dfine 2.). You’ll see a single image at a time, but without leaving the interface you can scroll through each of the images. If you save a profile you can apply it automatically or you can use custom settings for each image. When you click Save All, you’ll see a second version of each image in Aperture - with the noise reduction applied.

Nik has a series of short tutorials on each of the features that are worth watching. You'll learn a few tricks for various ways of comparing before and after views as well as how best to use each tool.

Although Aperture does have noise reduction tools, both in the Raw Fine Tuning dialog and the Noise Reduction brick - I personally find that the plug-ins are easier to use and are more effective. Nik software packages the Aperture version and the Photoshop version together. (I know some people wish they’d package their products differently, but that’s how they do it, at least for now.) The Photoshop version has an additional feature - the Selective Tool - that enables you to brush filter effects onto your image by using any of the brush tools in Photoshop (or Elements.) They automatically create layers and layer masks. That can be another very intuitive way of selectively applying noise reduction.

All in all when I want to stay within Aperture, for now, I prefer Dfine 2.0 to Noise Ninja because of the additional control it offers.